Kerry: WikiLeaks Doesn't have New Information
Senator Kerry has pointed out that there is very little new information about the Afghan War in the documents released by WikiLeaks:
WASHINGTON — The leak of tens of thousands of classified U.S. military documents on the Afghan war, while illegal, has little significance for policymaking, Sen. John Kerry said Tuesday.
Kerry, D-Mass., chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, said the documents posted on the Internet on Sunday revealed little that was not already known to U.S. officials.
"I think it's important not to overhype or get excessively excited about the meaning of those documents," Kerry said at the outset of a committee hearing on prospects for negotiating an end to the Afghan war.
He said the release was unlawful and could potentially endanger U.S. troops in Afghanistan.
But he also said the secret documents should be given little weight because in many cases they reflect raw intelligence, not carefully calibrated assessments of trends on the ground. Some of the documents, Kerry said, are "completely dismissible," but others are not.
