|
|
|
|
|
...Mr. President, last weekend, a Web page called WikiLeaks posted what they titled the ''Afghan War Diary.'' It involved the collection of 91,000 operational and intelligence documents about information that was collected in Afghanistan, and it was, they said, stolen from U.S. military networks. These documents contain sensitive information on military tactics, techniques and procedures and it revealed the names of critical intelligence sources. Very sensitive information is now in the hands of adversaries, and I wish to express
I am sad to say, this is what is breaking right now in Newsweek: 'Taliban Seeks Vengeance in Wake of WikiLeaks. Leaked U.S. Intel documents listed the names and villages of Afghan collaborators--and the Taliban is starting to retaliate.' That is the headline in Newsweek that has just broken.
I have the privilege of serving on the Senate Armed Services Committee and the Senate Intelligence Committee. I can tell you what has happened is very disturbing, and I agree with the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, who has stated that the release of these documents has endangered lives--both the lives of our American service men and women and the lives of Afghan people who happen to give us important information to help us protect our Americans.
It has been just over a week since the release of these classified documents, and the media reports indicate, as that Newsweek article indicates that has just been published, that the retaliation has begun.
Last week, when the New York Times reported on this subject, they said a search of the leaked documents 'gave the names or other identifying features of dozens of Afghan informants, potential defectors and others who were cooperating with American and NATO troops.' That is the New York Times article.
Also, last week, in response to the listing of these names, a Taliban spokesman stated this:
'We are studying the report. .....We will investigate through our own secret service whether the people mentioned are really spies working for the US. If they are ..... spies, then we know how to punish them.'
Well, we have the indications that the Taliban is following through with their plan to punish, so-called punish. According to this Newsweek article, death threats have begun arriving at the homes of key tribal leaders in southern Afghanistan, and over the past weekend one tribal leader was taken from his home and executed.
One of these death threats was shared with a reporter, and this is what the death threat states:
'We have made a decision for your death. You have five days to leave Afghan soil. If you don't, you don't have the right to complain.'
Obviously, something very serious has happened, and there are a bunch of us who are extremely concerned about the damage this incident has caused to our operations in Afghanistan and to our national security as a whole.
There are a bunch of questions we have to answer. How could we have allowed the names of those who cooperate with us to be posted on an open-source Web page or was this surreptitiously taken away? Another question: What kind of impact will this leak have on our ability to gain the trust of local populations in the future?
This security breach is absolutely astonishing, and it represents a systematic breakdown in our national security procedures. I simply find it hard to believe that somebody could have downloaded tens of thousands of documents from our classified military networks without them being detected. So it brings us back to suspecting they have been leaked, and if it had never appeared, would we have known they were stolen from our classified networks?
Another question: How many people were actually involved in this incident? Do we have a way to determine whether additional documents have been or are being stolen in the same manner?
These are serious questions that I am sure the Department of Defense is examining as we speak. I applaud Secretary Gates for taking swift action to aggressively investigate who was responsible. But it is just as important to find out how our security practices failed to prevent the leak and to identify what must be done to prevent another security breach of this magnitude. The investigation is underway. We need to know the scope of the investigation. We need to be informed on what immediate steps have to be taken to address the network security breach.
When you start dealing with people's lives, you simply cannot fool around with this kind of laxity or someone betraying the country, and we have to get to the bottom of it. |
| |
Name(s:) |
Bill Nelson of Florida (FL-D) |
| |
Title: |
United States Senator |
| |
Agency(ies): |
United States Senate |
|
Url: |
Url Link
|
|
Title: |
Bill Nelson, US Senator and Representative from Florida |
|
Authoring or Creator Agency: |
LittleSiS |
|
|
|
Archive Link |
|
|
|
|
|
|
Mr. President, America's secrets are not what are at risk with the exposure of thousands and thousands of documents of classified cables. America's friends and allies are at risk and, therefore, America's national security is at risk.
When classified cables identify certain people who have helped us from around the world as we advance the interests of the free world, defend our national security, and the safety of all humankindwhen those people are exposed, there are a lot of bad people out there who want to get rid of those kind of people. When sources of informationI will dress it up and tell you exactly what it is; it is called intelligencewhen sources of intelligence are betrayed by being made public, by the disclosure, indiscriminately, of thousands and thousands of cables that were marked 'Top Secret' or marked 'Secret,' then what we have done is we have started to shackle our arms behind ourselves in our ability to defend ourselves.
Why do I say that? Well, look at all the recent attempts at a terrorist act. We were able to avert the terrorist
striking because we got the information that he was going to strike before he struck. Where did that source of information come? Often that source of information comes from far corners of the globe because we have a relationship with people who are giving us information that we then track down and find that, in fact, it is true and stop the terrorist from doing their dastardly deed upon innocent humans.
Since 2001 and the September 11th bombings and the September 11th crashes of the airliners, over and over again the newspapers of this country have chronicled terrorist plots that have been thwarted for the reasons I have just said. Now along comes someone who, for whatever reasons of being a misfit, wants to disgorge thousands of classified cables that start to betray our sources of information to protect ourselves and protect othersnot even necessarily our alliesbut other innocent victims in other countries with whom we may not even have a relationship.
This is the height of dishonoring our country and our people and all humankind, and it is the height of traitorous activity. It has to stop. We cannot continue to thwart these terrorist acts if we do not have reliable sources of information in order to disrupt the terrorist plots. Do you know what? The newspapers have chronicled, since the attempt, for example, of blowing up FedEx and UPSand, by the way, those packages also were carried on commercial airliners with passengers on themyou know what the newspapers have chronicled? They have pointed out how the terrorist organizations are crowing about how little it costs them and how they will find another way in order to do this. As the newspapers reported, we found out and stopped that plot by long-distance sources of information that came to us.
To betray those sources, to now put their lives in jeopardy by the indiscriminate turning over to an organization called WikiLeaks that suddenly puts all of this up on the Web, is the height of irresponsibility, an act against humanity, and it has to be stopped. |
| |
Name(s:) |
Bill Nelson of Florida (FL-D) |
| |
Title: |
United States Senator |
| |
Agency(ies): |
United States Senate |
|
Url: |
Url Link
|
|
Title: |
Bill Nelson, US Senator and Representative from Florida |
|
Authoring or Creator Agency: |
LittleSis |
|
|
