Massive Leak of Documents Show Faltering Afghan War, Duplicity by Pakistan

The whistleblower website WikiLeaks has given three news organizations a trove of over 90,000 records of events and intelligence reports covering six years that provide a grim assessment of the U.S. war in Afghanistan, portray a Taliban insurgency that has gained in strength, and suggests that Pakistan's spy service has met with the Taliban in secret strategy sessions to organize resistance to the American effort.

One of the news organizations, the British Guardian newspaper, called the disclosures one of the biggest leaks in U.S. military history. The New York Times and the German weekly Der Spiegel were the other news organizations to receive the documents.

The Times, which published them online Sunday, said the documents "are a daily diary of an American-led force often starved for resources and attention as it struggled against an insurgency that grew larger, better coordinated and more deadly each year" and "detail why, after the United States has spent almost $300 billion on the war in Afghanistan, the Taliban are stronger than at any time since 2001."

The Times also said that Pakistan, which gets more than $1 billion a year in U.S. military aid to combat the insurgents, has allowed representatives of its spy agency, the ISI (Inter-Services Intelligence) to meet directly with the Taliban "in secret strategy sessions to organize networks of militant groups that fight against American soldiers in Afghanistan, and even hatch plots to assassinate Afghan leaders.

In its story, the Guardian assessed the Pakistan disclosures with some skepticism: "For all their eye-popping details, the intelligence files, which are mostly collated by junior officers relying on informants and Afghan officials, fail to provide a convincing smoking gun for ISI complicity. Most of the reports are vague, filled with incongruent detail, or crudely fabricated. The same characters – famous Taliban commanders, well-known ISI officials – and scenarios repeatedly pop up. And few of the events predicted in the reports subsequently occurred."

The leak drew a sharp response from the White House.

National Security Adviser James Jones said in a statement, "The United States strongly condemns the disclosure of classified information by individuals and organizations which could put the lives of Americans and our partners at risk, and threaten our national security."

"Wikileaks made no effort to contact us about these documents – the United States government learned from news organizations that these documents would be posted," the statement said. "These irresponsible leaks will not impact our ongoing commitment to deepen our partnerships with Afghanistan and Pakistan; to defeat our common enemies; and to support the aspirations of the Afghan and Pakistani people."

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