Pentagon increases pressure on WikiLeaks to return military files

The Pentagon has demanded that WikiLeaks immediately erase the huge cache of secret US military files about the Afghan war it has posted online and hand over another 15,000 classified records in its possession.

Condemning the whistleblowers' website for inciting the leaking of military secrets, the Department of Defence warned it would examine ways to compel WikiLeaks to "do the right thing" if it did not do so voluntarily.

"The only acceptable course is for WikiLeaks to take steps to immediately return all versions of all of those documents to the US government and permanently delete them from its website, computers and records," Pentagon spokesman Geoff Morrell said yesterday.

"If doing the right thing is not good enough for them then we will figure out what alternatives we have to compel them to do the right thing."

Although the defence department has no independent power to enforce its demands, its increasingly threatening language is seen as a bid to deter WikiLeaks from releasing the 15,000 Afghan war records it has not published as well as an encrypted file recently added to the site entitled "insurance".

WikiLeaks posted more than 76,900 records of incidents and intelligence reports about the Afghan war on its website last month, providing a devastating portrait of the failing war. They reveal how coalition forces have killed hundreds of civilians in unreported incidents, how Taliban attacks have soared and how Nato commanders fear neighbouring Pakistan and Iran are fuelling the insurgency.

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