Pentagon demands website stop publishing leaked war logs

WASHINGTON - The Pentagon demanded Thursday that a website that solicits leaked government secrets cancel any plan to publish more classified military documents and pull back tens of thousands of secret Afghan war logs already posted.

The demand, which the Pentagon has no independent power to enforce, is primarily aimed at preventing release of perhaps 15,000 secret documents that the website WikiLeaks has said it is holding. The Pentagon also hopes to stop WikiLeaks from making public the contents of a mammoth encrypted file recently added to the site. Contents of that file remain a mystery.

"We are asking them to do the right thing," Pentagon press secretary Geoff Morrell said. "I don't know that we're very confident they'll have a change of heart."

WikiLeaks posted nearly 77,000 classified military and other documents, mostly raw intelligence reports from Afghanistan, on its website July 25. The 15,000 additional documents are apparently related to that material.

The documents leaked so far illustrate the frustration of U.S. forces in fighting the protracted Afghan conflict and revived debate over the war's uncertain progress. The White House angrily denounced the leaks, saying they put the lives of Afghan informants and U.S. troops at risk.

Morrell called the material stolen property but would not address whether the demand is a prelude to legal action against the website or others. Morrell spoke at a Pentagon news conference that amounted to a televised public appeal to the secretive site and its editor, former computer hacker Julian Assange.

An Army private, Bradley Manning, is jailed on suspicion of providing classified material to WikiLeaks in a previous case. He is a "person of interest" in the latest release, Morrell said.

As a practical matter, the Pentagon has little if any hope that it can recapture all electronic forms of the documents already placed online and since downloaded by countless people.