Monday, July 26, 2010

Afghan Wikileaks 'could put lives at risk' - ABC News (Australian Broadcasting Corporation)

Afghan Wikileaks 'could put lives at risk' - ABC News (Australian Broadcasting Corporation)

Afghan Wikileaks 'could put lives at risk'

By Washington correspondent Kim Landers, staff
Updated 6 hours 34 minutes ago
US Paratroopers run from mine-hit truckThe United States says the release of tens of thousands of secret documents about the Afghanistan war breaches federal law and potentially threatens national security.
The 91,000 classified documents, released by the self-described whistleblower organisation Wikileaks, paint a grim picture of the conflict and the apparent double-dealing of the Pakistan military.
Spanning a six-year period, they reveal details of assassination plots, field intelligence, Pakistan's alleged support for the Taliban, and previously unreported civilian deaths during the period George W Bush was in office.
There is reportedly even a reference to a plot to poison Western troops' beer supplies.
The US has condemned the leaks, with the White House saying they could threaten national security and endanger American lives. The source of the leaks has not been confirmed and the Pentagon says it could take days or weeks to assess the damage that has been caused.
The previously secret documents also include several references to Australian forces.
They include: A July 2006 attack where an Australian and Danish soldier were injured, possibly by friendly fire, when their fortified position collapsed; A December 2008 mortar engagement with insurgents that left an Australian soldier wounded; and an account of children being taken to hospital after Australian soldiers fired at a car at a checkpoint.
There is also a report that in early April 2007, a senior Australian Defence official advised that the then-Howard government was planning to nearly double the number of Australian defence personnel in Uruzgan province from 500 to 1,000.
The report mentions that the Australian government was not planning to announce the new deployment for another five days, and the Australian official asks the US not to publicly mention it.
Wikileaks founder Julian Assange says another reference to Australia involves an escalation of force by Australian troops.
"A shooting passing a convoy as an example, but I haven't looked at that material in detail so I'm not qualified to speak about it, but there are a number of reports that concern Australian troops," he said.
The files cover many different aspects of the almost nine-year-old war, including the Taliban's use of heat-seeking anti-aircraft missiles.
Mr Assange says there are another 15,000 files on Afghanistan which are still being vetted by his organisation.
The Obama administration is furious.
"It poses a very real and potential threat to those that are working hard every day to keep us safe," White House spokesman Robert Gibbs said.
Mr Gibbs says the release is illegal and a breach of national security, and insists there is nothing new in the documents.
"What generally governs the classification of these documents are names, operations, personnel, people that are cooperating, all of which, if it's compromised, has a compromising effect on our security," he said.
The Pentagon is scrambling to assess the damage done caused by the leak.
A spokesman says the review could take "days if not weeks".
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Defence taskforce to examine leaked war files - ABC News (Australian Broadcasting Corporation)

Defence taskforce to examine leaked war files - ABC News (Australian Broadcasting Corporation):

Defence taskforce to examine leaked war files

By Washington correspondent Kim Landers
Updated 35 minutes ago
Leak: The documents provide details on previously unreported civilian deaths.Prime Minister Julia Gillard says the Defence Department has set up a special taskforce to scrutinise tens of thousands of leaked US military documents about the war in Afghanistan.
The Pentagon is scrambling to unmask whoever leaked the classified documents to whistleblower organisation Wikileaks in one of the biggest security breaches in US military history.
The 91,000 classified documents, released by Wikileaks, paint a grim picture of the conflict and the apparent double-dealing of the Pakistan military.
Spanning a six-year period, they reveal details of assassination plots, field intelligence, Pakistan's alleged support for the Taliban and previously unreported civilian deaths.
Ms Gillard says Defence will examine the documents to see what the implications are for Australia, which has about 1,500 troops in Afghanistan.
"I obviously am concerned to see a national security-style material leak," she said.
Australia is mentioned in some of the documents, mostly in reports about how they have come under enemy fire.
One report from December 2009 says Australian forces came under fire from four insurgents and that one Australian was wounded in action.
Another report from 2008 says an Australian was wounded after coming under fire from an unknown number of insurgents.
Ms Gillard says under the caretaker conventions, Defence will brief both the Government and the Opposition on the findings.

