Washington, Dec. 22: The CIA has launched a task force to assess the impact of unauthorised publication of thousands of secret US diplomatic cables by the whistle-blower website Wikileaks on the agency’s foreign relationships and operations.
Called Wikileaks Task Force or WTF, it is focused on the immediate impact of the most recently released files, The Washington Post reported.
“One issue is whether the agency’s ability to recruit informants could be damaged by declining confidence in the US government’s ability to keep secrets,” it said.
“The (CIA) director asked the task force to examine whether the latest release of Wikileaks documents might affect the agency’s foreign relationships or operations,” the CIA spokesman, Mr George Little, told the daily.
Meanwhile, the state department spokesman, Mr P.J. Crowley, said America’s relationship with other countries is based on mutual interests, which are unchanged by any document that has been released by Wikileaks.