Secrets and lives

While the leaking of US State Department files, and the detailing of the Americans' real view of David Cameron, will no doubt cause some embarrassment in Westminster, its impact on the two countries' troops is far more serious.

Whatever hilarity or insight is wrought from the Wikileaks website's latest publication, it is as nothing compared to the extra threat it poses to soldiers, secret agents and defence officials in Britain, the US, Afghanistan and Iraq, to say nothing of ordinary expatriates living in the Middle East.

Indeed, the fact that the Taliban is believed to have already put together a nine-man commission to pore over the details of the leaked material underlines the fact this information will be used in an attempt to kill more innocent people.

It is therefore remarkable, and deeply unpleasant, that Julian Assange continues to leak so many documents without accepting how it will inflame tensions between East and West.

Of course, governments have a responsibility to be open and candid, particularly about controversial methods of interrogating terrorism suspects, but inevitably a line has to be drawn in the interest of national security and for the safety of those serving in the military. It is at cases such as that of Wikileaks that the line must be drawn.

Mr Assange could have spent far longer filtering the files or chosen to have selected the material which harmed merely politicians' reputations. Instead he appears keen to rush out a secret quarry of information when its impact is at its greatest.

Doing so will cement his place in history although, in the final reckoning, it may not be with the image he had wished for himself. In some areas, he will be hailed as a truth-teller, but in many more he will be condemned as a dangerous and self-righteous maverick.