Okay But What Then?

The reaction of the editors of the Washington Post to the recent intelligence leak was similar to my own (just later):

The trove of roughly 100 leaked U.S. classified documents, some marked “top secret,” is a sensational intelligence breach and, according to some sources, a highly damaging one. But more than the juicy tidbits contained in the material, much of which involves detailed information pertaining to the war in Ukraine, the most sensational, and damaging, aspect of the story might be the fact of the leak itself. And on that score — how and why the documents came to see the light of day — very little is known.

If most of the documents are genuine, as they appear to be — with apparent alterations intended to exaggerate Ukrainian casualty estimates and minimize Russian ones — then U.S. authorities will urgently need to trace the leak’s provenance. The Justice Department has launched an investigation intended to do just that. The Biden administration will also be faced with some damage control based on information that was contained on some leaked briefing slides suggesting Washington has been spying on its own allies, including South Korea and Ukraine itself.

However, I thought they were being bafflingly discreet in their editorial. As I noted the fact of the leaks reflect incredible sloppiness on the part of U. S. intelligence. With even barely competent handling of those materials no investigation should be necessary. They should already know the source the leaks and dealt with him or her, presumably by prosecution. If so many people had access to all of those document as to make it impossible to determine, that itself is problematic.