New York Times
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/12/08/world/08military.html?_r=1

Gates Calls Assange Arrest ‘Good News’

December 7, 2010

By ELISABETH BUMILLER

(Grand Entrance @ 01:48)

FORWARD OPERATING BASE, CONNOLLY, Afghanistan — [Freemason] Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates on Tuesday applauded the arrest of Julian Assange, the founder of WikiLeaks, whose Web site has released hundreds of thousands of classified military and diplomatic documents and become a scourge of the Pentagon.

Told of Mr. Assange’s arrest by reporters traveling with him on a trip to Afghanistan, Mr. Gates said, “I hadn’t heard that, but that sounds like good news to me.”

Mr. Gates has generally taken a tough line against the WikiLeaks disclosures of classified documents about the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, but he recently reacted more mildly to the leaks of State Department secret cables, saying they were embarrassing and awkward for the United States but the overall effect on American foreign policy would be “fairly modest.”

Mr. Gates made his comments after visiting two United States bases in eastern Afghanistan, both on the border with Pakistan.

Mr. Gates is in Afghanistan on an unannounced trip to meet with American commanders and [Freemason] President Hamid Karzai of Afghanistan.