‘We don’t know’: US says still investigating intel document leak
The United States has said it is still assessing an apparent leak of US military intelligence documents, which a Pentagon spokesman said could pose “a very serious risk to national security” and could lead to the spread of misinformation.
Speaking to reporters, Pentagon spokesman Chris Meagher said Washington is still investigating how the documents, which were circulated online, were made public, as well as the extent of the leak.
“Steps have been taken to look more closely at how this type of information is being disseminated and to whom,” Meagher said.
“Disclosure of sensitive classified material could have huge implications not only for our national security, but could lead to loss of life.”
The documents have been steadily appearing on internet platforms over the past few days, some of which have been circulating for weeks and possibly months.
They began to receive attention in the US media last week, and since then US officials have taken a careful line in assessing their authenticity. Meagher said Monday that U.S. Department of Defense personnel were still in the process of making that decision.
“Photos appear to show documents similar in size to those used to provide our senior leaders with daily updates on operations in Ukraine and Russia, as well as other intelligence updates,” he said.
Officials from various agencies have repeatedly warned that at least some documents appeared to have been tampered with.
On Sunday, the Ministry of Justice opened a criminal investigation into the situation.
Many of the documents allegedly contained classified information about the war in Ukraine, while others appeared to show sensitive analysis by US allies, including Israel and South Korea, raising questions about surveillance.
When asked Monday about the extent of the leak, White House National Security Council spokesman John Kirby replied, “We don’t know what’s out there.”
“We don’t know who is responsible for this. And we don’t know if they have more than they plan to post,” he said.
“So we are monitoring this and following it up as best we can. But the truth and the honest answer to your question is that we don’t know and is that a concern for us? You’re damn right.’
Kirby added that US President Joe Biden was briefed on the matter late last week.
Meanwhile, State Department spokesman Vedant Patel said U.S. officials are “engaging with high-level allies and partners on this, including to reassure them of our commitment to protecting intelligence and the allegiance of the securing our partnerships”.
US officials have said that some documents containing estimates of battlefield casualties from Ukraine appear to have been altered to underestimate Russian losses.
Ukrainian presidential adviser Mykhailo Podolyak told Reuters news agency that documents related to the war in Ukraine contain a “very large amount of fictitious information”.
On Sunday, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s office said a document purporting to show US intelligence that Mossad, one of the country’s intelligence agencies, encouraged recent protests against Netanyahu’s plan to tighten scrutiny of the judiciary, ” lying and without any basis”.
One of the documents is said to include internal discussions between senior South Korean officials about US pressure on Seoul to supply weapons to Kiev, and the policy not to do so.
A South Korean presidential official said on Sunday the country was aware of reports of the leaked documents and planned to discuss “raised issues” with Washington.
The release appears to be the most serious public leak of classified information in years, though it is believed to be much smaller in size and scope compared to the 700,000 documents, videos and diplomatic cables that appeared on the WikiLeaks website in 2013.