WikiLeaks Media Reaction: A Frenzy Of Frantic Yawning Over Nine-Year Long War (VIDEO)
anti war is conservative- got it?
Friday, July 30, 2010
WikiLeaks Mastermind Julian Assange: Evil Genius or Visionary Hacker?
WikiLeaks Mastermind Julian Assange: Evil Genius or Visionary Hacker?
With a handful of unpaid volunteers working in secret in remote places like Iceland, Assange -- with a backpack carrying not a laptop but a desktop computer -- has obtained classified material that cast a shadow on the American military, both in Iraq and Afghanistan.
As they said about John Galt in Ayn Rand's "Atlas Shrugged:" Who is Julian Paul Assange?
He is, of course, the lean, tall, and pale 39-year-old Australian master hacker at the white-hot center of the whistle-blowing website WikiLeaks and, after revealing thousands of secret Afghan battlefield reports this week, the subject of investigation by U.S. authorities.
By now we've heard quite a bit about the Assange mystique and his cutesy named web site. WikiLeaks devotes itself to obtaining and posting secret government documents and information from unnamed sources. With WikiLeaks' heightened profile, stories about Assange have appeared recently in several publications, on TV, on the Internet, on cable, yet he remains one of the most elusive and enigmatic figures of the moment.
With a handful of unpaid volunteers working in secret in remote places like Iceland, Assange -- with a backpack carrying not a laptop but a desktop computer -- has obtained classified material that cast a shadow on the American military, both in Iraq and Afghanistan.He rattled official Washington and its allies and drew the world's attention with the disclosure this week of 76,000 leaked classified documents from Afghanistan on its website and in the pages of The New York Times, the Guardian in Britain and the magazine Der Spiegel in Germany.
In a weeklong series of press conferences and interviews from London, the publicity-savvy Assange, donning a professorial tone and Zen-like demeanor, contended that the documents showed that perhaps thousands of war crimes might have been committed in Afghanistan.
"It is up to a court to decide clearly whether something is in the end a crime," he said. "That said, on the face of it, there does appear to be evidence of war crimes in this material." That is a major reason, he suggested, why he released the documents.
The Pentagon struck back. Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates on Thursday called the leak a breach the military would "aggressively investigate and prosecute." Adm. Michael Mullen, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said, "Mr. Assange can say whatever he likes about the greater good he thinks he and his sources 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."
Assange, who is reportedly working and living in northern Europe, has said he had no plans to travel to the United States for fear of being detained. U.S. government lawyers are reportedly looking into the possibility of charging WikiLeaks and Assange with a crime, like "inducing or serving as co-conspirators in violations of the Espionage Act, a 1917 law that prohibits the unauthorized disclosure of national security information,'' according to The New York Times.
On Thursday, U.S. authorities said they had found evidence linking Pfc. Bradley Manning, 22, of Crescent, Okla., to the leak of the Afghan war reports. Manning was charged in July with illegally obtaining State Department cables and disseminating a secret video, which he is believed to have turned over to WikiLeaks, showing a U.S. helicopter firing on and killing a group of civilians, including two Reuters journalists, in Baghdad. Manning, an Army intelligence specialist, has been held in Kuwait and is being moved to Quantico, Va., where he will be held and may face court martial.
The swirl surrounding WikiLeaks has increased the media focus on Assange.
Julian Paul Assange (pronounced AH-SANJ), an obsessive hacker and computer master, is a citizen of the globe, an itinerant warrior of the cyber age, a philosopher and visionary of the encrypted universe. He has been called "The Robin Hood of Hacking," more a physicist and mathematician, the two disciplines he studied at the University of Melbourne, than a swashbuckling James Bond. His mission -- "to maximize the flow of information to maximize the amount of action leading to just reform" -- may seem grandiose and quixotic but he is said to attract a small following of volunteers and donors.
In a relatively short time, he has fashioned a persona tailored-made for a media fascinated with celebrity. His life seems to be an accumulation of charming and intriguing anecdotes. Like a character out of "The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo," he is a stealth operator, living secretively and pursuing his goal single-mindedly. He moves under the radar around the world, though he seems to favor the icy countries of northern Europe.
