Afghan, Pakistan Leaders Warned by U.S. in Advance of Leaked War Documents

Afghan, Pakistani and Indian officials received advance notice from the U.S. that media in the U.S. and Europe were about to publish leaked American military documents about the war in Afghanistan, State Department Spokesman Philip J. Crowley said.

Afghan President Hamid Karzai and Pakistani President Asif Ali Zardari were briefed by the U.S. ambassadors in their countries, and senior Pakistani officials met two nights ago with Admiral Michael Mullen, the top U.S. military commander, Crowley told reporters today in Washington.

“We wanted to make sure they understood the context under which these documents would be released, that this was the result of a leak of classified documents, not sanctioned, authorized by the United States government,” Crowley said. “The briefing was, in fact, to help them understand that this represents a crime and that we are investigating it.”

The leak won’t affect U.S. relations with Afghanistan and Pakistan or their relations with each other, Crowley said. He noted that Secretary of State Hillary R. Clinton met with Afghan and Pakistani leaders last week.

The reports, on the website Wikileaks.org, allege in part that Pakistan’s main intelligence agency is secretly aiding the Taliban and allied Islamic militant rebels whom the U.S. is trying to defeat, according to the New York Times, the London- based Guardian and the German magazine Der Spiegel, which say Wikileaks gave them weeks of access to the documents.

‘Several Years Old’

The documents reflect the war as it was run from 2005 to 2009, Crowley said, largely during the presidency of George W. Bush.

“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,” he said.

The administration of President Barack Obama, which took office in January 2009, has enacted its own Afghanistan strategy, Crowley said.

“We think that we have put in place over the past several months a strong foundation of working with Pakistan, working with Afghanistan, and the situation that we confront today is different than the one we confronted two, three, four years ago,” he said.

“We feel that Pakistan at the leadership level is committed to root out” the Taliban and al-Qaeda, “to eliminate these safe havens, and in doing so, eliminate, direct or indirect support for those engaged in violent extremism, which threatens Pakistan itself,” Crowley said.

To contact the reporter on this story: Peter S. Green in Washington at psgreen@bloomberg.net.

• Facebook Share
• LinkedIn
• Google +1
• COMMENTS
• Print
• QUEUE