The Pentagon is having a tough time taking actions following the recent leaking of confidential documents that involve the national security of the United States’ friendly allies.
Pentagon investigators are scrambling with more questions than answers five days after Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin declared that troves of highly sensitive intelligence had been leaked online.
Among the Pentagon’s questions, there is one that stood out, asking “Are more leaks coming?” However, officials have been answering that “we don’t know.”
Following the leak, the Defense Department vowed on Monday that it would re-investigate those who can access sensitive information similar to those found on several social media sites.
According to Pentagon spokesman Chris Meagher, the investigators are “still trying to assess what might be out there.”
“We’re still investigating how this happened, as well as the scope of the issue,” said Meagher.
“There have been steps to take a closer look at how this type of information is distributed and to whom,” the Pentagon spokesman added.
Moreover, Meagher also admitted that the documents that were leaked online are “similar in format to those used to provide daily updates to our senior leaders on Ukraine and Russia-related operations,” adding that they also included “other intelligence updates.”
Although the Pentagon spokesman refused to speak on the “veracity” of the leaked documents, some of the said documents reportedly included critical information that are related to the weapons supplies. However, some appeared to have been “altered.”
He also urged the public to not share the images of the papers and claimed that Austin was first notified of the breach on April 6 and began conducting daily meetings the next day with senior leaders to discuss the controversy.
“The documents that we are aware of are dated the 28th of February and 1st of March,” Austin told reporters on Tuesday during a news conference alongside Secretary of State Antony Blinken.
“I don’t know if there are other documents that have been online before,” he added.
“These are things that we will find out as we continue to investigate,” Austin said before adding, “We will continue to investigate and try to determine the full scope of the activity.”
The Pentagon chief also claimed that the documents “were somewhere in the web, and where exactly and who had access at that point? We don’t know. We simply don’t know at this point.”
“Again, I won’t speculate … I will tell you that we take this very seriously and we will continue to investigate and turn over every rock until we find the source of this and the extent of it,” he continued.
