Washington DC:
A day after it was embarrassed by the massive leaks of secret documents related to the Afghan War, the Obama administration has said that the Indian government was given a heads up on the WikiLeak documents over the weekend along with Pakistan and Afghanistan.
(
Read: Leaks add pressure on White House on strategy)
This was revealed at a press briefing by the US State Department spokesman Philip Crowley.
The Obama administration has slammed it as a breach of Federal law. The Pentagon has said it has begun its investigation to get to the bottom of how 92,000 classified documents were leaked and who was behind it. (
Read: US records leaked - Pak aids Taliban, says report)
"Our first priority is to figure out whether there's anything in here... that could endanger our forces," Pentagon spokesman Morrell told a news channel.
"But, obviously, we want to figure out who did this and make sure there isn't more coming and others who are leaking this," he added.
Morrell complained that WikiLeaks "didn't have the decency to contact this department and to alert us to the fact that this information was about to be dumped, and thereby potentially adversely impacting the well-being of our forces." (
Read: WikiLeaks leaked 92,000 reports)
Another Pentagon spokesman, Marine Corps Col Dave Lapan, said they are concentrating on the information that has been made public, and is not investigating the source of the leak.
Pentagon regards Army intelligence analyst Bradley Manning as a possible suspect in the leaking of these classified documents, he said.
"He (Manning) is certainly one person that we would be looking at in terms of this leak. He's not the only person. We've neither ruled in or ruled out PFC Manning. We're still assessing the documents to see if we can determine the source of the leak," Lapan said.
Manning, 22, was arrested late May after he was turned in by a former hacker he befriended online. The army analyst is said to have established direct contacts with WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange.
Both the White House and the State Department acknowledged that they are concerned about the links between ISI and the extremist elements.
The leaks strengthen what top Indian officials have been saying for quite some time now that ISI has links with Al-Qaida, Taliban and other extremist organizations. (
Read: Pak terms reports as "baseless" and "skewed")
"The people in Afghanistan and Pakistan will do exactly what people in the United States and other countries are doing you know - digest these documents and then put them in context. But overall, these documents highlight issues which we've long known about, and in fact that we've incorporated into our revised strategy," Crowley said. (
Read: WikiLeaks shows Taliban stronger than ever)
Meanwhile, the American media is abuzz with stories connected to the massive leak of secret documents related to the war in Afghanistan.
The Daily Beast - an American news reporting and opinion website - carried a headline story that said the WikiLeaks highlights the double dealing by Pakistan's powerful spy agency the ISI.
Some 92,000 documents dating from 2004 to 2009 were released to
The New York Times, Britain's
Guardian newspaper and Germany's
Der Spiegel news weekly by the whistleblowers' website WikiLeak, which posted them on Sunday. (
Read: WikiLeaks on Indian Embassy attack in Kabul)