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Q General Campbell, Barbara Starr from CNN. When you look at something like Wikileaks, as a commander, what concerns you about the -- specifically, if you can, about the disclosure of that type of information and the risk that it can pose to troops, operations and Afghan civilians who assist you? And I ask this because so many people are trying to assess is this really a critical leak of information, or is it just a huge volume of relatively low-level material.
GEN. CAMPBELL: Hi, Barbara. Good to see you again.
First off as you know, we've been tied up with this DUSTWUN operation. So I've not really read any of the 92,000-plus documents that have reported to be leaked.
I would just tell you from my perspective though, anytime there's any sort of leak of classified material, it has the potential to harm or put in harm's way the military folks that are working out here every day, to preserve that.
So I have not seen any specific examples of what's in that. I've been tied up with this DUSTWUN operation 24/7. If it does in fact name names of people that have worked with coalition forces, I could see that that would have a detriment down the road.
My read just briefly from looking at a couple articles early this morning is that much of the stuff that has come out there is really not new news. It's between 2004 and I think December 2009. Most of that I think we've heard about.
So I didn't think there was anything staggering or new that we didn't know. There are some issues there about the Pakistan interaction and the tie-in with what's going on over here.
I would just tell you that we're really working hard with our Pakistan counterparts. I have Pakistani LNOs in the JOC here. I've been over to Pakistan since I've been here, to work with the XI Corps and the Frontier Corps.
I think we have a great opportunity here in the next six to nine months, with the leadership that we have on the border of Pakistan and down to the battalion level, to really work that aggressively.
There have been a lot of operations the last year-plus in Pakistan along the border. I think they realize that we face a common foe and we have to work together, to get rid of that common foe, to make sure that we don't have safe havens in Pakistan.
And some -- I think there's some potential to do good stuff. But as far as the Wikileaks, I don't think there's a great impact currently on us here today. And we have not changed any of our operations or any strategy here based on that. |
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Name(s:) |
John Campbell |
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Title: |
Commander |
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Agency(ies): |
Regional Command East in Afghanistan, Combined Joint Task Force 101,101st Airborne Division, Department of Defense |
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Concerning: |
Afghan War Diary |
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Url: |
Url Link
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Archive: |
Archive Link
http://archive.is/cL0Wr |
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Pentagon spokesman Marine Corps Col. Dave Lapan said today that U.S. troops in Afghanistan are hearing discontent from Afghan partners, whose names were revealed in the documents leak. Some Afghan nationals work with coalition forces to provide information and whereabouts of militants and insurgent activities.
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'There's been displeasure from folks whose names appeared there,' Lapan said. 'Anyone whose name appears in those documents is at risk. It could be a threat to their lives, or to their future conduct' in support of coalition forces. |
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Name(s:) |
Dave Lapan |
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Title: |
Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense for Media Operations |
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Agency(ies): |
Department of Defense |
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Url: |
Url Link
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Archive: |
Archive Link
http://archive.is/qDk9O |
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