Pentagon seeks FBI help in leak probe
July 30: The Pentagon has sought the assistance of FBI into its investigation of the illegal leakage of thousands of classified documents by WikiLeaks on the American war against terrorism in Afghanistan. “On Thursday, I called FBI director Robert Mueller and asked for the FBI’s assistance in our investigation as a partner,” defence secretary Robert Gates told reporters at a Pentagon news briefing on Thursday.
“It is important that we have all the resources we need to investigate and assess this breach of national security,” he said, adding the department of defence is taking action to prevent a repeat of such a breach, to include tightening procedures for accessing and transporting classified information.
“My basic position, though, is the investigation should go wherever it needs to go. And one of the reasons that I asked the director of the FBI to partner with us in this is to ensure that it can go wherever it needs to go,” he said.
The assistance sought from Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) is in addition to the aggressive investigation being launched by the department of defence to determine how this leak occurred, to identify the person or persons responsible, and to assess the content of the information compromised. “We have a moral responsibility to do everything possible to mitigate the consequences for our troops and our partners downrange, especially those who have worked with and put their trust in us in the past, who now may be targeted for retribution,” Mr Gates said.
“These documents represent a mountain of raw data and individual impressions, most several years old, devoid of context or analysis. They do not represent official positions or policy.
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