Wikileaks Posts Thousands Of Afghan War Documents Online -- InformationWeek. White House condemns leak, says publishing of classified material could put American lives at risk. In the latest sign of how social media technologies are giving private citizens or small groups enormous power to directly influence debate on key public issues, the online site Wikileaks on Sunday published more than 90,000 documents containing classified information about the war in Afghanistan. Interest in the postings quickly spread globally, and Wikileaks' site appeared to be offline early Monday under the strain of all the traffic. The documents cover developments in the war from 2004 to 2009, and purport to show that the conflict's true course is at odds with statements from the White House and U.S. military commanders. For instance, Wikileaks claims the files reveal that secret service operators from Pakistan, supposedly a U.S. ally, have been working with Afghan insurgents to sabotage the Western coalition's military and political efforts in the region.
More Insights. Unprecedented Leak: WikiLeaks Releases Afghan War Reports. A website called WikiLeaks just published secret documents related to the war between the U.S. and the Taliban in Afghanistan. The documents detail deals, armed conflicts, strategies, politics, intelligence operations and some casualties from 2004 and 2010, painting the most complete, publicly available picture of the Afghan War yet. The event is in some ways comparable to the leak of the Pentagon Papers, a set of documents that provided a behind-the-scenes look at the American war in Vietnam. Those papers reached the public via major media outlets in 1971. At more than 90,000 reports, WikiLeaks's Afghan War Diary is even more substantial. WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange told UK newspaper The Guardian that the size of the leak is only one dimension of its significance: This situation is different in that it's not just more material and being pushed to a bigger audience and much sooner ... but rather that people can give back.
How the Leak Happened What the Leak Includes. Afghanistan war: White House decries WikiLeaks' release of documents - latimes.com. The White House late Sunday condemned the leaking of what appear to be about 90,000 U.S. military records, as a handful of international media organizations that received access to the documents began to disclose their account of the war in Afghanistan. In a statement, President Obama's national security advisor, Marine Gen. James L. Jones, deplored the "disclosure of classified information" that he said could put the lives of Americans and U.S. partners at risk and threaten the nation's security. The website WikiLeaks, which posted the documents late Sunday, provided them ahead of time to the New York Times, the Guardian newspaper in London and the German magazine Der Spiegel, and journalists from those organizations asked the White House for comment. The Los Angeles Times and other Tribune newspapers have not thoroughly reviewed the documents.
Of particular note is that the documents reportedly say the Taliban has acquired surface-to-air missiles. Cparsons@latimes.com. White House condemns Afghan leaks - Politico Staff. Assange: Documents Suggest War Crimes. Afghanistan Files - Dispatch. Kerry: Documents “Raise Serious Questions” - Dispatch. WikiLeaks Founder Talks to Reporters in U.K. - Washington Wire. Afghan War Diary, 2004-2010. From WikiLeaks Unless otherwise specified, the document described here: Was first publicly revealed by WikiLeaks working with our source.Was classified, confidential, censored or otherwise withheld from the public before release.Is of political, diplomatic, ethical or historical significance.
Any questions about this document's veracity are noted. The summary is approved by the editorial board. See here for a detailed explanation of the information on this page. If you have similar or updated material, see our submission instructions. Release date July 25, 2010 Flattr article 25th July 2010 5:00 PM EST WikiLeaks has released a document set called the Afghan War Diary, an extraordinary compendium of over 91,000 reports covering the war in Afghanistan from 2004 to 2010.
The document collection is available on a dedicated webpage. The reports cover most units from the US Army with the exception of most US Special Forces' activities. To decompress the files you will need the program 7zip. Context.