NewsRescue
According to Politico, the US government is “in crisis mode” as allies confront it about suspected confidential Pentagon documents that were allegedly posted online weeks ago. According to people who spoke with the site, there is no consensus in Washington about how to handle damage management.
Politico reported on Monday that the administration of US President Joe Biden is rushing to allay the worries of foreign governments, citing four anonymous officials, one from the US, two from Europe, and one from a Five Eyes member country (the US, UK, Australia, Canada, and New Zealand).
Other nations have questioned the US how the leak occurred, who was responsible, and what it was doing “to ensure the information was removed from social media,” the outlet reported. According to reports, the Biden administration has pressured tech companies to remove the photographs.
In late February and early March, images of dozens of documents that appeared to be briefing materials put together for the US Joint Chiefs of Staff started to circulate online. They spread from the well-known chat app Discord to 4Chan and onto popular social media platforms like Twitter and Telegram. They subsequently surfaced last week in important news sources.
The Pentagon has not disputed the veracity of the papers but has issued a warning that some may have undergone modification. The only instance of a slide that contained US estimates of casualties in the Ukraine conflict that was altered and shared online after the original was uploaded exists so far. To make the situation appear more favourable for Russia, the numbers were altered. The entire cache of materials has been denounced by Kiev as a Russian disinformation campaign.
According to a Politico source, following the leak, Ukraine should not trust the US with its military secrets.
“Ukrainians now owe money to Americans. The European authority insisted that they make amends and provide compensation.
Although the US perspective on the conflict appears to be a major theme in many of the documents, it is not the only subject they cover. Some reportedly provide American intelligence on the Middle East, South Korea, Israel, and Canada and show that Washington is snooping on its closest allies.
Politico claims that as of Sunday, not even senior US officials with responsibilities for the above nations were aware of the Biden administration’s plan for handling the problem.
A senior US official told the publication, “I have no idea what the plan is. “I want to know how we’re going to handle it myself,” she said.
