WikiLeaks posting Afghan war reports

WASHINGTON, July 25 (UPI) -- The Obama administration Sunday lashed out at the Web site WikiLeaks for posting thousands of secret U.S. military reports on the Afghan war.

WikiLeaks says the documents produced by military personnel and intelligence officers, which it calls the "Afghan War Diary," cover "lethal military actions" by the U.S. military in Afghanistan from 2004 through 2009. They also include logs of meetings with political figures, the Web site said.

WikiLeaks said the reports, obtained from an undisclosed source, do not generally cover top-secret operations, or those of European or other international coalition members.

WikiLeaks said it has delayed the release of about 15,000 reports "as part of a harm minimization process demanded" by its source.

"After further review, these reports will be released, with occasional redactions, and eventually, in full, as the security situation in Afghanistan permits," the whistle-blower organization said.

But in a statement issued by the White House, Gen. James Jones, national security adviser for the Obama administration, said leaking the documents "irresponsible."

"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," Jones said.

He said WikiLeaks made no effort to contact the administration in advance of releasing the materials and said the federal government learned from news media they would be posted on the Internet.

Jones noted the documents run from January 2004 to December 2009 and went on to cite President Barack Obama's decision, announced Dec. 1, 2009, to send additional troops to Afghanistan.

"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," he said.

The New York Times, The Guardian newspaper in Britain and the German magazine Der Spiegel published portions of the reports Sunday.

The Guardian said a team of investigative reporters, regional specialists and database experts spent weeks authenticating and reviewing the materials for matters of public interest.

The British newspaper said the team dismissed some intelligence reports as unfounded and determined some aspects of the coalition's recording of civilian deaths to be unreliable.

"But taken together," The Guardian concluded, "the logs provide a revealing and important picture of how the war is being conducted: the continuing escalation of the conflict; the weakness of much coalition intelligence; and the gap between the polished account of the war offered for public consumption and the messy reality experienced by commanders on the ground. This is one side's raw, immediate first hand account of the conflict as it happened."

The Times said the documents "portray American forces as being starved for resources and battling an insurgency that was getter larger and better coordinated year by year."