Obama says leaked documents justify policy shift


Agencies July 27, 2010

WASHINGTON: President Barack Obama vowed Tuesday to see his Afghan plan through to its conclusion, and said that the leaked documents on the war proved that he was right to overhaul a failed US strategy in the war there.

Obama said the documents, which included snapshots of chaos, suggestions of Afghan corruption, revealed civilian casualties and accused Pakistani agents of cooperating with the Taliban, did not contain much new information.

“While I am concerned about the disclosure of sensitive information from the battlefield that could potentially jeopardise individuals or operations, the fact is these documents don’t reveal any issues that haven’t already informed our public debate on Afghanistan,” Obama said.

“Indeed they point to the same challenges that led me to conduct an extensive review of our policy last fall,” added Obama, in his first public reaction to the release of the documents on Sunday.

“For seven years, we failed to implement a strategy adequate to the challenge in this region,” Obama said, noting the area was the origin of the September 11 attacks in 2001 and other planned extremist actions.

“That’s why we have substantially increased our commitment there, insisted upon greater accountability from Afghanistan and Pakistan, developed a new strategy that can work,” he said.

“Now we have to see that strategy through.”

Meanwhile, the chairman of the US joints chiefs of staff Admiral Mike Mullen said that information in leaked documents on the war in Afghanistan did not call into question US strategy or Washington’s relationship with Pakistan.

He said the administration was still “working through” all the documents, adding that most of the files appeared to be “field level information, raw intelligence.”

US relations with Pakistan have “dramatically” improved in the past year and Pakistan has launched offensives against extremists in the northwest, involving tens of thousands of troops, Mullen said.

But he added Washington remained concerned about the ISI, amid allegations it has ties to Laskhar-e-Taiba (LeT), blamed for the 2008 attacks on Mumbai, and the Haqqani network.

Mullen said “any links which exist with terrorist organisations, whether it’s Haqqani or LeT, it’s just completely unacceptable.”

Senate Foreign Relations Committee chairman John Kerry also cautioned against relying too heavily on the documents,   saying: “I think it’s important not to overhype or get excessively excited about the meaning of those documents.”

“People need to be very careful in evaluating what they read there,” he said, notably underscoring that charges that Pakistani intelligence officials backed Afghan insurgents were “not new allegations.”

Pakistan’s ambassador to the US Husain Haqqani said on Tuesday that the allegations fueled by leaked American military intelligence reports were out of step with the emerging Islamabad-Washington cooperative partnership to fight terrorism.

Speaking on CNN, he said: “As the government of Pakistan works with the US to fight terrorists, allegations that any arm of the Pakistani government is collaborating or cooperating with the Taliban are absolutely wrong.”

Haqqani called the leaked documents “first takes, written in the fog of war, based on unprocessed intelligence.”

Haqqani explained his point by referring to the unverified “first draft of intelligence” the US relied on of Iraq having weapons of mass destruction in 2003.

“Everybody in the US believed in the intelligence that seemed to indicate there were weapons of mass destruction in Iraq,” the envoy said. “So I think that first unprocessed intelligence is not always correct. That is why the US has persisted in maintaining its alliance with Pakistan.”

Asked to comment on remarks by Afghan officials who said they were ‘unsurprised’ by the reports, the ambassador urged the need to differentiate between rumour and fact.

Published in The Express Tribune, July 28th, 2010.

COMMENTS (4)

Zainab Ali | 13 years ago | Reply It is hoped that the new policy in Afghanistan brings peace to the region based on reconciliation with Taliban.
Muhammad Faizan | 13 years ago | Reply The leak of the document seems to be more synthesized, than some random act of curiosity by any independent entity. This could be done to prepare a valid ground, with reasons & excuses, for the Afghan-War failure and hence gradual retreat of the US marines.
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