WASHINGTON (AP) - Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton says the leak of hundreds of thousands of secret diplomatic documents is an attack not only on the United States but also the international community.
In her first public comments since the weekend release of the classified State Department cables, Clinton said Monday that online whistleblower Wikileaks acted illegally in posting the material. She said the Obama administration was "aggressively pursuing" those responsible for the leak.
She said the leaks erode trust between nations. But Clinton also said she was "confident" that U.S. partnerships would withstand the challenges posed by the latest revelations.
Wikileaks disclosure condemned by House Republican
Nov. 29
WASHINGTON (AP) - The top Republican on the House Intelligence Committee said Monday that the disclosure of thousands of classified State Department documents undermines U.S. credibility with the rest of the world.
Michigan's Rep. Peter Hoekstra said he believes "there's a whole number of time bombs" in the documents made public by the online whistle-blower group Wikileaks. And the man in position to be the next chairman of the House Homeland Security Committee urged the Obama administration to declare the Wikileaks organization a terrorist operation.
"The catastrophic issue here is just a breakdown in trust," said Hoekstra, adding that other countries - America's allies and possibly adversaries as well - are going to ask, 'Can the United States be trusted? Can the United States keep a secret?' "
Hoekstra said the disclosure of previously secret diplomatic cables, documents and e-mails secrets puts America's diplomats in "a very awkward position." He said some of the material in the roughly 250,000 released documents is "gossip," but added that there's also material on supersensitive negotiations between the United States and Pakistan on a deal aimed at controlling nuclear proliferation.
"I haven't seen it in any of the tactical information.
On indications in the documents that U.S. diplomats based at the United Nations were asked to gather information on the secretary general, Hoekstra said such a disclosure will make life more difficult for America's public officials, saying it "potentially compromises their position and their relationship with the people that they work with."
Hoekstra, who lost a bid to become Michigan's governor earlier this month, called the incident "a massive failure within the intelligence (community) to create this kind of database with this much information in it. I think the real surprise here is that it never happened before."
New York's Rep. Peter King, the ranking Republican on Homeland Security, said that if the lives of some Americans are endangered by the illegal release of classified information by the Wikileaks website, then the government should "go after" the people who control WikiLeaks for violating the espionage act."
King maintained that WikiLeaks is "engaged in terrorist activity." He said that by releasing secret documents, the organization is "enabling terrorists to kill Americans."
Hoekstra appeared Monday on CBS's "The Early Show" and ABC's "Good Morning America," and King was interviewed on NBC's "Today" show.
Supporters plan rallies for WikiLeaks soldier
Sept. 16
HAGERSTOWN, Md. (AP) - Supporters of the Fort Drum Army private charged with leaking classified material to WikiLeaks are calling for his release at rallies and events scheduled through this weekend in 18 U.S. cities.
The so-called "
Days of Action" begin Thursday with a rally in Oakland, Calif., featuring Daniel Ellsberg.
Ellsberg was the source of the Pentagon Papers, which exposed secrets about the Vietnam War nearly 40 years ago.
Pfc. Bradley Manning is charged with leaking video of a 2007 U.S. Apache helicopter attack in Baghdad that killed a Reuters news photographer and his driver.
Military investigators say he also is a person of interest in the leak of nearly 77,000 Afghan war records WikiLeaks published online in July.
Fort Drum soldier accused of leaking military documents moved
July 30
Fort Drum (WSYR-TV) - A Fort Drum soldier charged with leaking U.S. military secrets to the WikiLeaks website has been moved from Kuwait to a military jail in Virginia. Private Bradley Manning is accused of leaking a classified helicopter cockpit video of a 2007 firefight in Baghdad. He's also come under suspicion in the leak of tens of thousands of secret Afghanistan war logs too.
Private Manning is a member of the Second Brigade, the same combat unit returning in large numbers from Iraq back to Fort Drum.
The White House on Friday implored WikiLeaks to stop posting secret Afghanistan war documents and the Pentagon pressed its investigation of the leaks, bringing Manning back to the U.S. for trial.
Obama administration officials said the investigation into the release of 76,911 documents could extend beyond members of the military. White House spokesman Robert Gibbs said posting the war logs on the Web jeopardized national security and put the lives of Afghan informants and U.S. military personnel at risk.
Asked what the Obama administration could do to stop the disclosure of more war secrets, Gibbs said, "We can do nothing but implore the person that has those classified top secret documents not to post any more."
"I think it's important that no more damage be done to our national security," Gibbs told NBC's "Today" show Friday.
Manning, 22, will be held while awaiting trial on charges stemming from the posting of the video, the Army said in a statement Friday. If a court-martial is convened it will be held in the Washington area, according to Lt. Col. Rob Manning, a spokesman for the U.S. Army Military District of Washington.
The classified helicopter cockpit video showed a 2007 firefight in Baghdad that left a Reuters photographer and his driver dead.
WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange told the Australian Broadcasting Corp. in an interview aired Thursday that WikiLeaks had contacted the White House - via The New York Times acting as intermediary - and offered to let government officials go through the documents to make sure no innocent people were identified. The White House did not respond to the approach, he said.
A Pentagon spokesman, Marine Col. David Lapan, said Friday it was "absolutely false" that WikiLeaks contacted the White House or other elements of the U.S. government to offer a pre-release review.
Assange dismissed allegations that innocent people or informants had been put in danger by the publication of the documents.
"We are yet to see clear evidence of that," he said in the Australian Broadcasting interview.
WikiLeaks describes itself as a public service organization for whistleblowers, journalists and activists.
Defense Secretary Robert Gates and Adm. Mike Mullen, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, called the release of the documents deeply damaging and potentially life-threatening for Afghan informants or others who have taken risks to help the U.S. and NATO war effort.
Theirs was the most sober assessment of the ramifications of the leak on Sunday of raw intelligence reports and other material dating to 2004.
"Mr. Assange can say whatever he likes about the greater good he thinks he and his source are doing, but the truth is they might already have on their hands the blood of some young soldier or that of an Afghan family," Mullen said Thursday.
Gates said the military's investigation "should go wherever it needs to go" and that he has asked the FBI to help. Gates would not rule out that Assange could be a target.