But he's no European Viking. He's a product of the Asian tropics. He was born in 1971 in Townsville in northeastern Australia. He was partly home-schooled and partly not schooled at all. By the time he was 14, he and his mother, a painter, actress and artist's model, had reportedly moved 37 times.
His parents met at a protest against the Vietnam War. According to The Guardian, his father studied architecture. But the couple apparently did not marry and split when Julian was very young. His mother then married a theater director. They moved often, and when Julian was 8 years old, his mother left her husband and began dating a musician with whom she had a child, a boy. That relationship, according to a profile of Assange in The New Yorker, became abusive and they separated. Afraid that the musician would take away her younger son, she took Julian and the child and disappeared. Julian moved from city to city with her from the age of 11 to 16.
A computer-smart teenager, Assange began hacking and assumed the code name Mendax, from the Latin splendide mendax, or "nobly untruthful." He joined with two hackers to form a group that became known as the International Subversives and, according to The New Yorker, they successfully broke into computer systems in Europe and North America, including Pentagon networks. Websites did not exist yet -- it was 1987 -- but hackers could disrupt computer networks and telecom systems. Assange was in his element.
But his life was about to change. At 18, he fell in love with a 16-year-old in Melbourne and married her after she became pregnant. They had a son. But like his own mother, he couldn't settle down to a domestic, ordinary life. Hacking remained a grand passion.
A few years later, in 1991, when Assange was 20, he and a few fellow hackers broke into the master terminal of Nortel, the Canadian telecom company. He was caught, charged and eventually tried, but a sympathetic judge let him off with a fine. While he awaited trial for three years, his wife left him, taking their son. He became so depressed he checked himself into a hospital, moved in with his mother, and slept in parks. But the worst time of his life came later, during his eight-year custody battle for his son. In 1999, a custody agreement was finally worked out. By then his hair, which had been dark brown, had turned completely white.
In 2006, Assange founded WikiLeaks. He wanted to use the website as "an instrument of information warfare.'' With a fervor that would become a trademark, Assange didn't sleep for days while building the site, and he wouldn't eat. The website works in mysterious ways. It is hosted on a Swedish Internet server. Submissions to WikiLeaks are routed through a cyber maze that crosses in and out of several nations. Secrecy is at a premium.
Assange and his volunteers gather documents and videos that governments and agencies keep secret and publish them on WikiLeaks.org. The site is only three-and-a-half years old but it has already made a name for itself, publishing online an archive of secret information, including Sarah Palin's private Yahoo account and the Standard Operating Procedures at the U.S. facility at Guantanamo, Cuba. In the spring, WikiLeaks released a secret U.S. helicopter cockpit video showing American soldiers killing at least 18 people, including two Reuters journalists, in Baghdad in 2007. The video ignited a debate about U.S. conduct in the war.
Then on Sunday came "The War Logs," one of the biggest leaks in U.S. military history. Now WikiLeaks and Assange are famous. Assange said this week that he was expecting a "substantial increase in submissions" from whistleblowers.
Now that he is a celebrity, Assange may find it harder to escape the media's scrutiny. For the time being he is presumably moving quietly from place to place, carrying his desktop computer in a rucksack, his clothes in a bag, finding shelter somewhere far from prying eyes, staying up all night, his fingers busily tapping on the keyboard, decrypting the next trove of secrets.
Much bigger than the Vietnam leak - Hindustan Times
Much bigger than the Vietnam leak - Hindustan Times
Last weekend, WikiLeaks.org published its gold edition — the ‘Afghan War Diary’, a collection of 91,000 documents snitched from US military networks. They reveal that the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation (Nato) maintains an assassination squad, that collateral damage is seriously under-reported, that Pakistan helps the US with one hand and the Taliban with the other, that the Inter-Services Intelligence ordered the 2008 bombing of the Indian embassy in Kabul and paid blood money for the killing of Indian contractors in Afghanistan.
