By David S. Cloud, Los Angeles Times

Washington: The disclosure of classified reports about the Afghanistan war revealed tactics to the enemy and could endanger individuals who provided intelligence to the U.S. and its allies, Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates said Thursday.

Gates called the disclosure of the documents a "major security breach" and said "the battlefield consequences are potentially severe and dangerous." His statements were his first public comments since the anti-secrecy group WikiLeaks posted more than 70,000 war documents from 2004 to 2009 on its website Sunday.

A large-scale Pentagon effort is underway to review the voluminous files. Officials said they had already found documents that have the names of Afghans who supplied information to U.S. troops, though WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange has said the group withheld 15,000 documents to avoid identifying such individuals.

It was not clear how many sensitive sources had been revealed. Gates and Adm. Michael G. Mullen, the chairman of the joint chiefs of staff who appeared with him, echoed comments by other senior officials who have asserted that the documents as a whole do not undermine what the Obama administration has been saying publicly about the war. Most of the units mentioned in the documents have rotated out of Afghanistan.

http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/world/la-fg-wikileaks-20100730,0,416443,print.story

2.Senate panel seeks return of drug eradication in Afghanistan

By Paul Richter, Los Angeles Times

Washington:  A Senate panel challenged the Obama administration on one of its signature policies in Afghanistan on Thursday, calling for a renewal of U.S. eradication of drug crops.

The recommendation by the Senate Caucus on International Narcotics Control was another example of an emboldened Congress seeking to intervene on Afghan policy at a time of falling public confidence in the administration’s handling of the war.

The caucus is a congressionally chartered body that includes seven senators and a number of private experts. It said in a report that "crop eradication is a viable tool for narcotics suppression, and, as such, should be incorporated into the overall U.S. counter narcotics strategy."

The Obama administration halted eradication efforts last year, declaring that the practice alienated poor farmers and squandered millions of dollars without appreciably curtailing the drug flow. About 90% of the world’s opium comes from Afghanistan, according to United Nations officials.

Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.), chair of the caucus, called Thursday for a stepped-up effort against drugs. www.latimes.com/news/politics/la-fg-afghan-drugs-20100730,0,3167712,print.story