유출 된 펜타곤 문서는 친구와 적에 대한 비밀을 밝힙니다.- 뉴욕타임즈

 

The New York Times

Leaked Pentagon Documents Reveal Secrets About Friends and Foes

유출 된 펜타곤 문서는 친구와 적에 대한 비밀을 밝힙니다.

Recruits in Ukraine last month. The leak of American intelligence documents could affect Ukraine’s long-expected spring offensive.Credit...Mauricio Lima for The New York Times Published April 8, 2023Updated April 9, 2023

A trove of secret Pentagon documents that were exposed on social media have shed new light on the state of the war in Ukraine, showing just how deeply the United States has penetrated Russia’s military and intelligence services, and revealing that Washington also appears to be spying on some of its closest allies, including Ukraine, Israel and South Korea.

Here is what is known about the documents and the repercussions their exposure has had around the world.

 

 

The Pentagon says it is investigating the scope of the documents leak but declines to give specifics.

U.S. Secretary of Defense Lloyd J. Austin III at a meeting of the Ukraine Defense Contact Group in Germany in January. Credit...Ronald Wittek/EPA, via Shutterstock

The Pentagon said on Monday that top officials were investigating the disclosure of a trove of classified documents but offered no clues about the source of the leaks or how many people had access to the information.

“We’re still investigating how this happened, as well as the scope of the issue,” Christopher Meagher, the chief Pentagon spokesman, told reporters.

 

The leaked material, from late February and early March, but found on social media sites in recent days, outlines how deeply Russia’s security and intelligence services have been penetrated by the United States as well as dire ammunition shortages facing Ukraine’s military.

2월 말과 3월 초에 유출된 자료이지만 최근 소셜 미디어 사이트에서 발견된 이 자료는 러시아의 보안 및 정보 기관이 미국에 의해 얼마나 깊숙이 침투했는지 뿐만 아니라 우크라이나 군이 직면한 심각한 탄약 부족을 설명합니다.

 

The documents revealed that Washington appears to be spying on some of its closest allies, including eavesdropping on conversations between senior South Korean national security officials over whether the country would sell artillery shells that might be used in Ukraine. That led to a political backlash in Seoul, where opposition lawmakers on Monday denounced what they called “a clear violation of our sovereignty by the United States.”

이 문서는 미국이 한국이 우크라이나에서 사용할 수 있는 포탄을 판매할 것인지에 대한 한국의 고위 국가 안보 관리들 간의 대화를 도청하는 것을 포함하여 미국의 가장 가까운 동맹국 중 일부를 감시하고 있는 것으로 보인다고 밝혔습니다. 그것은 서울에서 정치적 반발을 불러일으켰고, 월요일 야당 의원들은 "미국에 의한 명백한 주권 침해"라고 비난했습니다 .

 

U.S. officials “are engaging with allies and partners at high levels” over the leaked documents, “to reassure them of our commitment to safeguarding intelligence,” Vedant Patel, a State Department spokesman, told reporters on Monday. But he declined to provide more specifics, including whether Secretary of State Antony J. Blinken had reached out to officials in South Korea.

베단트 파텔 미 국무부 대변인은 월요일 기자들에게 "미국 관리들은 유출된 문서에 대해 고위급 동맹국 및 파트너들과 접촉하고 있다"며 "정보 보호에 대한 우리의 약속을 그들에게 확신시키기 위해"라고 말했다. 그러나 그는 안토니 J. 블링컨 국무장관이 한국의 관리들에게 연락을 취했는지 여부를 포함하여 더 자세한 내용은 밝히기를 거부했습니다.

Mr. Patel would not address any potential damage to the U.S.-South Korea relationship, saying only that Washington’s commitment to the country “is ironclad. They are one of our most important partners in the region.”

Mr. Meagher, the Pentagon spokesman, declined to answer most questions about the investigation, citing a criminal inquiry launched by the Justice Department and the Federal Bureau of Investigation.

The Pentagon is leading a separate interagency team, including the White House, State Department and intelligence agencies, to determine the extent of the damage caused by the disclosures, and to assess what needs to be done to address the leak.

“That includes taking steps to take a closer look at exactly how this type of information is distributed and to whom, but beyond that, I’m not going to get into any more specifics,” Mr. Meagher said.

Dmitri S. Peskov, the Kremlin’s spokesman, called the leaks “quite interesting” on Monday and noted that “everyone is analyzing and broadly discussing them.”

When asked if Russia bore any responsibility for the leak, he said, “No, I can’t comment on this in any way. We all know that there is in fact an inclination to always blame Russia for everything, and to attribute everything to Russia.”

The leak could damage Ukraine’s war effort by exposing which Russian agencies the United States knows the most about, giving Moscow a potential opportunity to cut off the sources of information.

Mr. Meagher said that Defense Secretary Lloyd J. Austin III was initially briefed on the leak last Thursday morning. The next day, Mr. Austin began convening departmentwide meetings to address the widening disclosures.

“The secretary and Department of Defense, and the United States government take this apparent unauthorized disclosure extremely seriously,” Mr. Meagher said. “This is a top priority for us.”

Mr. Meagher said Pentagon and other U.S. officials began contacting congressional leaders and allies over the weekend to alert them to the disclosures.

The leak has already raised doubts about America’s ability to keep its secrets.

“The reports of intelligence leaks are incredibly concerning,” Representative Mike Rogers of Alabama, the chairman of the House Armed Services Committee, said in a statement on Monday. Mr. Rogers said the panel was “actively seeking answers from the Department of Defense.”

Mr. Patel also would not discuss any fallout over a claim in the leaked documents that the leadership of Israel’s intelligence service, the Mossad, had encouraged the agency’s staff and Israeli citizens to participate in mass anti-government protests.

