[private]The U.S. Defense Secretary said, “It could be a substantial additional number of documents. And we have no idea what their content is, either.”

Robert Gates U.S. Defense Secretary acknowledge that thousands of papers are missing from the Department of Defense, days after the WikiLeaks went onto release more than 92,000 classified documents pertaining to the war against terrorism.

Mr. Gates said at a joint Pentagon news conference with Admiral Mike Mullen, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, “At Least from my perspective, it has only been very recently that I was aware of the magnitude of the number of document that had been leaked.”

Mr. Gates said, “The reality is, at this point, we don’t know how many more there are out there. It could be a substantial additional number of documents. And we have no idea what their contents is, either.”

Mr. Gates further added, “My impression is that the head of WikiLeaks has acknowledged that he has thousands of additional documents that he has not yet posted.

So we have his own statement to that effect”. The Defense Secretary while responding to media questions replied in negative if there has been any official attempt to reach out to WikiLeaks.

He asked, “Not that I’m aware of (having any kind of dialogue with WikiLeaks). I’m not sure why we would. Do you think he’s going to tell us the truth?” Mr. Gates said when asked if Julian Assange, the WikiLeaks founder faces criminal prosecution, “I have no idea. The investigation should go wherever it needs to go”.[/private]