Mostly sunny. 88/72 • Tomorrow: Mostly sunny. 91/76 • details, B8
After war leak, anger but no calls for change
Officials and experts largely dismiss impact on Afghan conflict
by Greg Jaffe and Peter Finn
In the first 24 hours after the unauthorized release of more than 91,000 secret documents about the war in Afghanistan, a few things became clear to the of- ficials, lawmakers and experts reading them: New evidence that the war ef- fort is plagued by unreliable Af- ghan and Pakistani partners seems unlikely to undermine fra- gile congressional support or force the Obama administration
The court of
public opinion Administration officials and Hill Democrats say the leaks won’t change minds on the war. A8
Pakistan decries Is this another
allegations Officials dismiss the reports’ suggestion that the country’s spy agency aided the Taliban. A9
Pentagon Papers? The story echoes the Nixon era’s Vietnam disclosures, but there are important differences. C1
Opinions: Eugene Robinson, Richard Cohen and Michael Gerson on WikiLeaks and Afghanistan. A17
ABCDE Storm’s outages likely to linger
TUESDAY, JULY 27, 2010
to shift strategy. The disclosure of what are mostly battlefield updates does not appear to represent a major threat to national security or troops’ safety, according to mili- tary officials. The documents’ release could compel President Obama to ex- plain more forcefully the war’s importance, military
analysts
said. Some have criticized Obama for not explaining the adminis- tration’s strategy for bolstering the weak Afghan government and countering the Taliban’s rise. White House and Pentagon of-
ficials sought to diminish the sig- nificance of the leak by arguing that there were few, if any, revela- tions in the documents. Instead, they expressed alarm that the group
WikiLeaks.org had posted such a large amount of classified material that could compromise the safety of U.S. forces and their Afghan allies. “What is new and unprec- edented is the scale and scope of this leak,” said Geoff Morrell, the Pentagon press secretary. “But the content of it is neither new or very illuminating.”
Both Republicans and Demo-
crats in Congress called for De- fense Secretary Robert M. Gates to open an investigation into the matter. Pakistani officials angrily dismissed as malicious rumors the leaked intelligence reports suggesting that their spy service was collaborating with the Tali- ban.
A large number of the secret documents were produced by
afghanistan continued on A8
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Brian Brady surveys damage to the attic of his Silver Spring home after a tree crashed into the roof during Sunday’s violent storm. THE VICTIMS
In a heart-stopping moment, a tempest takes a young life
by Annie Gowen
Eric Lawson spent Sunday af- ternoon at the Claude Moore Rec- reation Center in Sterling, clam- bering happily up and down the rock climbing wall. When the 6- year-old and his family emerged about 3 p.m. for a short walk home, the sky was just turning gray. “We were going to have to hur-
HONDURAN POLICE VIA REUTERS
Honduran police inspect a private plane that was seized near the Nicaraguan border. It was holding hundreds of pounds of drugs.
Violence accompanies cartels in move south Murder rates soar as
Mexican drug gangs besiege Central America
by Nick Miroff and William Booth
san salvador — Drug cartel violence in Mexico is quickly spilling south into Central Amer- ica and is threatening to destabi- lize fragile countries already rife with crime and corruption, ac- cording to the United Nations, U.S. officials and regional law en- forcement agents. The Northern Triangle of Cen-
tral America — Guatemala, El Salvador and Honduras — has long been a major smuggling cor- ridor for contraband heading to the United States. But as Mexican President Felipe Calderón fights a U.S.-backed war against his na- tion’s drug lords, trafficking net- works are burrowing deeper into a region with the highest murder rates in the world.
ry back because it was going to storm in a few minutes,” Eric’s fa- ther, Matthew, a software devel- oper, recalled Monday. “So we started walking fifty feet, and it started sprinkling.”
Eric and his older brother An-
The Mexican cartels “are spreading their horizons to states where they feel, quite frankly, more comfortable. These govern- ments in Central America face a very real challenge in confront- ing these organizations,” said Da- vid Gaddis, chief of operations for the U.S. Drug Enforcement Ad- ministration. U.S. attention has mostly fo-
cused on Mexico. But the homi- cide rate there — 14 for every 100,000 residents — is dwarfed by the murder statistics in the Northern Triangle, where per- capita killings are four times higher and rising. In El Salvador, the region’s most violent country, homicides jumped 37 percent last year, to 71 murders per 100,000 residents, as warring gangs vied for terri- tory and trafficking routes. Police and military officials in El Salva- dor said cartels are increasingly paying local smugglers in prod- uct, rather than cash, driving up cocaine use and the drug dealing
cartels continued on A10 6
BUSINESS NEWS.......A12-14 CLASSIFIEDS .....................F1 COMICS ..........................C7-8
EDITORIALS/LETTERS .A16-17 FED PAGE.........................A15 GOING OUT GUIDE............C9
LOTTERIES........................B4 MOVIES .............................C4 OBITUARIES..................B6-7
drew, 9, began running through the woods, laughing and even cheering a little bit, Lawson re- called, as he brought up the rear. They were going to get wet. That was all. It was a short run to their house where they could hunker down, play games and wait out the rain.
