So after all the bluster and threats against Wikileaks, the group’s greatest crime was revealing the sordid nature of the Afghan quagmire:
A defence taskforce has concluded that leaked US military documents on Afghanistan said nothing about Australian forces that hadn’t already been disclosed.
The investigation, launched in July after the whistleblower organisation Wikileaks released some 77,000 US military documents on the Afghanistan conflict, found there had been no direct significant adverse impact on Australia’s national interests.
Defence said operational areas of the department had confirmed that necessary measures were taken to mitigate against risks to operational security.…
As well, no local sources were clearly identified and steps had been taken to mitigate the risk of that occurring.
“The taskforce found that significant operational issues relating to Australia referred to in the leaked materials had already been publicly reported by Defence and, in most cases, reported in greater detail than in the leaked materials,” it said in a statement.
The documents leaked were predominantly US military field and intelligence reports, which featured occasional mentions of coalition nations.