THE United States said yesterday that it deeply regretted the release of any classified information and would tighten security to prevent leaks such as WikiLeaks’ disclosure of a trove of State Department cables.
More than 250,000 cables were obtained by the whistle-blower website and given to the New York Times and other media groups, which published stories exposing the inner workings of US diplomacy, including candid and embarrassing assessments of world leaders.
The US Justice Department said it was conducting a criminal investigation of the leak of classified documents and the White House, State Department and Pentagon all said they were taking steps to prevent such disclosures in future.
While Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said she would not comment directly on the cables or their substance, she said the United States would take aggressive steps to hold responsible those who “stole” them.
“The United States deeply regrets the disclosure of any information that was intended to be confidential, including private discussions between counterparts or our diplomats’ personal assessments and observations,” she told reporters.
Echoing earlier US condemnations of the leak, she said “it puts people’s lives in danger, threatens our national security, and undermines our efforts to work with other countries to solve shared problems.”
Among the revelations was that Saudi King Abdullah repeatedly urged the United States to attack Iran’s nuclear program. The documents cited him as saying: “cut off the head of the snake”, according to the Guardian newspaper of Britain.
The New York Times also reported impolitic comments about foreign leaders, including a description of Russian President Dmitry Medvedev, Russia’s head of state, as playing “Robin to (Prime Minister Vladimir) Putin’s Batman.”
While the newspaper said it had obtained the full cache of 251,287 documents from an anonymous source, WikiLeaks itself had only posted 243 of them on its website.
The White House ordered government agencies to tighten procedures for handling classified information.
The new procedures would ensure “that users do not have broader access than is necessary to do their jobs effectively,” according to a directive from the White House Office of Management and Budget released yesterday.
The leaked documents, the majority of which are from 2007 or later, disclose US allegations that China’s Politburo directed an intrusion into Google’s computer systems, part of a broader coordinated campaign of computer sabotage carried out by Chinese government operatives, private security experts and Internet outlaws, the Times reported.
Among other disclosures in the newspaper were suspicions Iran has obtained sophisticated missiles from North Korea capable of hitting western Europe and US concerns Iran is using those as “building blocks” for longer-range missiles.
Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad said yesterday Tehran’s relations with its neighbours would not be harmed by WikiLeaks’ revelations of deep Arab suspicions of Iranian motives, saying Washington organised the leak to pursue political objectives.
US Attorney General Eric Holder said there is an active criminal investigation into the leak and that anyone found responsible will be prosecuted.
“To the extent that we can find anybody who was involved in the breaking of American law and who has put at risk the assets and the people that I have described, they will be held responsible, they will be held accountable,” Holder said.
Before Sunday, WikiLeaks had made public nearly 500,000 classified US files on the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.
The US investigation into the source of the leaks has focused on Bradley Manning, a former US Army intelligence analyst in Iraq. Manning is under arrest, charged with leaking a classified video showing a 2007 helicopter attack that killed a dozen people in Iraq, including two Reuters journalists.
