White House Spokesman Robert Gibbs on Monday said the United States is investigating the leak of over 90,000 classified reports about Afghanistan war.
1st Sergeant Buddy Hartlaub with the U.S. Army's 1-320 Field Artillery Regiment, 101st Airborne Division takes aim at a suspected Taliban position at Combat Outpost Nolen in the Arghandab Valley north of Kandahar, Afghanistan, July 22, 2010. [Xinhua] |
Gibbs said "there is an ongoing investigation that predated the end of last week into leaks of highly classified secret documents, " and President Barack Obama has been notified last week.
The White House was notified by news media outlets about the leaks. Gibbs called it "a breach of federal law," that "has a potential to be very harmful to those that are in our military, those that are cooperating with our military, and those that are working to keep us safe."
The Pentagon earlier said it is reviewing the leaked documents, and it hasn't determined the leak's source yet.
The documents, posted Sunday on Wikileaks, cover a period of time from January 2004 to December 2009, consisted of reports written by soldiers and intelligence officers mainly describing lethal military actions involving the U.S. military.
They includes "intelligence information, reports of meetings with political figures, and related detail," according to the site, giving a blow-by-blow account of the war over the last six years, which has so far cost the lives of more than 1,000 U.S. troops.