More leaks to come

US defence officials say the mole appears to have had secret clearance.
They fear more leaks are possible, with the White House describing their disclosure as "illegal" and "alarming".
The leaks could have more of a political impact than operational one by raising new questions about the war strategy.
Yet while the Obama administration says it is outraged by the disclosure of the documents, White House spokesman Robert Gibbs is playing down their strategic impact, pointing out they mostly cover a period when George W Bush was president.
Reports that Pakistan's intelligence agency was helping the Taliban have been denied by Pakistan's ambassador to the US, Husain Haqqani.
"Allegations of any arm of the Pakistani government collaborating or cooperating with the Taliban is absolutely wrong," he said.
"We all know it wouldn't make sense for us to help the Taliban who are killing our own soldiers and our own intelligence officers."
US president Barack Obama says he will review his Afghanistan policy at the end of the year.
The release of the files has also triggered an outcry from many of America's allies.
Britain says it regrets the leak, while Pakistan says the reports are "skewed" and not based on the reality on the ground.
A top NATO general is also calling for increased vigilance to thwart such security breaches.
But the chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, John Kerry, says despite some legal issues, the questions the leaks raise are valid.
"However illegally these documents came to light, they raise serious questions about the reality of America's policy towards Pakistan and Afghanistan," he said.
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Getting Lost in Afghanistan’s Fog of War - NYTimes.com

Getting Lost in Afghanistan’s Fog of War - NYTimes.com

The documents do reveal some specific information about United States and NATO tactics, techniques, procedures and equipment that is sensitive, and will cause much consternation within the military. It may even result in some people dying. Thus the White House is right to voice its displeasure with WikiLeaks.
Op-Ed Contributor

Getting Lost in the Fog of War


By ANDREW EXUM

Published: July 26, 2010

ANYONE who has spent the past two days reading through the 92,000 military field reports and other documents made public by the whistle-blower site WikiLeaks may be forgiven for wondering what all the fuss is about. I’m a researcher who studies Afghanistan and have no regular access to classified information, yet I have seen nothing in the documents that has either surprised me or told me anything of significance. I suspect that’s the case even for someone who reads only a third of the articles on Afghanistan in his local newspaper.
Let us review, though, what have been viewed as the major revelations in the documents (which were published in part by The Times, The Guardian of London and the German magazine Der Spiegel):
First, there are allegations made by American intelligence officers that elements within Pakistan’s spy agency, the Directorate for Inter-Services Intelligence, have been conspiring with Taliban factions and other insurgents. Those charges are nothing new. This newspaper and others have been reporting on those accusations — often supported by anonymous sources within the American military and intelligence services — for years.
Second, the site provides documentation of Afghan civilian casualties caused by United States and allied military operations. It is true that civilians inevitably suffer in war. But researchers in Kabul with the Campaign for Innocent Victims in Conflict have been compiling evidence of these casualties, and their effect in Afghanistan, for some time now. Their reports, to which they add background on the context of the events, contributed to the decision by the former top commander in Afghanistan, Gen. Stanley McChrystal, to put in place controversially stringent new measures intended to reduce such casualties last year.
Third, the site asserts that the Pentagon employs a secret task force of highly trained commandos charged with capturing or killing insurgent leaders. I suspect that in the eyes of most Americans, using special operations teams to kill terrorists is one of the least controversial ways in which the government spends their tax dollars.
The documents do reveal some specific information about United States and NATO tactics, techniques, procedures and equipment that is sensitive, and will cause much consternation within the military. It may even result in some people dying. Thus the White House is right to voice its displeasure with WikiLeaks.
Yet most of the major revelations that have been trumpeted by WikiLeaks’s founder, Julian Assange, are not revelations at all — they are merely additional examples of what we already knew.
Mr. Assange has said that the publication of these documents is analogous to the publication of the Pentagon Papers, only more significant. This is ridiculous. The Pentagon Papers offered the public a coherent internal narrative of the conflict in Vietnam that was at odds with the one that had been given by the elected and uniformed leadership.
The publication of these documents, by contrast, dumps 92,000 new primary source documents into the laps of the world’s public with no context, no explanation as to why some accounts may contradict others, no sense of what is important or unusual as opposed to the normal march of war.
Many experts on the war, both in the military and the press, have long been struggling to come to grips with the conflict’s complexity and nuances. What is the public going to make of this haphazard cache of documents, many written during combat by officers with little sense of how their observations fit into the fuller scope of the war?
I myself first went to Afghanistan as a young Army officer in 2002 and returned two years later after having led a small special operations unit — what Mr. Assange calls an “assassination squad.” (I also worked briefly as a civilian adviser to General McChrystal last year.) I can confirm that the situation in Afghanistan is complex, and defies any attempt to graft it onto easy-to-discern lessons or policy conclusions. Yet the release of the documents has led to a stampede of commentators and politicians doing exactly that. It’s all too easy for them to find field reports to reaffirm their preconceived opinions about the war.
The Guardian editorialized on Sunday that the documents released reveal “a very different landscape ... from the one with which we have become familiar.” But whoever wrote that has not been reading the reports of his own newspaper’s reporters in Afghanistan.
The news media have done a good job of showing the public that the Afghan war is a highly complex environment stretching beyond the borders of the fractured country. Often what appears to be a two-way conflict between the government and an insurgency is better described as intertribal rivalry. And often that intertribal rivalry is worsened or overshadowed by the violent trade in drugs.
The Times, The Guardian and Der Spiegel did nothing wrong in looking over the WikiLeaks documents and excerpting them. Despite the occasional protest from the right wing, most of the press in the United States and in allied nations takes care not to publish information that might result in soldiers’ deaths.
But WikiLeaks itself is another matter. Mr. Assange says he is a journalist, but he is not. He is an activist, and to what end it is not clear. This week — as when he released a video in April showing American helicopter gunships killing Iraqi civilians in 2007 — he has been throwing around the term “war crimes,” but offers no context for the events he is judging. It seems that the death of any civilian in war, an unavoidable occurrence, is a “crime.”
If his desire is to promote peace, Mr. Assange and his brand of activism are not as helpful as he imagines. By muddying the waters between journalism and activism, and by throwing his organization into the debate on Afghanistan with little apparent regard for the hard moral choices and dearth of good policy options facing decision-makers, he is being as reckless and destructive as the contemptible soldier or soldiers who leaked the documents in the first place.

