WASHINGTON — The Obama administration moved forcefully Monday to contain damage from the release of more than a quarter-million classified diplomatic files, branding the action as an attack on the United States and raising the prospect of legal action against online whistle-blower WikiLeaks.
Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton said that WikiLeaks acted illegally in posting the material. She said the Obama administration was taking “aggressive steps to hold responsible those who stole this information.”
White House spokesman Robert Gibbs said the U.S. would not rule out taking action against WikiLeaks. Attorney General Eric Holder said the administration would prosecute if violations of federal law are found in an ongoing criminal investigation of the incident.
Gibbs said President Barack Obama was briefed on the impending massive leak last week and was “not pleased” about the breach of classified documents. “This is a serious violation of the law,” Gibbs said. “This is a serious threat to individuals that both carry out and assist in our foreign policy.”
The White House on Monday ordered a government-wide review of how agencies safeguard sensitive information. Clinton said steps were already being taken to tighten oversight of diplomatic files. That action would follow a similar move by the Pentagon after leaks of military files.
The U.S. documents contained raw comments normally muffled by diplomatic politesse: Saudi Arabia’s King Abdullah pressing the U.S. to “cut off the head of the snake” by taking action against Iran’s nuclear program. Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi described as “feckless” and “vain.” German Chancellor Angela Merkel dismissed as “risk averse and rarely creative.”
The release of those documents and others containing unflattering assessments of world leaders was a clear embarrassment to the administration. The director of the White House’s Office of Management and Budget, Jacob Lew, said in ordering the agencywide assessment Monday that the disclosures are unacceptable and will not be tolerated.
“This disclosure is not just an attack on America’s foreign policy interests,” Clinton said in her first comments since the weekend leaks. “It is an attack on the international community: the alliances and partnerships, the conversations and negotiations that safeguard global security and advance economic prosperity.”
“It puts people’s lives in danger, threatens our national security and undermines our efforts to work with other countries,” she told reporters at the State Department.
WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange alleged that the administration was trying to cover up evidence of serious “human rights abuse and other criminal behavior” by the U.S. government. WikiLeaks posted the documents just hours after it claimed its website had been hit by a cyberattack that made the site inaccessible for much of the day.
Clinton would not discuss the specific contents of the cables but said the administration “deeply regrets” any embarrassment caused by their disclosure. At the same time, she said Americans should be “proud” of the work that U.S. diplomats do for the country and that they would not change the tone or content of their reports back to Washington.
She did acknowledge that newly released cables that reveal concerns among Arab world leaders about Iran’s growing nuclear capability have a strong basis in reality.
“It should not be a surprise to anyone that Iran is a great concern,” she said, adding that the comments reported in the documents “confirm the fact that Iran poses a very serious threat in the eyes of her neighbors.”
Clinton’s comments came before she left Washington on a four-nation tour of Central Asia and the Persian Gulf. She alluded to discussions she expects to have about the leaked documents with officials from Europe and elsewhere. Some of those diplomats may be cited in the leaked documents, confronting her with uncomfortable conversations.
On the Web:
http://cablegate.wikileaks.org/
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