Last weekend, WikiLeaks.org published its gold edition — the ‘Afghan War Diary’, a collection of 91,000 documents snitched from US military networks. They reveal that the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation (Nato) maintains an assassination squad, that collateral damage is seriously under-reported,
Amazing stuff, but isn’t it common knowledge? It can amaze only if it is expedient to feign amazement. And so an amazed US State Department gave India a self-righteous ‘heads up’ on the developments and clamoured for Pakistan to act on 26/11. Pakistan was urbanely amazed that anyone could suspect it of chicanery. And a small army of retired colonels who surfaced to harrumph about security breaches and data theft was amazed at the idea that media leaks could change the course of a war.
Actually, they were right. The Afghan war is on an unalterable trajectory. The only difference that the leaks can make is to precipitate troop withdrawal by depriving President Obama of support for the war. Otherwise, they can only force the players to make polite noises and keep up appearances, such as giving India a “heads up”, ironically alerting us to the validity of our own allegations about Pakistan using militants as instruments of foreign policy.
But the diary does confirm our worst suspicions, and we can now hazard the trajectory of the war. It was already clear that the US would withdraw at some time because Washington’s war is on terrorism, not Afghanistan. After the leaks, it is equally clear that the US cannot wipe out the Afghan Taliban, fairly strong adversaries who can win by surviving, like cockroaches survive holocaust. And if Pakistan is maintaining unofficial links with them, it knows that after Uncle Sam goes home, the Taliban will control Afghanistan. It’s certainly a heads up for India, but it’s not the one so kindly proffered by the US.
WikiLeaks has published only a portion of the damaging material at its disposal. It’s a developing story, so it’s a good idea to understand this whistleblower network.
It’s a Cold War-style dead drop, a point where anyone can leave information anonymously, which is then made public on the web. It is a mysteriously reclusive but otherwise regular international organisation based in Sweden and Iceland. It’s front man, Julian Assange, affects an air of fugitive victimhood which the media loves but which harms professional perceptions of the validity of his work.
But there is nothing mysterious about him. He is an Australian hacker with a libertarian ethic who has 31 charges against him. That looks like serial carelessness but let’s not be judgmental because with WikiLeaks, he has broken new ground.
Its revelations are being compared with the Pentagon Papers, a secret study of the Vietnam War leaked in 1971, but that’s like comparing Stilton with processed cheese. The Pentagon Papers provided pre-digested analysis. WikiLeaks.org gives you a whiff of the stink of war — raw logs straight from the military’s data churn. To understand a dirty war steered by spin doctors, it’s prescribed reading.
Pratik Kanjilal is publisher of The Little Magazine
The views expressed by the author are personal.
Wikileaks Afghanistan: Taliban 'hunting down informants' - Telegraph
Wikileaks Afghanistan: Taliban 'hunting down informants' - Telegraph
In an interview with Channel 4 News, Zabihullah Mujahid, a Taliban spokesman, said they were studying and investigating the report, adding “If they are US spies, then we know how to punish them.”
The warning came as the US military's top officer, Admiral Mike Mullen said that Julian Assange, the founder of Wikileaks, may already have blood on his hands following the leak of 92,000 classified documents relating to the war in Afghanistan by his website.
"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," he said.
Information from the documents could reveal:
- Names and addresses of Afghans cooperating with Nato forces
- Precise GPS locations of Afghans
- Sources and methods of gathering intelligence
The US government has called in the FBI to help hunt those responsible for leaking tens of thousands of secret documents about the Afghanistan war.
Robert Gates, the US Defense Secretary, warned that sources identified in the documents now risked being "targeted for retribution" by insurgents in Afghanistan.
He pledged a "thorough, aggressive investigation" to identify the leakers and said that steps were being taken to restrict access to classified documents in future.
Bradley Manning, a 22-year old intelligence analyst, is the prime suspect in the leak inquiry. He is currently already in custody in Kuwait after being arrested for allegedly leaking other information earlier this year.
However, he was previously caught boasting that he had leaked tens of thousands of documents on the Afghan war to the Wikileaks website. The Pentagon suspects that Manning may have accomplices within the military.
Earlier this week, Wikileaks published 90,000 documents – mostly reports detailing operations by American and other allied forces in Afghanistan between 2004 and 2009. The website is threatening to publish thousands more documents.
