WASHINGTON- Before the online site WikiLeaks published a trove ofclassified documents about the Afghanistan war, governmentinvestigators interviewed Boston-area acquaintances of a militaryanalyst charged with providing other documents to the site in aneffort to preempt additional leaks, according to one personinterviewed in the probe.
The investigators from the Army and the State Department seemedto be "looking for classified documents that they thought to be inthe Boston area," said the acquaintance, who would discuss thesensitive matter only on the condition of anonymity. "I got theimpression that we're still in the process of containing a leak."
The man, a computer expert who met Pfc. Bradley Manning inJanuary, said he told the investigators in mid-June that he knew ofno such documents.
The interview was among at least two investigators conducted inthe Boston area after Manning was accused of giving WikiLeaks StateDepartment cables and a video of a helicopter attack in whichunarmed civilians were killed in Baghdad. Officials have saidManning also is a suspect in the leak of the Afghanistan documentsmade public last week, a disclosure that prompted condemnation fromthe Obama administration.
The computer expert also said the Army offered him cash to, inhis word, "infiltrate" WikiLeaks. "I turned them down," he said. "Idon't want anything to do with this cloak-and-dagger stuff."
Army Criminal Investigation Division spokesman Chris Greydeclined to comment on the claim. "We've got an ongoinginvestigation," he said. "We don't discuss our techniques andtactics."
Another Manning acquaintance who was questioned saidinvestigators "assumed that he was the one who did it and weretrying to understand why, what was going on with himpsychologically, to either make it so nobody gets to this point inthe future or spot people who've gotten to this point and make surethey didn't do any damage."
This acquaintance, also a computer expert who spoke on thecondition of anonymity, is affiliated with the MassachusettsInstitute of Technology. He said he was interviewed twice in June inCambridge, shortly after Manning was detained. He was charged inJuly.
Manning, who lived in Potomac, Md., and was stationed at FortDrum, N.Y., before shipping out to Baghdad last year, had hoped hewould serve his time and then use the G.I. Bill to go to college.His military attorney has declined to comment.
"He was definitely interested in making a positive impact on theworld," said Danny Clark, a friend of Manning's who runs a smalltech firm in Cambridge and has declined to be interviewed bymilitary investigators.
Meanwhile, friends and family are raising money for Manning'sdefense, including a private lawyer to augment the Army-provideddefense lawyer. The San Francisco-based war resistors' group Courageto Resist has raised $11,418 and is aiming for $100,000, assuming a"sizable contribution from WikiLeaks," said Jeff Paterson, projectdirector. Manning has been transferred from Kuwait, where he hadbeen detained, to Quantico, Va. He was charged in military court inJuly and will have a preliminary hearing to determine if he shouldface a court-martial.
Adm. Mike Mullen, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, isscheduled to appear on NBC's "Meet the Press" and CBS's "Face theNation" on Sunday to further denounce WikiLeaks for endangering thelives of U.S. troops and Afghan civilians.
One senior military official balked at the suggestion by DefenseSecretary Robert Gates that the WikiLeaks disclosure could cause thePentagon to limit the distribution of classified information tocombat field units, where it is harder to monitor what analysts aredownloading.
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