WikiLeaks set to publish more files

THE online whistle-blower WikiLeaks said it will continue to publish more secret files from governments around the world despite US demands to cancel plans to release classified military documents.

“I can assure you that we will keep publishing documents – that’s what we do,” a WikiLeaks spokesman, who says he goes by the name Daniel Schmitt in order to protect his identity, told The Associated Press in an interview yesterday.

Schmitt said he could not comment on specific documents but asserted the publication of classified documents about the Afghanistan war directly contributed to the public’s understanding of the conflict.

“Knowledge is the only way to help create something like safety,” Schmitt said.

“Hopefully with this understanding, public scrutiny will then influence governments to develop better politics.”

He rejected allegations that the group’s publication of leaked US government documents was a threat to America’s national security or put lives at risk.

“For this reason, we conveyed a request to the White House prior to the publication, asking that the International Security Assistance Force provide us with reviewers,” Schmitt said.

“That request remains open. However, the Pentagon has stated it is not interested in ‘harm minimisation’ and has not contacted us, directly, or indirectly to discuss this offer.”

The Nato-led ISAF security force is mostly deployed in Afghanistan’s less volatile north.

The Pentagon has maintained the Defense Department had no direct contact with WikiLeaks about possible efforts to redact those documents to make them less of a security threat.

White House spokesman Tommy Vietor said it was “absolutely, unequivocally not true” that WikiLeaks had offered to let US government officials go through the documents to make sure no innocent people were identified.

The Pentagon demanded WikiLeaks cancel any plan to publish more classified military documents and pull back tens of thousands of secret Afghan war logs already posted on the Internet.

The demand to stop publishing more classified documents, which the Pentagon has no independent power to enforce, is primarily aimed at preventing release of approximately 15,000 secret documents WikiLeaks has said it is holding.