In his first comments on the massive leak, Mr Gates said that "the battlefield consequences of the release of these documents are potentially severe and dangerous for our troops, our allies and Afghan partners, and may well damage our relationships and reputation in that key part of the world." "Intelligence sources and methods, as well as military tactics, techniques and procedures will become known to our adversaries," he added.
The defense secretary promised "a thorough, aggressive investigation to determine how this leak occurred, to identify the person or persons responsible, and to assess the content of the information compromised."
Mr Gates promised to take steps to protect the lives of US service members as well as Afghans possibly exposed by the leaks.
The massive leak jeopardised the trust vital to gathering intelligence in the "field", said Mr Gates, a former CIA director.
"We have considerable repair work to do," he said.
We're powerless to stop Afghan war WikiLeaks, admits White House | The Australian
We're powerless to stop Afghan war WikiLeaks, admits White House | The Australian
"We can do nothing but implore the person that has those classified top- secret documents not to post any more," he said in a reference to Julian Assange, the WikiLeaks founder. "I think it's important that no more damage be done to our national security," Mr Gibbs added.
Mr Assange has promised to release more of the 17,000 further files on Afghanistan in his group's possession that were initially held back when the site published an estimated 78,000 classified documents last Monday. He alleged that the White House had failed to respond to a request by him for officials to go through the documents before they were released this week to make sure that no innocent people were identified.
A Pentagon spokesman, Colonel David Lapan, dismissed that claim overnight as "absolutely false".
Mr Assange has also continued to dispute the fact, first reported by The Times, that innocent Afghans are identified in the files. "We are yet to see clear evidence of that," he said on Australian television.
Robert Gates, the US Defence Secretary, has said that the website founder had "blood on his hands" as a result of disclosures that could help the Taleban identify Afghan informants who had assisted or talked to Nato coalition forces.
Mr Assange said that Mr Gates was describing hypothetical blood. He added: "The grounds of Iraq and Afghanistan are covered with real blood. Secretary Gates has overseen the killings of thousands of children and adults in these two countries."
A Taleban spokesman underlined that the insurgent group would use the papers to track down collaborators. Zabiullah Mujahed told Channel 4 News: "We are studying the report."
He added: "We knew about the spies and people who collaborate with US forces. We will investigate through our own secret service whether the people mentioned are really spies working for the US. If they are US spies, then we know how to punish them."
American authorities said that the private charged with leaking military video to WikiLeaks has been transferred back to American soil amid reports that investigators have computer evidence linking him to material disclosed.
Private Bradley Manning, the chief target of a joint Pentagon and FBI investigation, was moved from military detention in Kuwait to a Marine Corps base in Virginia.
His transfer comes as Afghans who were named in documents leaked to the WikiLeaks internet site pleaded for US Government protection from Taleban retribution.
Mr Gates pledged on Thursday to "aggressively investigate the leak", saying that civilians who may have helped Private Manning could also be liable to prosecution. He did not rule out the possibility of prosecuting Mr Assange.
American and Afghan officials and human rights groups have condemned the disclosure. The Taleban routinely target those suspected of spying. Mr Gates urged WikiLeaks not to release any further documents in its possession.
Private Manning was stationed at a small post outside Baghdad. If he was the source of the Afghan war logs, he would have had to go out of his way to amass information from a different country. He was arrested at a rear base in Kuwait in June.
One former low-ranking government official quoted in one of the leaked documents told The Times in Kabul: "I want ISAF [the Nato-led International Security Assistance Force], especially the US military, to help me or protect me or for the Afghan Government to protect me. If they don't protect me I have to flee from my country." The man is quoted in a document giving details of the structures of local Taleban groups.
Julian Assange, Australian-born editor-in-chief of whistleblowing website WikiLeaks, is interviewed after his news conference in London. Picture: AFP Source: AFP
THE US last night implored WikiLeaks to stop releasing secret Afghan war files amid reports the website has many more files in its possession.
Asked on American television what the Obama Administration could do to prevent further damage, Robert Gibbs, the White House spokesman, admitted that the US Government is powerless to prevent further intelligence revelations."We can do nothing but implore the person that has those classified top- secret documents not to post any more," he said in a reference to Julian Assange, the WikiLeaks founder. "I think it's important that no more damage be done to our national security," Mr Gibbs added.
