US military plan to destroy Wikileaks leaked

A US Army Counterintelligence Agency report into Wikileaks which suggested destroying the reputation of the whistleblower web site has been published by, appropriately enough, Wikileaks.

The 2008 plan [PDF], which is marked as classified, identified Wikileaks as 'a potential force protection, counterintelligence, OPSEC, and INFOSEC threat to the US Army' and details some of the documents that have appeared on the site, including a manual for prisoner handling from Guantanamo Bay and a map of Abu Ghraib prison.

“Wikileaks.org uses trust as a center of gravity by assuring insiders, leakers, and whistleblowers who pass information to Wikileaks.org personnel or who post information to the Web site that they will remain anonymous,” the report's Executive Summary concludes.

“The identification, exposure, or termination of employment of or legal actions against current or former insiders, leakers, or whistleblowers could damage or destroy this center of gravity and deter others from using Wikileaks.org to make such information public.”

The report suggests that foreign governments could be using the site to learn about US Army secrets and recommends training staff on more secure control of secret information, as well as investigating if current staff members are leaking to the site.

“As two years have passed since the date of the report, with no WikiLeaks' source exposed, it appears that this plan was ineffective,” said Wikileaks.

“As an odd justificaton for the plan, the report claims that ``Several foreign countries including China, Israel, North Korea, Russia, Vietnam, and Zimbabwe have denounced or blocked access to the Wikileaks.org website''. The report provides further justification by enumerating embarrassing stories broken by WikiLeaks.

Wikileaks has broken many important stories over the last few years, despite being beset with legal action and a chronic shortage of funds.