Afghan document leak puts White House on defensive (News Feature)

By Mike McCarthy Jul 27, 2010, 1:08 GMT

Washington - The leaking of more than 90,000 classified documents related to the war in Afghanistan has put the White House on the defensive even though they have provided little new information about the nearly 10-year conflict.

The mostly US military documents from the 2004-2009 period underscore the problems US and NATO forces and civilian efforts have faced in Afghanistan. They largely focus on concerns of collaboration between elements of Pakistan's intelligence agency and the Taliban to carry out attacks on international forces in Afghanistan, as well as concerns about the civilian casualties. The documents also reflect worries about corruption in the Afghan government.

The 91,000 pages were leaked by an unspecified source to the whistle-blower website WikiLeaks, which then turned them over to the New York Times, the Guardian and German magazine Der Spiegel, who published reports late Sunday.

But the issues highlighted by the documents involve topics that have been in the public domain for years.

US officials have regularly spoken of the historical ties between Pakistan's Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) and the Taliban, and of the need to pressure Pakistan, which receives billions of dollars in US aid, for better cooperation.

And because of worries that civilian casualties in Afghanistan were undermining public faith in US- and NATO-led forces, general Stanley McChrystal prioritized the need to reduce civilian deaths during his tenure, which ended in June, as head of the military mission.

White House spokesman Robert Gibbs, while condemning the leak, was quick to point out on Monday that President Barack Obama's revised strategy outlined in December 2009 was designed to address those concerns.

Gibbs said the United States still has difficult challenges in Afghanistan, and that fact was unchanged by the release of documents.

'If you wrote down ... the challenges that we face in Afghanistan, I do not know that you would list one thing differently today as a result of what we've read in these documents that you wouldn't have already listed a week ago,' he said.

However, the problems highlighted by the documents could further undermine public support for the war and pose political problems for Obama, who has identified the conflict as his top priority.

Democratic opponents of the war used the documents to intensify their criticism.

'While I do not condone the leaking of classified material, these documents underscore what we already knew - the policies we have been pursuing in the region under both the Bush and Obama administrations are based on a deeply flawed strategy,' Senator Russ Feingold said.

Gibbs said an investigation into the source of the leak began last week when the White House was hearing of the imminent publication of the documents through the media. He called a leak a 'breach' of federal law and joined other officials in condemning it.

This is the second time WikiLeaks has drawn the anger of the US government. It April, the website released footage of a 2007 Army helicopter attack in Baghdad that left civilians dead. A US soldier has been detained in Kuwait on suspicion of leaking the video.

Gibbs alleged that WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange is motivated by political reasons and is 'somebody that clearly has an agenda.' Assange has rejected those accusations in television interviews, declaring that his goal is to provide the truth.