Mr Assange has promised to release more of the 17,000 further files on Afghanistan in his group's possession that were initially held back when the site published an estimated 78,000 classified documents last Monday. He alleged that the White House had failed to respond to a request by him for officials to go through the documents before they were released this week to make sure that no innocent people were identified.
A Pentagon spokesman, Colonel David Lapan, dismissed that claim overnight as "absolutely false".
Mr Assange has also continued to dispute the fact, first reported by The Times, that innocent Afghans are identified in the files. "We are yet to see clear evidence of that," he said on Australian television.
Robert Gates, the US Defence Secretary, has said that the website founder had "blood on his hands" as a result of disclosures that could help the Taleban identify Afghan informants who had assisted or talked to Nato coalition forces.
Mr Assange said that Mr Gates was describing hypothetical blood. He added: "The grounds of Iraq and Afghanistan are covered with real blood. Secretary Gates has overseen the killings of thousands of children and adults in these two countries."
A Taleban spokesman underlined that the insurgent group would use the papers to track down collaborators. Zabiullah Mujahed told Channel 4 News: "We are studying the report."
He added: "We knew about the spies and people who collaborate with US forces. We will investigate through our own secret service whether the people mentioned are really spies working for the US. If they are US spies, then we know how to punish them."
American authorities said that the private charged with leaking military video to WikiLeaks has been transferred back to American soil amid reports that investigators have computer evidence linking him to material disclosed.
Private Bradley Manning, the chief target of a joint Pentagon and FBI investigation, was moved from military detention in Kuwait to a Marine Corps base in Virginia.
His transfer comes as Afghans who were named in documents leaked to the WikiLeaks internet site pleaded for US Government protection from Taleban retribution.
Mr Gates pledged on Thursday to "aggressively investigate the leak", saying that civilians who may have helped Private Manning could also be liable to prosecution. He did not rule out the possibility of prosecuting Mr Assange.
American and Afghan officials and human rights groups have condemned the disclosure. The Taleban routinely target those suspected of spying. Mr Gates urged WikiLeaks not to release any further documents in its possession.
Private Manning was stationed at a small post outside Baghdad. If he was the source of the Afghan war logs, he would have had to go out of his way to amass information from a different country. He was arrested at a rear base in Kuwait in June.
One former low-ranking government official quoted in one of the leaked documents told The Times in Kabul: "I want ISAF [the Nato-led International Security Assistance Force], especially the US military, to help me or protect me or for the Afghan Government to protect me. If they don't protect me I have to flee from my country." The man is quoted in a document giving details of the structures of local Taleban groups.
U.S. worried more secret documents may be released | Reuters
U.S. worried more secret documents may be released | Reuters
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - U.S. officials are worried about what other secret documents the whistle-blowing website WikiLeaks may possess and have tried to contact the group without success to avoid their release, the State Department said on Friday.
The shadowy group publicly released more than 90,000 U.S. Afghan war records spanning a six-year period on Sunday. The group also is thought to be in possession of tens of thousands of U.S. diplomatic cables passed to it by an Army intelligence analyst, media reports have said.
"Do we have concerns about what might be out there? Yes, we do," State Department spokesman P.J. Crowley told a briefing, adding that U.S. authorities have not specifically determined which documents may have been leaked to the organization.
He said the State Department could not confirm the longstanding reports that WikiLeaks is in possession of a large set of U.S. diplomatic cables.
But the fact that the documents released on Sunday contained a handful of State Department cables suggests that other secret diplomatic messages may have been included in data transmitted to WikiLeaks, Crowley said.
"When we provide our analysis of situations in key countries like Afghanistan and Pakistan, we distribute these across the other agencies including to military addresses," Crowley said. "So is the potential there that State Department documents have been compromised? Yes."
Both Crowley and White House spokesman Robert Gibbs urged WikiLeaks and its founder, Julian Assange, not to release further classified government documents.
Gibbs, noting WikiLeaks claims to have at least 15,000 more secret Afghan documents, told NBC's "Today" show there was little the government could do halt the release of the papers.
