WikiLeaks' Assange Strikes Back at Pentagon

(July 30) -- A day after a senior Pentagon official asserted that WikiLeaks may have blood on its hands for posting classified documents on the war in Afghanistan, the site's founder blasted the Pentagon's leadership today for not announcing a broad inquiry into the war efforts.

In a video aired on CNN, a somber-faced Julian Assange, editor of WikiLeaks, said he was "disappointed in what was left out" of Defense Secretary Robert Gates' comment. Gates "spoke about hypothetical blood," Assange said, reading from a statement, "but the grounds of Iraq and Afghanistan are covered with real blood."

Assange went on to accuse the Pentagon chief of overseeing "the killing of thousands of children and adults" in Iraq and Afghanistan, and criticized him personally for not announcing a criminal investigation based on the the leaked document.

"We will not be suppressed," Assange said.

Assange's comments are part of an escalating war of words surrounding some 70,000 leaked document that WikiLeaks posted on its website last weekend. The documents, related to the war in Afghanistan, have sparked an international debate, with U.S. government officials initially downplaying their importance and WikiLeaks saying the documents point to deeper problems with U.S. involvement in Afghanistan.

Assange has argued that the documents, which WikiLeaks calls the Afghan War Diary, point to war crimes, while U.S. officials say they do not contradict any official positions. But after initially referring to the thousands of documents as "old news," senior government officials stepped up the rhetoric on the massive leak, claiming that the information could endanger the lives of Afghan informants and U.S. soldiers.

"Mr. Assange can say whatever he likes about the greater good he thinks he and his source are doing, but the truth is they might already have on their hands the blood of some young soldier or that of an Afghan family," Navy Adm. Mike Mullen, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, told reporters Thursday at the Pentagon.

Gates also harshly condemned the leaks, while claiming that documents themselves added little new to understanding the situation in Afghanistan. "These documents represent a mountain of raw data and individual impressions, most several years old, devoid of context or analysis," Gates said at the briefing.

The U.S. soldier at the center of the probe surrounding the leaked documents has been moved from a detention facility in Kuwait to a brig in Quantico, Va., according to the military. Pvt. Bradley Manning, 22, who was working as an intelligence analyst in Iraq, had been held in Kuwait since his arrest in May after WikiLeaks posted a video of a deadly American airstrike.

The video depicted a U.S. helicopter gunship attack in Iraq that killed two Iraqi employees of Reuters.

Although Manning has not been charged with leaking the thousands of new documents, it's clear from official statements that the Pentagon suspects he may be the source. A spokesman for the Army's Criminal Investigative Division, which is heading the probe, told AOL News earlier this week that the leak of the latest documents was being handled as part of the Manning investigation.

The transfer, which took place Thursday, was done because the facility in Kuwait is only meant for short-term confinement. Manning is expected to remain confined as the military investigates the case, according to the Army. Depending on what the investigation finds, he could face court-martial proceedings.