WikiLeaks investigation expanded
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U.S. Defense Secretary Robert Gates on Thursday said the leaking of over 90,000 classified documents on website WikiLeaks is "dangerous to troops" stationed in Afghanistan, and promised an aggressive investigation.
The White House is also echoing the criticism and begged for a leak stoppage.
Press Secretary Robert Gibbs said the leak of some 90,000 secret military documents already has jeopardized the lives of Afghans working with the U.S. and its war allies.
He also said the Taliban has declared it will comb the documents to find those once who cooperated with international forces, adding that the White House "can do nothing but implore the person who has the documents not to post any more."
However, the story doesn't stop there. A 1.4-gigabyte encrypted "insurance file" was posted on WikiLeaks' "Afghan War Diary" web page and presently no one knows about its contents and can only speculate.
Cryptome, a website similar to WikiLeaks, said the newly posted file may contain 15,000 Afghan documents WikiLeaks is demanded to postpone their release for harm minimization.
The website also said these files may have been "pre-positioned for public release" in case WikiLeaks is "taken down" by the U.S. government or anything occurs to Assange.
The major top army secret information leak has fogged the U.S. military engagement in the war-torn Afghanistan and triggered speculation whether the American government would hasten its troops withdrawal.
Speaking at the White House Thursday, President Barack Obama said he's "concerned about the disclosure," but "these documents don't reveal any issues that haven't already informed our public debate on Afghanistan."
Obama said the leak won't change the war strategy. "We have to see that strategy through," he said.
Lisa Curtis, a senior research fellow at the Heritage Foundation, agrees with Obama's assessment that most information contained in the leak was "already known to those observing the war over the last nine years," and the exposure "should not be used to argue that the U.S. strategy in Afghanistan is doomed to failure."
