Fury rages over leaked Afghan documents
WASHINGTON—Fresh diplomatic fury over alleged Pakistani ties to the Taliban flared anew as the White House scrambled to downplay a trove of leaked U.S. military documents that show the blow-by-blow of six dismal years of war in Afghanistan. The Obama administration, which initially condemned as a “national security threat” the Sunday release of a 200,000-page archive by the non-profit group WikiLeaks.org, now is dismissing the data as largely inconsequential. There’s no broad new revelations in this,” White House spokesman Robert Gibbs told reporters Monday. “What is known about our relationship and our efforts in both Afghanistan and Pakistan are not markedly changed by what is in these documents. But the White House message was overshadowed by a flurry of diplomatic sparring between Afghan and Pakistani officials, who traded recriminations over U.S. military leaks that suggested Pakistan’s spy agency, the ISI, is entwined with the Taliban.
The war on terrorism will not succeed unless we address the root causes . . . the role forces between the borders of Afghanistan play in destabilizing activity here in Afghanistan,” said Waheed Omar, spokesman for Afghan President Hamid Karzai, in a blunt reference to Pakistan. Pakistani officials dismissed the accusations, pointing fingers in turn at low-level Afghan officials as the dubious sources of the secret U.S. documents. They also stressed that the documents, which cover a six-year stretch ending in 2009, do not reflect significant improvements in Pakistan’s efforts against insurgents this year.
One of the documents suggested four Canadian deaths in 2006, originally blamed on fighting with the Taliban, were actually a result of friendly fire. The military swiftly denied that. The U.S. incident report said four Canadian soldiers were killed and seven wounded by a bomb dropped by an American jet during Operation Medusa in the Panjwaii district of Kandahar province. Killed were Warrant Officer Richard Nolan, Warrant Officer Frank Mellish, Sgt. Shane Stachnik and Pte. William Cushley. It has long been known that Pte. Mark Anthony Graham was killed in the same area the following day by friendly fire.
Debate in the U.S., meanwhile, raged over the political and security fallout of the WikiLeaks disclosures, which some conservative commentators branded as “WikiTreason.”
If there was any consensus in Washington, it centred on the frailty of President Barack Obama’s Afghanistan strategy, which is due for review in December.
Accourding Gareth Porter the raw nerve here is the Pakistan-Taliban connection, which all along has been the deadly weakness for the Obama administration. a U.S. historian specializing in national security policy.
That’s the main political pain in these documents and they are likely to accelerate the decline of political support for the war.
The leaked archive served also as a collective blow to the NATO alliance. In Germany, Der Spiegel, one of three publications given early access to the WikiLeaks files, sparked a furor with revelations that the U.S. holds a dim view of Germany’s efforts, with the Germany military portrayed as an army “that stumbled into the conflict with great naiveté.”
In Ottawa, Foreign Affairs Minister Lawrence Cannon shrugged off the flood of disclosures, saying the controversy is about “leaked U.S. documents — nothing to do with Canada.”
In fact, Canada is referenced in more than 200 separate files, according to an electronic search conducted by the Toronto Star, including a 2007 memo that showed the United States sought Canada’s help in pressuring the governments of Saudi Arabia and South Africa to put the squeeze on Taliban fundraising efforts.
Another report from 2007 is altogether bizarre, describing a suspicious letter from Canada arriving at Kandahar Airfield addressed to Prince Charles, which was X-rayed amid fears it contained explosives. After declaring the letter safe, investigators opened it, only to discover its author was offering to sell the British royals information concerning “the Italian International Mob” for a cool $10 million. But the vast majority of the Canadian references, like those of other NATO allies, show the drip-drip-drip of daily incidents, from roadside bombs to civilian casualties, that have become familiar hallmarks of the nearly nine-year struggle to stabilize Afghanistan. The disclosures come at an especially awkward moment in Washington, where a critical war-financing bill is poised for debate. Those policies are at a critical stage, and these documents may very well underscore the stakes and make the calibrations needed to get the policy right more urgent,” said Senator John Kerry, the Democrat who heads the Foreign Relations Committee.
source: thestar.com