"We can do nothing but implore the person who has those classified top secret documents not to post anymore," Gibbs said. "I think it's important that no more damage be done to our national security."
'BLOOD ON THEIR HANDS'
Both Crowley and Gibbs expressed concern that the document dump might expose U.S. intelligence-gathering methods and place in jeopardy people who had assisted the United States.
"You have Taliban spokesmen in the region today saying they're combing through those documents to find people that are cooperating with American and international forces. They're looking through those for names. They said they know how to punish those people," Gibbs said.
Assange told the BBC World Service in an interview that Wikileaks had held back the remaining 15,000 papers to protect innocent people from harm, and was reviewing them at the rate of about 1,000 a day. He did not say if and when they would be published.
Assange hit back at comments from Admiral Mike Mullen, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, on Thursday, that Wikileaks "might already have on their hands the blood of some young soldier or that of an Afghan family."
He accused Defense Secretary Robert Gates of attacking Wikileaks to "distract attention from the daily deaths of civilians and others in Afghanistan."
"There is real blood in Afghanistan, and it has come about as a result of the policies of Mr Gates and the Obama administration and the general conflict in the region," Assange said.
Crowley said the government had tried to make contact with WikiLeaks but had not been successful in establishing a line of communication.
"We have passed messages to them," he said. "I am not aware of any direct dialogue with WikiLeaks."
Assange said Wikileaks had used the New York Times as an intermediary to request White House assistance in vetting the document trove prior to publication, but did not receive a response.
Crowley said: "Intelligence services all over the world will be looking over them and seeing what they can glean in terms of how we gain information."
He added: "Behind these documents is a very important intelligence system that is vital to our national security and we are concerned ... that if WikiLeaks continues on its current path this will do damage to our national security."
Gates and Mullen both said on Thursday the document leak had undermined trust in the United States.
Senator Carl Levin, the chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee, sent a letter asking Gates for an assessment of how badly the military's sources and methods of gathering intelligence had been hurt.
"I am concerned about the nature and extent of the damage caused by the release of these documents," he wrote in the July 28 letter, which was released by his office on Friday.
The Army investigation into the release of the documents is focusing on Army specialist Bradley Manning, who was already charged this month with leaking information previously published by WikiLeaks, U.S. defense officials say.
Manning, who was moved from a detention facility in Kuwait to one at Quantico Marine Base in Virginia on Thursday ahead of his trial, is charged with leaking a classified video showing a 2007 helicopter attack that killed a dozen people in Iraq, including two Reuters journalists.
Manning has not been named as a suspect in the latest leak and investigators are not ruling out the involvement of multiple individuals.
WASHINGTON |
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - U.S. officials are worried about what other secret documents the whistle-blowing website WikiLeaks may possess and have tried to contact the group without success to avoid their release, the State Department said on Friday.
The shadowy group publicly released more than 90,000 U.S. Afghan war records spanning a six-year period on Sunday. The group also is thought to be in possession of tens of thousands of U.S. diplomatic cables passed to it by an Army intelligence analyst, media reports have said.
"Do we have concerns about what might be out there? Yes, we do," State Department spokesman P.J. Crowley told a briefing, adding that U.S. authorities have not specifically determined which documents may have been leaked to the organization.
He said the State Department could not confirm the longstanding reports that WikiLeaks is in possession of a large set of U.S. diplomatic cables.
But the fact that the documents released on Sunday contained a handful of State Department cables suggests that other secret diplomatic messages may have been included in data transmitted to WikiLeaks, Crowley said.
"When we provide our analysis of situations in key countries like Afghanistan and Pakistan, we distribute these across the other agencies including to military addresses," Crowley said. "So is the potential there that State Department documents have been compromised? Yes."
Both Crowley and White House spokesman Robert Gibbs urged WikiLeaks and its founder, Julian Assange, not to release further classified government documents.
Gibbs, noting WikiLeaks claims to have at least 15,000 more secret Afghan documents, told NBC's "Today" show there was little the government could do halt the release of the papers.
"We can do nothing but implore the person who has those classified top secret documents not to post anymore," Gibbs said. "I think it's important that no more damage be done to our national security."
