美国国家公共电台 NPR--Making sense of the latest on the U.S. intelligence classified leaks

Making sense of the latest on the U.S. intelligence classified leaks

Transcript¹

Many questions still remain about a data leak of classified documents related to the war in Ukraine and intelligence from other nations.

A MART?NEZ, HOST:

There's still a lot we don't know about a major U.S. intelligence leak that's still unfolding.

LEILA FADEL, HOST:

It involves dozens of classified documents on the state of the war in Ukraine which have been posted on several social media sites.

MART?NEZ: For more on what this all could mean, we're joined by NPR national security correspondent Greg Myre. Greg, this has been moving pretty fast the last few days. What do we need to know now?

GREG MYRE, BYLINE²: Well, multiple parts of the U.S. government - and we're talking about the Justice Department, the FBI, the Pentagon, intelligence agencies - they're all scrambling³ to figure out the source of these leaked intelligence documents. Now, we're talking about dozens of pages, mostly about the war in Ukraine, but it also has U.S. intelligence assessments⁴ on other parts of the world. It seems some of these documents were posted a month ago or more on the site Discord⁵, which is popular among teenage gamers, and it more or less just sat there for some time before it spread to Twitter and Telegram. And then The New York Times broke the story last Thursday. Now, the U.S. government is trying to answer several key questions. Who did this? Is this one limited set of documents or is more material coming? And how extensive is the damage?

MART?NEZ: Yeah. And the who did this - that's the mysterious part of all this. Anyone have any leads?

MYRE: No, not really. It's such an unusual case in many ways. There's no obvious suspect. You know, government intelligence agencies worldwide seek to conceal⁶ rather than reveal secret documents they might obtain, so they don't have an obvious motive⁷ to put them online. Also, some of these postings appear to be done by individuals hiding behind an online alias⁸, and they just seem to be reposting versions that they came across elsewhere. One person appeared to be a young man in California who did not further identify himself. So it's simply not clear who might have stolen or leaked these documents and who originally posted them online.

MART?NEZ: So what's on these documents?

MYRE: So based on documents NPR has seen, they look to be briefing slides with lots of maps and charts. And these are put together daily for top Pentagon leaders and other national security officials. And they cover a range of countries. You see references to China, Iran, North Korea. But the focus here is clearly Ukraine and issues like struggles that Ukraine and Russia face in training fresh troops and keeping them properly supplied with weapons. But the key in these documents is that they provide details on issues like Ukraine's dwindling⁹ supply of air defense¹⁰ missiles. Now, these air defense systems have been very effective in keeping Russian fighter jets out of Ukrainian skies. And while this general issue is well known, these kinds of details could be very valuable to Russia.

MART?NEZ: Now, U.S. intelligence on Russia has been pretty good throughout the war. Could these revelations maybe undermine those U.S. efforts?

MYRE: Well, that's certainly a huge concern. This leaked material shows U.S. intelligence has clearly penetrated¹¹ a Russian military on what appears to be a daily basis, and this allows the U.S. to share extremely detailed¹² and timely information with Ukraine on when and where the Russians plan to attack. And that's obviously a huge defense advantage for Ukraine's defenses. Now, Russia will certainly try to make adjustments to better protect and disguise its military plans. And even with all this said, you know, both sides already have extensive intelligence on each other. So we just don't know at this point whether this new material leaking out will change the trajectory¹³ of the war.

MART?NEZ: All right. That's NPR's Greg Myre. Greg, thank you.

MYRE: Sure thing.

1 transcript   

n.抄本，誊本，副本，肄业证书

参考例句：

• A transcript of the tapes was presented as evidence in court.一份录音带的文字本作为证据被呈交法庭。
• They wouldn't let me have a transcript of the interview.他们拒绝给我一份采访的文字整理稿。

2 byline   

n.署名；v.署名

参考例句：

• His byline was absent as well.他的署名也不见了。
• We wish to thank the author of this article which carries no byline.我们要感谢这篇文章的那位没有署名的作者。

3 scrambling   

v.快速爬行( scramble的现在分词 )；攀登；争夺；（军事飞机）紧急起飞

参考例句：

• Scrambling up her hair, she darted out of the house. 她匆忙扎起头发，冲出房去。 来自《现代英汉综合大词典》
• She is scrambling eggs. 她正在炒蛋。 来自《简明英汉词典》

4 assessments   

n.评估( assessment的名词复数 )；评价；（应偿付金额的）估定；（为征税对财产所作的）估价

参考例句：

• He was shrewd in his personal assessments. 他总能对人作出精明的评价。 来自《简明英汉词典》
• Surveys show about two-thirds use such assessments, while half employ personality tests. 调查表明，约有三分之二的公司采用了这种测评；而一半的公司则采用工作人员个人品质测试。 来自百科语句

5 discord   

n.不和，意见不合，争论，（音乐）不和谐

参考例句：

• These two answers are in discord.这两个答案不一样。
• The discord of his music was hard on the ear.他演奏的不和谐音很刺耳。

6 conceal   

v.隐藏，隐瞒，隐蔽

参考例句：

• He had to conceal his identity to escape the police.为了躲避警方，他只好隐瞒身份。
• He could hardly conceal his joy at his departure.他几乎掩饰不住临行时的喜悦。

7 motive   

n.动机，目的；adv.发动的，运动的

参考例句：

• The police could not find a motive for the murder.警察不能找到谋杀的动机。
• He had some motive in telling this fable.他讲这寓言故事是有用意的。

8 alias   

n.化名；别名；adv.又名

参考例句：

• His real name was Johnson,but he often went by the alias of Smith.他的真名是约翰逊，但是他常常用化名史密斯。
• You can replace this automatically generated alias with a more meaningful one.可用更有意义的名称替换这一自动生成的别名。

9 dwindling   

adj.逐渐减少的v.逐渐变少或变小( dwindle的现在分词 )

参考例句：

• The number of wild animals on the earth is dwindling. 地球上野生动物的数量正日渐减少。 来自《简明英汉词典》
• He is struggling to come to terms with his dwindling authority. 他正努力适应自己权力被削弱这一局面。 来自辞典例句

10 defense   

n.防御，保卫；[pl.]防务工事；辩护，答辩

参考例句：

• The accused has the right to defense.被告人有权获得辩护。
• The war has impacted the area with military and defense workers.战争使那个地区挤满了军队和防御工程人员。

11 penetrated   

adj. 击穿的，鞭辟入里的 动词penetrate的过去式和过去分词形式

参考例句：

• The knife had penetrated his chest. 刀子刺入了他的胸膛。
• They penetrated into territory where no man had ever gone before. 他们已进入先前没人去过的地区。

12 detailed   

adj.详细的，详尽的，极注意细节的，完全的

参考例句：

• He had made a detailed study of the terrain.他对地形作了缜密的研究。
• A detailed list of our publications is available on request.我们的出版物有一份详细的目录备索。

13 trajectory   

n.弹道，轨道

参考例句：

• It is not difficult to sketch the subsequent trajectory.很容易描绘出它们最终的轨迹。
• The path followed by a projectile is called its trajectory.抛物体所循的路径称为它的轨道。