The first source said the number of people who had access to the documents underscored that confidential information was perhaps being shared too much with employees.
The US national security community is grappling with the fallout from the release of dozens of classified documents, including the impact of sharing classified information within the government and on ties with other countries, two US officials said.
Reuters has reviewed more than 50 of these documents, labeled “Secret” and “Top Secret”, which first appeared on social media sites in early March and allegedly reveal details of Ukraine’s military vulnerabilities and information about allies, including Israel, South Korea and Turkey. The material didn’t get much attention until a New York Times article on Friday.
Reuters has not independently verified the authenticity of the documents. US officials said some estimates of Ukrainian battlefield casualties appear to have been altered to underestimate Russian losses.
The leak was so alarming within the Pentagon that the matter was referred to the Justice Department, which opened a criminal investigation into the release of the documents.
Two US defense officials, speaking on condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the matter, said the Pentagon was reviewing procedures on the extent to which some of the US’s most sensitive secrets are shared.
Some of the documents, one of the officials said, would likely be available to thousands of people with security clearances from the US and allied governments, despite being highly confidential, as the information directly affects those countries.
The Pentagon said in a statement on Sunday that an interagency effort was assessing the impact the documents could have on U.S. national security as well as that of close U.S. allies, a standard procedure known as a “damage assessment” for information leaks. confidential.
The first source said the number of people who had access to the documents underscores that sensitive information was perhaps being shared too much with employees who might not require the level of detail in some of the documents.
“The Pentagon has had to restrict unrestrained access to some of the most sensitive information when they (have) no justifiable reason to have it,” the first source declared.
The two officials further said that while the leaks were highly concerning, many of them only provided excerpts from February and March – when they were dated – but did not appear to reveal anything about future operations.
While the release of documents appears to be the most serious public leak of classified information in years, officials say it so far falls short of the scale and scope of the 700,000 documents, videos and diplomatic cables that appeared on the WikiLeaks website in 2013.
