Updated on
Summary
The Obama administration scrambled on Monday to manage the explosive leak of secret military records that paint a grim picture of the US-led war in Afghanistan and raise new doubts about key ally Pakistan.The release of some 91,000 classified documents is likely to fuel uncertainty in the Congress about the unpopular war as President Barack Obama sends 30,000 more soldiers into the battle to break the Taliban insurgency. The documents, made public by the whistle-blowing website WikiLeaks, detail allegations that US forces sought to cover up civilian deaths as well as US concern that Pakistan secretly aided Taliban militants even as it took billions of dollars in US aid. The White House condemned the leak, saying it could threaten national security and endanger American lives. The Pentagon called the release a criminal act and said it was reviewing the documents to determine the potential damage to US and coalition troops. The leaked documents, a collection of field intelligence and threat reports from before Obama ordered the troop surge in December, illustrate the Pentagon's own bleak assessment of the war amid deteriorating security and a strengthening Taliban. The leak came as the Taliban said they were holding one of two US servicemen who strayed into insurgent territory and that the other had been killed. The reported capture could further erode public support for the war in the United States ahead of congressional elections in November. US officials said the leaked information was uncorroborated and outdated and they stressed that US ties with Pakistan and Afghanistan were on a positive trajectory. Most of these documents are several years old and may well reflect situations and conditions and circumstances that have either been corrected already or are in the process of being corrected, Crowley said. But some analysts said the revelations could be damaging as the White House seeks to maintain public support for the war while setting the stage to start withdrawing US troops by Obama's target date of July 2011.Pakistan, which came in for particular scrutiny in the archive, said leaking unprocessed reports from the battlefield was irresponsible, while a spokesman for Afghan President Hamid Karzai said the documents underscored concerns about Pakistan's involvement in his country and the civilian death toll. The documents suggest representatives from Pakistan's Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) spy service met directly with the Taliban in secret strategy sessions to organize militant networks fighting US soldiers. Pakistan's Foreign Ministry spokesman Abdul Basit dismissed the reports as far-fetched and skewed. Along with doubts about Pakistan, the documents said coalition troops have killed hundreds of Afghan civilians in unreported incidents and often sought to cover up the mistakes that have shaken confidence in the war effort among many in Afghanistan.The rising violence comes as the House of Representatives prepares to take up legislation this week on funding the Afghan war, which could see more public doubts aired about a conflict driving deep rifts in Obama's Democratic Party.
