Posted on 07/27/2010 2:38:13 PM PDT by James C. Bennett
LONDON: A 22-year-old US Army intelligence analyst, facing a court-martial, appears to be behind the biggest leak in US military history of classified documents on the war in Afghanistan that also exposed Pakistan's double- game in the war-torn country, including its Taliban links.
Bradley Manning, who allegedly boasted online that he was going to reveal "the truth" about the war in Afghanistan, is believed to be the main suspect who leaked the information to Wikileaks, the Telegraph reported.
Manning was arrested in Baghdad in May and charged earlier this month with multiple counts of mishandling and leaking classified data, after a computer hacker turned him in, the paper said.
Wikileaks, the website known for publishing secret government documents, has exposed Pakistani ISI's links with Afghan insurgents and Taliban, undermining US-led efforts to stabilise the war-torn nation. With over 90,000 US military documents leaked on the website, the expose is considered to be a huge embarrassment for the US.
During online chats with the hacker, a man thought to be Manning said he had passed material relating to Afghanistan to Julian Assange, the founder of the Wikileaks website which leaked more than 92,000 secret documents to select media.
Manning, who is currently awaiting a court martial, is widely assumed to have been the man who passed the documents to Assange, though investigators believe he must have had accomplices.
Manning is alleged to be a whistle-blower who used the online name Bradass87 when he contacted a high-profile Californian computer hacker, Adrian Lamo, on May 21, the paper said.
Over the following five days, Bradass87 held a series of online conversations with Lamo, in which he identified himself as "an army intelligence analyst, deployed to eastern Baghdad" with "unprecedented access to classified networks".
He said his job gave him access to two high-security networks: the Secret Internet Protocol Router Network, SIPRNET, which carries US diplomatic and military intelligence; and the Joint Worldwide Intelligence Communications System, which includes "top secret" classification.
Bradass87 said the networks had enabled him to see "incredible things, awful things that belong in the public domain and not on some server stored in a dark room in Washington DC almost criminal political backdealings the non- PR version of world events and crises".
He said he had downloaded 260,000 classified or sensitive State Department cables and transmitted them by computer to Wikileaks.
He claimed he copied some of the information on to blank CDs labelled "Lady Gaga" and hummed along to non-existent music while he downloaded secret information.
"I want people to see the truth," he added. "It's open diplomacy it's Climategate with a global scope and breathtaking depth it's beautiful and horrifying. It's public data, it belongs in the public domain."
Unknown to Bradass87, Lamo had contacted the US military two days into the online chat, fearing that the leak of information would endanger lives.
On May 25, he met Pentagon officials in a branch of Starbucks and gave them a printout of the online chat. Manning was arrested the next day at US Forward Operating Base Hammer near Baghdad, the Telegraph said.
Manning is also suspected of being behind the leak of a video, distributed by Assange in April, of a 2007 US helicopter strike in Baghdad which killed a dozen people.
Yesterday, Lamo said he had no doubt Manning was behind the vast amount of leaked material from Afghanistan, though he strongly suspected the young analyst from Maryland could not have acted alone.
"It was not my impression that he had the technical expertise to carry out some of these actions," he was quoted as saying.
arent these docs supposed to be secure? what young intel worker worth his salt would do it.
I have a hard time believing this...
Well, whenever they do find the leaker, I hope he’s given the same right to keep breathing as the Rosenbergs.
It’s an interesting story. The kid felt the US was going down the wrong path, and only he could save America. So he downloads all this data...90,000 documents. Then after he gives them to WikiLeaks...he wants to go out and brag about it privately to someone he felt he could trust. That guy immediately saw an issue...called the authorities...and the kid is sitting there now...contemplating the rest of his life behind bars. They could put one charge up for each single message, and ensure he never walks free (90,000 years adds up).
Meanwhile, his friends at WikiLeaks have offered to pay legal counsel for the kid....which was awful nice of them. The minute the kid hits the military prison...I’m pretty sure that dozens of folks will want to clobber him...so his chances of surviving more than ten years is pretty much a 50-50 chance.
As for WikiLeaks? Well...the US government is looking for the head guy, and once they find him...he’s likely to be taken to the US for a court case there....and probably will be found guilty as well. He will won’t be as lucky in getting to a military prison...he’ll head to a standard US federal prison...where his safety will be a daily matter.
When I was 22, I had a clearance but I knew enough not to let what I knew out. Age is no excuse.
Court-martial him then hang him.
Manning had access to all these documents. All he had to do was copy them on a hard drive.
Scouts Out! Cavalry Ho!
I’m suspicious about this, too.
I am partly of the opinion that the leaks were controlled, and deliberate, to make a case to force Pakistan into a corner and tackle the issue of its support for terrorism. In the past, Pakistan had been using its control of the Afghan routes to basically blackmail the US military.
At that age I was also an Intelligence Analyst and had access to much higher level information than that. I would sooner cut my own arm off than even leave that stuff unguarded, much less give it to someone. He needs to be sent to Guantanamo!
For them to call Manning an “Intelligence Expert”, as a Spec.4 (busted to PFC for assaulting another soldier), at 22, on his first enlistment, pretty much fresh out of Huachuca, and pending discharge for “adjustment disorder” is ludicrious.
He’s still a puppy. A fu**ed-up puppy.
If there is not already, there certainly will be blood on his hands for what he did, the blood of far better soldiers than him.
I hope we hang this little traitor by his cojones. There is no excuse for what he did. I have real material interest in this. My son is a Marine and will be deployed to Afgahnistan next month. As a retired Marine myself, I still have many friends who are ther now, or will be going shortly. This little bastard needs to feel the full extent of our treason laws!!!!!!!!!
That even beats this guy...
"Darron Bennalford Anderson, of Oklahoma, was found guilty in 1994, of crimes ranging from rape, to kidnapping, larceny, robbery and kidnapping. His initial sentence was two thousand two hundred years.
Unhappy with the sentence, he chose to appeal the ruling, and when his appeal was decided. However, instead of the result he had hoped for, a reduction in his sentence, he received further sentences, including four thousand years each for sodomy and rape, five hundred years for grand larceny, and one thousand seven hundred and fifty years, and a thousand years respectively for kidnapping and burglary.
In 1997, he once again appealed this sentence, and this time, had some success. The supreme court of appeals ruled that the larceny conviction was double jeopardy, considering that he had been sentenced already for burglary.
Currently, Mr. Anderson is eligible for parole in the year twelve thousand, seven hundred and forty four"
do you think it will really happen that way?
Yeah, but you have to take time served off that total.
Don’t even let him drop. Slowly hoist him an inch or two off the deck.... then let him kick and swing for a few.
There’s also the possibility that this was done to undermine any support for the Afghan war.
It’s similar to when Chris Dodd, as a young congressman, said that the US should get out of Cambodian and give the Cambodians “peace” - which led to the deaths of millions of innocent people when we handed it over to Pol Pot. There was a good article about this in the Journal this morning.
I think Obama was forced into modest public support for the Afghan war (late and less than requested, after having instituted ROEs that resulted in more US service members dead in 18 months that in Bush’s entire 8 years) but really wants to give it to the Taliban.
This is to allow him to do so. He’s hoping it will have the Cambodia effect among journalists and opinion shapers.
All 91,000 + documents given by ONE person.....?
Anyhow, bring back firing squads for those who commit treason, end the whistleblower BS, and the problem will rectify itself a whole lot more than currently.
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