Andrew Exum is a fellow at the Center for a New American Security.

Andrew Exum is an American scholar of the Middle East and a Fellow of the Center for a New American Security (CNAS).[1] He also participated in General Stanley McChrystal's review of the American strategy in Afghanistan.[2]
After graduating from The McCallie School in Chattanooga, Tennessee (1996) and the University of Pennsylvania (2000), where he was a columnist for the Daily Pennsylvanian, Exum, a US Army officer, led a platoon of light infantry in Afghanistan following the September 11, 2001 attacks and subsequently led a platoon of Army Rangers as a part of special operations task forces in Kuwait and Afghanistan with the rank of Captain.[3] He is a veteran of Operation Anaconda. He earned a Master’s degree in Middle Eastern Studies at the American University of Beirut. In 2006-2007, Exum was a Soref fellow at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy. He is pursuing his doctorate in the Department of War Studies, King's College London.[4]
Blake Hounshell of Foreign Policy calls Exum, “one of the sharpest Middle East analysts around.”[5]
While still on active duty, but “laid up with a non-combat knee injury,” Exum wrote his first book, This Man's Army: A Soldier's Story from the Front Lines of the War on Terrorism.[6] [7]
On May 30, 2008, Exum revealed himself to be the founder of the blog Abu Muqawama (Arabic, أبوالمقاومة for "father or expert of the Resistance"). This blog, "dedicated to following issues related to contemporary insurgencies," was followed by many notable students and practitioners of counterinsurgency in the military, academia and the media. It has also been referred to as Small Wars Journal's "rogue cousin" partially due to the large overlap in topics and participants, and due to its ability to initiate discussion about topics that are not yet appropriate for the more professional forum. At the time of the revelation, Exum also announced he was leaving the blog to pursue his research.[8] [9] Partly due to the unexpected perceived value generated by such an unofficial forum, Exum subsequently returned to the blog[10] and continues to post under the pseudonym Abu Muqawama. The blog is now hosted by CNAS.

Books

  • This Man's Army: A Soldier's Story from the Front Lines of the War on Terrorism

References

  1. ^ CNAS
  2. ^ Washington Independent on Stanley McChrystal's advisors
  3. ^ For Some Soldiers The War Never Ends - New York Times
  4. ^ » Andrew Exum Middle East Strategy at Harvard
  5. ^ What you need to know about Lebanon's latest car bomb | FP Passport
  6. ^ Gazette | Interview: Andrew Exum
  7. ^ http://transcripts.cnn.com/TRANSCRIPTS/0406/05/cnnitm.00.html
  8. ^ abu muqawama: Thank You, and Goodbye
  9. ^ [1]
  10. ^ [2]

External links

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Leaked Documents Underscore Lawmakers’ Concerns on Afghan War - BusinessWeek

