What Administration Officials Fear Wikileaks Will Mean
EmailA serious concern at the White House is that these disclosures will make it more difficult to protect American lives because no country will ever again be confident it can trust the U.S. with confidential information.
Take one example – the President of Yemen, Ali Abdullah Saleh
Yemen is a country that is home to a significant terrorist threat to the US and others – witness the package bomb threat from last month, not to mention last year’s failed Christmas day bomber, Umar Farouq Abdulmutallab, who was radicalized in Yemen. Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP) is the most active al Qaeda affiliate outside of the Af-Pak region.
Saleh is quoted in the leaked cables telling General David Petraeus, then commander of CENTCOM, that when it comes to US operations against AQAP in Yemen, “We’ll continue saying the bombs are ours, not yours," remarks that prompted Yemen’s deputy prime minister to "joke that he had just 'lied' by telling parliament" the bombs were deployed by Yemen.
This confidential cable is on the front page of today's New York Times.
The Obama administration is now concerned that Saleh will now have to make it seem as though he's not cooperating with the U.S., he will have to pull back, and that could hurt US counterterrorism efforts.
The same concern is true for counterproliferation efforts, as with the cables showing Gulf countries helping the US with information about Iran’s nuclear weapons program, or U.S. attempts to contain Pakistan’s enriched uranium.
Now the cooperation will dry up and by definition the US will be more at risk, officials fear.
The cable also contain the names of dissidents — people the US brought into embassies in countries with little to no human rights.
“These people will disappear," one official said.
The Wikileaks have massive implications, and the White House contention is that the disclosure of the documents puts at risk not just the lives of dissidents – but all Americans.
Another fear — what the impact will be on information-sharing among US government officials.
One official says this will cause the pendulum to swing back from the 9/11 Commission's push for agencies to share confidential information, with officials no longer recording data as candidly or sharing information as freely.
-Jake Tapper
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So let’s see.
This story breaks down to this.
The United States’ ability to protect it’s citizens is compromised because it can not be trusted to keep lies secret anymore. The Yemen example shows just how silly all these covert actions are. Who, except for the very gullible, thought the US wasn’t heading up the anti-islamic-terroist actions in that country?
In the war on stupidity, this is a positive.
We all will be better off when countries have to conduct themselves honestly.
The Wikileaks are a good thing.
Truth is too important to keep it hidden away.
Posted by: Noz | November 29, 2010, 7:50 am 7:50 am
lol. This is one of those times when it’s actually good if the news jeopardizes intelligence operations, after hearing what kind of intelligence operations we’re talking about.
Posted by: Ehrbum | November 29, 2010, 7:59 am 7:59 am
Guess the administration will have to start using more secure means of communication.
Posted by: Rick McDaniel | November 29, 2010, 9:31 am 9:31 am
Rick McDaniel,
Yes, I agree – raising standards would be good, one way or another.
Posted by: Ehrbum | November 29, 2010, 9:38 am 9:38 am
@Ehrbum
Did you think this part was funny too?
“The cable also contain the names of dissidents — people the US brought into embassies in countries with little to no human rights.
“These people will disappear,” one official said.”
Posted by: Foghorn Leghorn | November 29, 2010, 11:21 am 11:21 am
“The Wikileaks are a good thing.”
I’m going to have to disagree with you here Noz. Regardless of how inept the Obama administration is in regards to foreign policy, these leaks are bad. The information may not amount to much, but the loss of trust and the compromising of future operations is serious. Those Americans responsible for leaking this info deserve to dia a traitor’s death so to speak.
Also, I’m curious what are many pro-mamas and other lefties think of these leaks. And I wonder how those opinions coincide with how they felt re: the “outing” of Valerie Plame.
Posted by: J.R. | November 29, 2010, 11:39 am 11:39 am
Foghorn Leghorn,
Well, it’s not really enough to convince me not to laugh. See, sniffing personal information the way that diplomats were instructed to do is the kind of thing that classically provokes violent response. So it’d be hard to argue that this country was committed to stopping terrorism if it was also doing things like that.
