Army Offered To Pay Man To Infiltrate Wikileaks

Before the online site WikiLeaks published a trove of classified documents about the Afghanistan war, government investigators interviewed Boston-area acquaintances of a military analyst charged with providing other documents to the site in an effort to prevent additional leaks, according to one person interviewed in the probe.

The investigators from the Army and the State Department seemed to be "looking for classified documents that they thought to be in the Boston area," said the acquaintance, who would discuss the sensitive matter only on the condition of anonymity. "I got the impression they were still in the process of containing a leak."

The man, a computer expert who met Pfc. Bradley E. Manning in January, said he told the investigators in mid-June that he knew of no such documents.

The interview was among at least two investigators conducted in the Boston area after Manning was accused of giving WikiLeaks State Department cables and a video of a helicopter attack in which unarmed civilians were killed in Baghdad. Officials have said they are investigating whether Manning leaked the Afghanistan documents made public last week, a disclosure that prompted condemnation from the Obama administration.

The computer expert also said the Army offered him cash to, in his word, "infiltrate" WikiLeaks. "I turned them down," he said. "I don't want anything to do with this cloak-and-dagger stuff."

Army Criminal Investigation Division spokesman Chris Grey declined to comment on the claim. "We've got an ongoing investigation," he said. "We don't discuss our techniques and tactics."

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