Leaked Documents Underscore Lawmakers’ Concerns on Afghan War - BusinessWeek

Leaked Documents Underscore Lawmakers’ Concerns on Afghan War

July 27, 2010, 12:16 AM EDT

By Laura Litvan and Brian Faler
July 27 (Bloomberg) -- President Barack Obama faces renewed concern about his Afghanistan war strategy after leaked military documents suggested Pakistan’s main intelligence agency secretly aided the Taliban and others the U.S is trying to defeat.
Disclosure of the documents, as Congress this week considers funding for the U.S. troop buildup in Afghanistan, underscored questions about the war while many lawmakers prepare to go home to campaign in August.
“Some of these documents reinforce a longstanding concern of mine about the supporting role of some Pakistani officials in the Afghan insurgency,” Senate Armed Services Committee Chairman Carl Levin, a Michigan Democrat, said in a statement yesterday. The reports show “what’s been long known,” that the war effort lacked personnel and resources, Levin said. “That’s why President Obama ordered a new strategy” last year, he said.
Some of the 92,000 classified reports, disclosed July 25 by the website Wikileaks, say that members of Pakistan’s Inter- Services Intelligence Directorate helped the Taliban and other Islamic rebels. The documents, covering 2004 through 2009, were reported by the New York Times, the London-based Guardian and the German magazine Der Spiegel, which said Wikileaks provided them the reports three weeks ago.
The leaked documents “raise serious questions about the reality of America’s policy toward Pakistan and Afghanistan,” said Senate Foreign Relations Committee Chairman John Kerry, a Massachusetts Democrat. “Those policies are at a critical stage,” and the documents “make the calibrations needed to get the policy right more urgent.”
‘Not Pretty’
“I’ve been to a number of briefings and I’ve always been provided a more upbeat picture than the one” depicted by the documents, said Representative James McGovern, a Massachusetts Democrat who opposes Obama’s Afghan policy. “The picture that is painted here is not pretty.”
White House spokesman Robert Gibbs said the relationship between the Taliban and Pakistan’s intelligence service was “publicly known for some time.” The documents don’t reflect improvements Pakistan made after U.S. pressure, he said.
“Nobody is here to declare mission accomplished,” Gibbs said.
Questions sparked by the documents likely will surface today during the Senate Armed Services Committee’s hearing on Marine Corps General James Mattis’s nomination to lead the U.S. Central Command, which controls U.S. troops in Afghanistan.
30,000 Troops
Obama announced in December plans to send another 30,000 combat troops to Afghanistan, and Congress is under pressure to pass legislation paying for the buildup before taking its monthlong summer recess. Obama has said he will start to draw down U.S. forces in July 2011 and give more security responsibility to the Afghans, depending on conditions.
Polls show support for the war waning. Almost 6 in 10 respondents in a Bloomberg National Poll conducted July 9-12 said Afghanistan is a lost cause.
Also, 60 percent of Americans surveyed thought the withdrawal of forces should start in July 2011 even if the situation in Afghanistan remains unstable. The poll of 1,004 adults had a margin of error of 3.1 percentage points.
The document leak constitutes the “the largest single unauthorized release of currently classified records -- multiple times the volume of the Pentagon Papers” about the Vietnam war leaked to newspapers in 1971, said Steve Aftergood, director for the Federation of American Scientists Project on Government Secrecy.
Reveal Injustices
Julian Assange, founder of WikiLeaks.org, says his mission is to reveal injustices. The site, which serves as an electronic drop for confidential documents, promises that whistleblowers are protected and given anonymity.
Representative Nita Lowey, a New York Democrat who leads the House appropriations subcommittee that controls foreign aid, said the documents “contribute to concerns about our partners in the Afghan government, military and police and the actions of the Pakistani military and intelligence services.”
Some lawmakers give Obama credit for steering more resources to the region and having a clearer strategy than former President George W. Bush.
Dated Documents
“Under the new counterinsurgency strategy implemented earlier this year, we now have the pieces in place to turn things around,” said House Armed Services Committee Chairman Ike Skelton, a Missouri Democrat. He said the documents are too dated to reflect Pakistan’s current relationship with Islamist insurgents.
Arizona Senator John McCain, ranking Republican on the Armed Services Committee, said, “We are finally beginning to address many of the problems highlighted within these leaked documents.” McCain generally supports the war effort, though he opposes setting a date to begin a withdrawal.
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, a California Democrat, said she doesn’t believe the leak will affect support for the war-funding legislation because the group of reports “predates the president’s new policy.”
The Senate last week approved $60 billion to fund the troop buildup in Afghanistan and other needs. The House version, passed earlier this month after Democratic leaders used parliamentary tactics to push it through, included funds to help states avoid having to fire teachers.
Seeking Compromise
Congressional leaders are pushing for passage of a compromise.
The House plans to debate a nonbinding resolution by Representative Dennis Kucinich, an Ohio Democrat, seeking removal of U.S. troops from Pakistan.
The documents show it is “indisputable” that “our nation has fallen into a trap of continued occupation and escalation that can only lead to more tragedy,” Kucinich said.
--With assistance from Roger Runningen, Tony Capaccio, Patrick O’Connor, Ryan Donmoyer and Nicole Gaouette in Washington and James Rupert in New Delhi. Editors: Laurie Asseo, Don Frederick
To contact the reporters on this story: Laura Litvan in Washington at llitvan@bloomberg.net; Brian Faler in Washington at bfaler@bloomberg.net.
To contact the editor responsible for this story: Mark Silva at msilva34@bloomberg.net
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Pakistan-a failed state?

