Intel Experts See Danger in Wikileaks
Politico reports that several experts in the intelligence community are concerned that the leak of Afghan War documents by WikiLeaks will directly endanger lives:
Lawmakers and former intelligence officials are concerned that WikiLeaks’ online posting of nearly 80, 000 classified field reports from combat zones in Afghanistan could have serious ramifications — not just for the war but for intelligence-gathering worldwide and for the intelligence-sharing reforms adopted after the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks.
“It’s hard for me to express how bad this is, and it doesn’t matter that no one has found a smoking gun in this immediately. ... We’re going to get people killed because of this,” said former CIA Director Michael Hayden. “The amount of damage will be incalculable in all the meanings of the word — beyond measure and hard to measure.”
WikiLeaks’ founder, Julian Assange, said on MSNBC on Tuesday that about 15,000 reports were withheld because they could have revealed the identities of Afghans who have aided U.S. forces and exposed them to “the risk of retributive action” from warlords or the Taliban.
But Rep. Jane Harman (D-Calif.), who is deeply involved in national security issues, said her staff visited the WikiLeaks site and saw plenty of information the Taliban can exploit.
“There are names of State Department officials, U.S. military officials, Afghans and the cities in which they live in the materials,” said Harman, chairwoman of the House Homeland Security Subcommittee on Intelligence. By posting them online, she said, “we’ve just served up a target list and an enemies list to the Taliban. ... Real people die when sources and methods are revealed.”
Former CIA officer Robert Baer said the disclosures will make Afghans less likely to aid U.S. forces.
“If I was an Afghan, would I risk getting my ears cut off or my head cut off? Would I work for the [U.S.] military?” he asked, adding that it was “total sloppiness” for the Pentagon to leave classified data ports unsecured. “This is exactly what you don’t want to have happen.”