But then the unthinkable hap-
pened. The sudden, violent wind sheared a 30-foot tree limb along the path nearly in half. Matthew Lawson heard the crack, saw the branch begin to fall and called out to his son. “He was just barreling down
the way. He didn’t notice it. He didn’t see it. It fell in about a sec- ond,” Lawson said. “I was able to yell, ‘Stop, Eric! Stop, Eric!’ He didn’t stop, and I couldn’t get to him. I saw it fall on him.” Now the rain was falling in
sheets. Lawson reached his son, lifting the heavy branch off his small body. He gathered him up and began carrying him back to the recreation center for help. “He was in very bad shape,”
Lawson said through tears. “We are a Christian family, so I said, ‘Go to Jesus.’ ” Eric’s body slack- ened after that, Lawson said. His son died in his arms, the horrible heavy rain still pouring over both of them. The summer storm that swept
victims continued on A4 THE CRUCIAL CORRIDOR Among House Democrats, a sense of abandonment
Carbon-cap backers say party leaders left them exposed on hated issue
by Paul Kane and Shailagh Murray
When Democratic Rep. John Boccieri went home to Ohio early this year to talk with voters in his Canton-based district, he figured he would have to do battle with at least some constituents over his support for health-care reform. And the economic stimulus. And
the auto company bailouts. But at a meeting with business leaders, he had to come up with fast answers on something com- pletely different: Why, the busi- nessmen wanted to know, had Boccieri voted for a bill last sum- mer to cap carbon emissions, which they feared would drive up their energy bills in the middle of a recession?
Boccieri said he was tired of wars based on “petrol dictators and big oil.” “If I can take a tough vote to-
day, I’m going to take that vote,” said the freshman lawmaker, an Air Force reservist who flew
HEALTH & SCIENCE How Strasburg spells K The form and the physics behind the Nationals phenomenon’s potent arsenal of pitches. E1
The dog days’ bite Hot weather kills more Americans than hurricanes, floods and lightning combined, but almost all of those deaths are preventable. E1
STOCKS............................A14 TELEVISION.......................C6 WORLD NEWS...................A6
INSIDE METRO
117
Years’ worth of comp time offered to Montgomery County employees because of budget hardships. B1
“I’ve lived in Virginia my
whole life. . . . I wasn’t brought up the way these crazy people are brought up.” — Yahye Wehelie on being suspected of being a terrorist. B1
Printed using recycled fiber
DAILY CODE Details, B2
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C-130s over Iraq for more than a year.
But 13 months after that tough vote, Boccieri and dozens of other House Democrats along the Rust Belt are not at all happy with the way things have turned out. The White House and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) had as- sured reluctant members that the Senate would take up the meas- ure. Although Senate passage wasn’t a sure thing, House Demo- crats hoped to go back home to voters with a great story to tell — about reducing dependence on foreign oil, slowing climate change and creating jobs.
That didn’t happen. Senate leaders, sensing political danger, repeatedly put off energy legisla- tion, and the White House didn’t lean on them very hard to make it a priority. In the aftermath of the gulf oil spill, the Senate is set to take up a stripped-down bill next week, but the controversial car- bon-emissions cap is conspicu- ously missing. This has left some House Dem-
ocrats feeling badly served by their leaders. Although lawmak- ers are reluctant to say so pub- licly, their aides and campaign ad-
democrats continued on A10
POWER MAY BE OUT FOR DAYS Pepco deluged by complaints from area customers
by Michael E. Ruane Tens of thousands of people in
the Washington region are likely to be without power for days, offi- cials said Monday, as Pepco strug- gles to repair the damage from a ferocious storm Sunday that claimed three lives, produced hurricane-force winds and crip- pled neighborhoods. Pepco officials said that it could
be Thursday before all power is restored and that the utility had called in 350 crews from outside the area to help restore service to the almost quarter-million peo- ple without electricity. The utility said the extra crews, which were summoned from an Ohio utility, would probably not be ready to join Pepco’s 185 repair crews until Tuesday morning. As thousands of residents
on
washingtonpost.com
Photo gallery. See storm images submitted by readers
across the region.
postlocal.com
across the area emptied refrigera- tors of spoiling food, sought cool air and thronged stores for flash- lights, batteries and candles, Pep- co weathered a day of criticism. Some residents complained of a slow response, and others were incensed when the utility’s Web site broke down Monday morn- ing, depriving customers of infor- mation for the rest of the day. There were also complaints about Pepco’s automated phone information service, which gave some callers erroneous informa- tion in the hours after the storm Sunday. The weather system, which forecasters said probably did not include tornadoes, was still vio- lent enough to uproot giant trees, snap utility poles and blow the surface of the Chesapeake Bay into six-foot waves. It was there that the storm’s third death oc- curred. Maryland Natural Resources
Police said Warren D. Smith, 63, of Annapolis was apparently
storm continued on A4
2 STYLE U Street’s gym dandy As David von Storch prods along the evolution of the D.C. fitness center, he sees a reality show. C1
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SPORTS Yes on nose Former nose tackles say the Redskins’ assignment for Albert Haynesworth isn’t such a bad job. D1
The Washington Post Year 133, No. 234
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