Posted by: Ehrbum | November 29, 2010, 11:46 am 11:46 am
Let us hope that the little scumbag who released all this stuff has enjoyed his last day of freedom on this earth. If he is not executed, then let him rot in Marion on 23-hour lockdown until he dies.
Posted by: Fascist Hyena | November 29, 2010, 11:46 am 11:46 am
Only in American military can a PFC not only listen to a Lady Gaga CD on duty but have access to classified material not related to his specific job. Even normal businesses dont, usually, allow people to bring in recording devices, listen to gay club music, etc while working in sensitive areas.
Not only does this call into question why we hire such people (and “dont ask, dont tell) but why the post-911 rush to consolidate agencies, distribute, and share data was misguided. We should base our national security procedures on backward terrorists but on hightech hackers, foreign country espionage, and internal dissentors.
Posted by: Ed | November 29, 2010, 12:43 pm 12:43 pm
@Ehrbum
You ducked the question. What is funny about releasing names of dissidents who have visited US embassies?
Posted by: Foghorn Leghorn | November 29, 2010, 12:44 pm 12:44 pm
The administration are making things worse by maintaining that only one PFC was the leak source. There is no way he could have been the source for so much material.
Posted by: Bob Ramos | November 29, 2010, 12:47 pm 12:47 pm
Foghorn Leghorn,
I don’t think I ducked the question at all.
Posted by: Ehrbum | November 29, 2010, 12:54 pm 12:54 pm
“The Justice Department will prosecute anyone found to have violated U.S. law in the leaks of classified government documents by online whistleblower WikiLeaks, Attorney General Eric Holder said Monday. ”
To paraphrase jtap… It is unclear why this statement is being released now, after the third Wikileaks document dump, instead of after the first one.
Posted by: Foghorn Leghorn | November 29, 2010, 12:54 pm 12:54 pm
Ehrbum is one sick dude. He’d fit right in with Julian Assange.
Posted by: Fascist Hyena | November 29, 2010, 1:32 pm 1:32 pm
I’m a sick dude for being opposed to terrorism? Woah, this forum is harsh.
Posted by: Ehrbum | November 29, 2010, 2:37 pm 2:37 pm
Numerous wikileaks about our fighting forces and we barely heard a peep from the administration. But unwelcome chatter out of the State Department earns their ire! Suddenly they’re angry and “will investigate”. Sudden umbrage too little too late.
Posted by: JDW | November 29, 2010, 2:55 pm 2:55 pm
Ehrbum:
You and Assange have a childish belief in the truth. Lies are the root of all diplomacy and diplomacy is a form of war that prevents actual shooting wars. If Assange and his fellow idiots had been around in 1944, he would have published the plans for the Normandy invasion and Hitler’s Reich would have triumphed.
Assange is a fool. He hopes to further freedom of the press by destroying the only country that can preserve freedom of the press. If the Iranians win, they’ll skin him alive. If the Chinese win, they’ll bury him alive in one of their work farms. He’s a fool.
Obama needs to do two things in the wake of this disaster:
One: declare war on Wikileaks. Anyone associated with the group should be declared a combatant and therefore fair game for military attack.
Two: The president needs to fire everyone in the U.S. government who is responsible for securing classified information.
Posted by: Fleiter | November 29, 2010, 3:06 pm 3:06 pm
Fleiter,
I don’t deny that my belief in the truth may be childish, but so be it.
Although I should mention that Assange probably knows better what he’d face from the Chinese than we do, just by proximity.
Posted by: Ehrbum | November 29, 2010, 3:20 pm 3:20 pm
“I’m a sick dude for being opposed to terrorism?”
No, you’re a sick dude for laughing at the endangerment of your countrymen. I have no idea whether you’re opposed to terrorism.
Posted by: Fascist Hyena | November 29, 2010, 7:23 pm 7:23 pm
Well, my opinion about terrorism was my main point, so it shouldn’t have been easy to miss.
Posted by: Ehrbum | November 29, 2010, 11:31 pm 11:31 pm