'BLOOD ON THEIR HANDS'
Both Crowley and Gibbs expressed concern that the document dump might expose U.S. intelligence-gathering methods and place in jeopardy people who had assisted the United States.
"You have Taliban spokesmen in the region today saying they're combing through those documents to find people that are cooperating with American and international forces. They're looking through those for names. They said they know how to punish those people," Gibbs said.
Assange told the BBC World Service in an interview that Wikileaks had held back the remaining 15,000 papers to protect innocent people from harm, and was reviewing them at the rate of about 1,000 a day. He did not say if and when they would be published.
Assange hit back at comments from Admiral Mike Mullen, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, on Thursday, that Wikileaks "might already have on their hands the blood of some young soldier or that of an Afghan family."
He accused Defense Secretary Robert Gates of attacking Wikileaks to "distract attention from the daily deaths of civilians and others in Afghanistan."
"There is real blood in Afghanistan, and it has come about as a result of the policies of Mr Gates and the Obama administration and the general conflict in the region," Assange said.
Crowley said the government had tried to make contact with WikiLeaks but had not been successful in establishing a line of communication.
"We have passed messages to them," he said. "I am not aware of any direct dialogue with WikiLeaks."
Assange said Wikileaks had used the New York Times as an intermediary to request White House assistance in vetting the document trove prior to publication, but did not receive a response.
Crowley said: "Intelligence services all over the world will be looking over them and seeing what they can glean in terms of how we gain information."
He added: "Behind these documents is a very important intelligence system that is vital to our national security and we are concerned ... that if WikiLeaks continues on its current path this will do damage to our national security."
Gates and Mullen both said on Thursday the document leak had undermined trust in the United States.
Senator Carl Levin, the chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee, sent a letter asking Gates for an assessment of how badly the military's sources and methods of gathering intelligence had been hurt.
"I am concerned about the nature and extent of the damage caused by the release of these documents," he wrote in the July 28 letter, which was released by his office on Friday.
The Army investigation into the release of the documents is focusing on Army specialist Bradley Manning, who was already charged this month with leaking information previously published by WikiLeaks, U.S. defense officials say.
Manning, who was moved from a detention facility in Kuwait to one at Quantico Marine Base in Virginia on Thursday ahead of his trial, is charged with leaking a classified video showing a 2007 helicopter attack that killed a dozen people in Iraq, including two Reuters journalists.
Manning has not been named as a suspect in the latest leak and investigators are not ruling out the involvement of multiple individuals.
What's the tweet: Anthony Weiner
Republicans are losing the opinion battle on this one.
Take a look on Google and see for yourself. Where are the right wing blogs and papers on the search? It is hard to spin this one. Take a look at Fox to make the point. I like Dave Camp. I am from Michigan and find him to be an outstanding
conservative.
I am sure that why he is highlighted in the clip. Republicans make a point about the cost but it is not resonating with the public. This is about the the war so I have included the story. It is fueling inflammatory right wing comments and self congratulatory left wing slurps. To make an issue about the mosque at Ground Zero and then drop the ball on this will shift independents towards Democrats.
Let's not pretend anymore. Liberal Left, Right Republicans. There is no longer a middle in the USA politically. Look, Muslims were killed in the attack and they have a right to put a mosque there. They are not the enemy. Those people who were first responders are heroes.
The truth is, Republicans, you are losing votes at a critical time. Get your act together. This is a concerted effort and you are giving into your fringe instincts. George Bush made his "Islam is Peace" speech shortly after the attack on 9/11. Many of you have forgotten this and many of you do not know the truth of Islam. Stop walking goosestep. We are a nation of religious tolerance.
Christianity is peace. Begin the practice. Way to go Anthony. A good Jew.
WASHINGTON — The House's rejection of bill that would have provided up to $7.4 billion in aid to people sickened by World Trade Center dust has opened a sharp rift between two New York congressmen, Republican Peter King and Democrat Anthony Weiner. The verbal jousting came on the House floor Thursday night as the vote neared. The results fell largely along party lines, with 12 Republicans joining Democrats supporting the measure, but it failed to win the needed two-thirds majority.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)