Fox columnist suggests US cyber attack on WikiLeaks

A former US state department advisor has suggested that a Government-sanctioned "electronic assault" on WikiLeaks and its internet service provider (ISP) could be appropriate in retaliation for the whistleblower website's latest leak of classified material.

In an opinion published by FoxNews.com, Christian Whiton listed five actions the US "could" take in retaliation of the leak of 400,000 classified documents on the Iraq war over the weekend.

Apart from calling for WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange and his staff to be indicted for "espionage" and seeking for their assets to be frozen, Whiton also said that a state-sanctioned IT security attack was a possible course of action.

"Give the new US Cyber-Command a chance to prove its worth by ordering it to electronically assault WikiLeaks and any telecommunications company offering its services to this organisation," Whiton suggested.

He also said the US Government could declare WikiLeaks as an "enemy combatant", opening the possibility for "non-judicial actions".

Another suggestion called for "meaningful congressional hearings to look into how this much classified information could ever be compromised".

It came as an Australian Defence Department taskforce concluded that no major damage had occurred from WikiLeaks' release of Afghanistan war diaries in July.

The Australian taskforce was only just starting to sort through the files from the Iraq release.