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Is it our problem?

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Afghanistan/Pakistan


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Islamic Republic of Pakistan
اسلامی جمہوریہ پاکِستان
Islāmī Jumhūrī-ye Pākistān
Flag State Emblem
'Motto: 'اتحاد، تنظيم، يقين مُحکم
Ittehad, Tanzeem, Yaqeen-e-Muhkam  (Urdu)
"Unity, Discipline and Faith"
Anthem: 
قومی ترانہ
"Qaumī Tarāna"
Capital Islamabad
33°40′N 73°10′E / 33.667°N 73.167°E / 33.667; 73.167
Largest city Karachi
Official language(s) Urdu (National)
English
Regional languages Punjabi, Pashto, Sindhi, Seraiki and Balochi
Demonym Pakistani
Government Federal Parliamentary republic
 -  Founder Muhammad Ali Jinnah
 -  President Asif Zardari (PPP)
 -  Prime Minister Yousaf Gillani (PPP)
 -  Chief Justice Iftikhar Chaudhry
 -  Chair of Senate Farooq Naek (PPP)
Legislature Majlis-e-Shoora
 -  Upper House Senate
 -  Lower House National Assembly
Formation
 -  Pakistan Resolution 23 March 1940 
 -  Independence from the United Kingdom 
 -  Declared 14 August 1947 
 -  Islamic republic 23 March 1956 
Area
 -  Total 803,940 km2 (36th)
340,403 sq mi 
 -  Water (%) 3.1
Population
 -  2010 estimate 170,115,500[1] (6th)
 -  1998 census 132,352,279[2] 
 -  Density 211.6/km2 (55th)
499.7/sq mi
GDP (PPP) 2009 estimate
 -  Total $435.807 billion[3] 
 -  Per capita $2,661[3] 
GDP (nominal) 2009 estimate
 -  Total $166.515 billion[3] 
 -  Per capita $1,016[3] 
Gini (2002) 30.6 (medium) 
HDI (2007) ▲ 0.572[4] (medium) (141st)
Currency Pakistani Rupee (Rs.) (PKR)
Time zone PST (UTC+5)
 -  Summer (DST) PDT (UTC+6)
Drives on the left[5]
Internet TLD .pk
Calling code 92
Islamic Republic of Afghanistan
جمهوری اسلامی افغانستان
(Persian: Jomhūrī-ye Eslāmī-ye Afġānistān)
د افغانستان اسلامي جمهوریت
(Pashto: Da Afġānistān Islāmī Jomhoriyat)
Flag Emblem
Anthem: Afghan National Anthem
Capital
(and largest city)		 Kabul
34°31′N 69°08′E / 34.517°N 69.133°E / 34.517; 69.133
Official language(s) Dari (Persian) and Pashto[1]
Demonym Afghan[alternatives]
Government Islamic Republic
 -  President Hamid Karzai
 -  Vice President Mohammad Fahim
 -  Vice President Karim Khalili
 -  Chief Justice Abdul Salam Azimi
Establishment
 -  First Afghan state[1] October 1747 
 -  Independence August 19, 1919 
Area
 -  Total 647,500 km2 (41st)
251,772 sq mi 
 -  Water (%) negligible
Population
 -  2009 estimate 28,150,000[2] (37th)
 -  1979 census 13,051,358 
 -  Density 43.5/km2 (150th)
111.8/sq mi
GDP (PPP) 2009 estimate
 -  Total $27.014 billion[3] 
 -  Per capita $935[3] 
GDP (nominal) 2009 estimate
 -  Total $14.044 billion[3] 
 -  Per capita $486[3] 
HDI (2007) 0.352 (low) (181st)
Currency Afghani (AFN)
Time zone D† (UTC+4:30)
Drives on the right
Internet TLD .af
Calling code 93

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