As with the surveillance of South Korea, the document attributed the information about the Mossad to “signals intelligence,” or electronic eavesdropping. The Israeli government issued a statement on Sunday calling the assertions “mendacious and without any foundation whatsoever.”

— Eric Schmitt and Michael Crowley

 

The leaked documents show that Seoul is torn between its policy and Washington over Ukraine.

A K9 howitzer at a test site for Hanwha Aerospace, South Korea’s largest defense contractor. The country has become a major exporter of weapons. Credit...Jun Michael Park for The New York Times

 

SEOUL — When reports emerged late last year that South Korea had agreed to sell artillery shells to help the United States replenish its stockpiles, it insisted that their “end user” should be the U.S. military. But internally, top aides to President Yoon Suk Yeol were worried that their American ally would divert them to Ukraine.

지난해 말 한국이 미국의 비축량 보충을 돕기 위해 포탄을 판매하기로 합의했다는 보도가 나왔을 때 한국은 그들의 "최종 사용자"가 미군이어야 한다고 주장했습니다. 그러나 내부적으로 윤석열 대통령의 최고 보좌관들은 미국의 동맹국이 그들을 우크라이나로 돌려놓을 것을 우려했다.

 

Mr. Yoon’s secretary for foreign affairs, Yi Mun-hui, told his boss, National Security Adviser Kim Sung-han, that the government “was mired in concerns that the U.S. would not be the end user if South Korea were to comply with a U.S. request for ammunition,” according to a batch of secret Pentagon documents leaked through social media.

The secret report was based on signals intelligence, which meant that the United States has been spying on one of its major allies in Asia.

윤의  외무비서관인 이문희는 그의 상사인 김성한 국가안보보좌관에게 정부가 “한국이 협정을 준수한다면 미국이 최종 사용자가 되지 않을 것이라는 우려에 빠져있다”고 말했다. 미국의 탄약 요청”이라고 소셜 미디어를 통해 유출된 국방부 비밀 문서에 따르면 이 비밀 보고서는 미국이 아시아의 주요 동맹국 중 하나를 감시하고 있다는 신호 정보를 기반으로 했습니다.

 

Both Mr. Yi and Mr. Kim stepped down last month for unclear reasons.

이씨와 김씨는 불분명한 이유로 지난달 사임했다. 

 

Neither man could be reached for comment.

 

South Korea was aware of the news reports about the leaked documents and planned to discuss “issues raised” by the leak with Washington, a senior government official in Seoul told reporters on Sunday. When asked whether South Korea planned to lodge a protest or demand an explanation from Washington, he said the government would study precedents from the past and similar cases involving other nations.

 

A group of opposition lawmakers held a news conference in South Korea on Monday denouncing the United States for spying. They said the revelations included in the leaked documents may be “just the tip of the iceberg,” and strongly urged Washington to launch an investigation and ensure that similar acts did not happen again.

“This is a clear violation of our sovereignty by the United States and a super-scale security breach on the South Korean part,” they said in a statement.

Although U.S. officials have confirmed that the trove of leaked documents appear to be legitimate intelligence and operational briefs compiled by the Pentagon’s Joint Staff, at least one had been modified from the original at some point. And the apparent authenticity of the documents is not an indication of their accuracy.

The documents pertaining to South Korea showed a key American ally torn between Washington’s pressure on Seoul to help supply ammunition to Ukraine and its official policy of not providing lethal weapons to countries at war. Seoul feared that President Biden would call Mr. Yoon directly to press the matter.

“Yi stressed that South Korea was not prepared to have a call between the heads of state without having a clear position on the issue, adding that South Korea could not violate its policy against supplying lethal aid, so officially changing the policy would be the only option,” the document said.

Mr. Yi said that Mr. Yoon’s presidential secretary for national defense, Im Ki-hun, had promised to determine “a final stance by March 2.”

But their boss, Mr. Kim, was worried that if the announcement of Mr. Yoon’s state visit to Washington coincided with an announcement of South Korea changing its stance on providing lethal aid to Ukraine, “the public would think the two had been done as a trade.” Mr. Yoon’s state visit to Washington, which is to take place on April 26, was announced March 7.

Instead, according to the document, Mr. Kim “suggested the possibility” of selling 330,000 rounds of 155-millimeter artillery shells to Poland because “getting the ammunition to Ukraine quickly was the ultimate goal of the United States.”

Mr. Yi agreed that it might be possible for Poland to agree to being called the end user and send the ammunition on to Ukraine, but that South Korea would need to “verify what Poland would do.” It is unclear exactly what he meant by this because South Korea’s export control rules stipulate that its ​weapons or weapon parts sold to a foreign country should not be resold or transferred to a third country without Seoul’s approval.

The senior South Korean official on Sunday declined to reveal details of what he called “internal discussions” within Mr. Yoon’s government. But he added that “nothing has been finalized” and that there was still “no change” in Seoul’s policy on Ukraine. South Korea has been shipping humanitarian aid to Ukraine but has insisted that it would not directly provide any lethal weapons.

“South Korea’s position has been that it will cooperate with the United States while not clashing with Russia,” said Yang Uk, a weapons expert at the Asan Institute for Policy Studies in Seoul. “The documents leaked put South Korea in a more difficult position.”

And the mere fact of the spying taking place, leaving aside what it might uncover, is a damaging revelation, he said.

“It’s reasonable to suspect that the United States spies on top defense and security officials in Seoul, but it’s bad news for the general public ahead of the South Korea-U.S. summit,” he added. “People will ask, ‘We have been allies for seven decades, and you still spy on us?’”

— Choe Sang-Hun