http://www.tehrantimes.com/index_View.asp?code=224847
ews code:SPH - 03_PENTAGON.txt News date: Sunday, August 15,
2010
www.tehrantimes.com
WikiLeaks says it won't be threatened by Pentagon
By staff and agencies
STOCKHOLM/TEHRAN - WikiLeaks will soon publish its remaining 15,000 Afghan war
documents, despite warnings from the U.S. government, the organization's
founder said on Saturday.
The Pentagon has said that the secret information will be even more damaging to
security and put more lives at risk than WikiLeaks' initial release of some
76,000 war documents, The Associated Press reported.
"This organization will not be threatened by the Pentagon or any other group,"
WikiLeaks founder and spokesman Julian Assange told reporters in Stockholm. "We
proceed cautiously and safely with this material."
He said WikiLeaks was about halfway though a "line-by-line review" of the
15,000 documents and expected to publish them within weeks. Assange said
"innocent parties who are under reasonable threat" would be redacted from the
material.
The Obama administration is pressing Britain, Germany, Australia, and other
allied Western governments to consider opening criminal investigations of
Assange and to severely limit his nomadic travels across international borders,
U.S. officials say.
Officials tell The Daily Beast that the U.S. effort reflects a growing belief
that WikiLeaks and organizations like it could do grave damage to U.S. national
security, as well as a growing suspicion in Washington that Assange has damaged
his own standing with foreign governments and organizations that might
otherwise be sympathetic to his anti-censorship cause.
U.S. officials confirmed last month that the Justice Department was weighing a
range of criminal charges against Assange and others as a result of the massive
leaking of classified U.S. military reports from the war in Afghanistan,
including potential violations of the Espionage Act by Bradley Manning, the
Army intelligence analyst in Iraq accused of providing the documents to
WikiLeaks.
Now, the officials say, they want other foreign governments to consider the
same sorts of criminal charges, The Daily Beast reported.
"It's not just our troops that are put in jeopardy by this leaking," said an
U.S. diplomatic official who is involved in responding to the aftermath of the
release of more than 70,000 Afghanistan war logs -- and WikiLeaks' threat to
reveal 15,000 more of the classified reports.
"It's UK troops, it's German troops, it's Australian troops -- all of the NATO
troops and foreign forces working together in Afghanistan," he said. Their
governments, he said, should follow the lead of the Justice Department and
"review whether the actions of WikiLeaks could constitute crimes under their
own national-security laws."
The first documents released in WikiLeaks' "Afghan War Diary" laid bare
classified military documents covering the war in Afghanistan from 2004 to
2010. The release angered U.S. officials, energized critics of the NATO-led
campaign.
That has aroused the concern of several human rights group operating in
Afghanistan and the Paris-based media watchdog Reporters Without Borders, which
has accused WikiLeaks of recklessness. Jean-Francois Julliard, the group's
secretary-general, said Thursday that WikiLeaks showed "incredible
irresponsibility" when posting the documents online.
WikiLeaks describes itself as a public service organization for whistleblowers,
journalists and activists.
In addition to speaking at a seminar, Assange was in Sweden to investigate
claims that the website was not covered by laws protecting anonymous sources in
the Scandinavian country.
He confirmed to Swedish broadcaster SVT that WikiLeaks passes information
through Belgium and Sweden "to take advantage of laws there." But some experts
say the site doesn't have the publishing certificate needed for full protection
in Sweden.
Photo: Wikileaks founder Julian Assange attends a seminar at the Swedish Trade
Union Confederation headquarters in Stockholm on August 14, 2010. (Getty
Images)
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