WikiLeaks is "morally guilty" over the release of classified US documents on the Afghan war, defense secretary Robert Gates said this afternoon.
He was speaking as investigators broadened their probe of the leak. The whistle-blowing website published tens of thousands of war records a week ago, a move the Pentagon claimed could cost lives and damage the trust of allies by exposing US intelligence gathering methods and names of Afghan contacts.
Mr Gates and Admiral Mike Mullen, the top US military officer, appeared on television talk shows renewing those concerns amid fears WikiLeaks may publish more documents.
"My attitude on this is that there are two areas of culpability. One is legal culpability. And that's up to the Justice Department and others - that's not my arena," Mr Gates told the ABC News show This Week with Christiane Amanpour.
"But there's also a moral culpability. And that's where I think the verdict is 'guilty' on WikiLeaks. They have put this out without any regard whatsoever for the consequences."
The release of the classified documents has fanned doubts about the US strategy to turn the tide in the unpopular war. July was the deadliest month for US forces since the conflict started in 2001.
Admiral Mullen, speaking on NBC's Meet the Press, called the leak unprecedented" in its scope and volume.
The US investigation is focusing on a soldier who worked as an army intelligence analyst in Iraq, US officials say.
The analyst is already under arrest and charged with leaking a classified video showing a 2007 helicopter attack that killed a dozen people in Iraq, including two journalists.
Adrian Lamo, who reported the analyst to authorities this year after receiving what appeared to be incriminating messages from him, said he believed US investigators were also looking at people close to the s analyst with ties to WikiLeaks.
US officials declined to comment on the investigation. Mr Gates said last week he had brought in the FBI so the probe could go "wherever it needs to go."
The analyst is being held at a detention facility at Quantico Marine Base in Virginia.
WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange has said his group held back 15,000 papers to protect innocent people from harm and was reviewing them at the rate of about 1,000 a day.
In an interview with the BBC last week, he did not say if and when they would be published.
The group's stated aim is to expose government and corporate corruption. Mr Assange has accused Mr Gates of attacking WikiLeaks to distract attention from civilian killings and other bloodshed in the Afghan conflict.
Reuters