WASHINGTON—Military investigators are checking computers used by Bradley Manning, a U.S. Army intelligence analyst charged this month with leaking classified information, to see if he is the source of thousands of military documents published Sunday by WikiLeaks. 
 
 Associated Press This undated photo shows Bradley Manning. 
 
 Jerry Seib says that White House officials, already on the defensive over their Afghan war strategy, have scrambled to keep the Wikileaks disclosures from eroding U.S. allies' support for the war. 
 
 The material released by WikiLeaks relates entirely to the war in Afghanistan, while Pfc. Manning was stationed in Iraq. But investigators are trying to determine what material he was able to get access to and what material he transferred. 
 
 Col. Dave Lapan, a Pentagon spokesman, said investigators are looking broadly to determine where the material was taken from, but acknowledged that Pfc. Manning was a person of interest in the investigation. "He is someone we are looking at closely," Col. Lapan said. 
 
 WikiLeaks Sunday published thousands of secret U.S. military documents spanning more than five years. The information is in part humdrum and also dramatic, showing in raw detail the intelligence reports sent from personnel in the field. Among other things, the documents discuss civilian casualties, Pakistan's role in aiding the Taliban and the weapons capabilities of the Afghan insurgency. 
 
 WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange, at a news conference in London Monday, declined to comment on the identity of the source who leaked the documents, or on how the source managed to copy and leak them. Asked about Mr. Manning, Mr. Assange said: "There is no allegation as far as we can determine" that the documents posted on WikiLeaks Sunday are "connected to Bradley Manning." 
 
 He said WikiLeaks has nonetheless "committed funds" to Pfc. Manning's legal defense, offering his military-appointed legal team money in case it wants to hire civilian counsel. 
 
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 Mr. Assange said the source who leaked the documents was motivated by a desire "to call attention to a number of these incidents." 
 
 Mr. Manning's military defense team didn't respond to requests seeking comment. 
 
 In early July, the U.S. military announced it would press criminal charges against 22-year-old Pfc. Manning for allegedly transferring classified military information to his computer and "delivering national defense information to an unauthorized source." 
 
 These charges appear to be connected to the leak of a classified video that WikiLeaks released to the public. The video, which depicts the July 2007 killing of two Reuters journalists and other individuals in Iraq by Apache helicopter gunships, provoked an international media sensation. In early April, Wikileaks released "Collateral Murder," a package of documents and videos related to the attack. 
 
 The organization said an anonymous leaker, credited only as "our courageous source," had furnished the materials, which included dramatic gunsight video. 
 
 According to a U.S. military charge sheet, Pfc. Manning improperly obtained secret information, including classified State Department cables and video footage of a July 2007 military operation, while stationed at a base east of Baghdad. ||||| Army investigators found nearly half a million field reports from Iraq and Afghanistan on a computer memory card among the belongings of Pfc. Bradley Manning, with a note suggesting that an unnamed recipient "sit on this information" while deciding how best to distribute it, according to testimony Monday. 
 
 The note called the reports "possibly one of the more significant documents of our time" and said they would remove "the fog of war" and reveal "the true nature of 21st century asymmetric warfare," Army special agent David Shaver told the officer leading a preliminary hearing at Fort Meade. 
 
 Manning, 24, is accused of giving hundreds of thousands of classified documents to WikiLeaks while serving as an intelligence analyst in Iraq. He is charged with aiding the enemy and violating the Espionage Act. 
 
 On the fourth day of the hearing, members of the Army Computer Crimes Investigative Unit described how they examined military and personal computers used by Manning, and what they found. 
 
 Military computers showed evidence of downloads from servers at the State Department and the Defense Department, they said. Investigators found four detainee assessments from Guantanamo Bay under Manning's user profile. 
 
 A personal computer contained logs from chats about releasing government information, IP addresses associated with WikiLeaks and what appears to be contact information for group founder Julian Assange, they said. 
 
 After two days of arguing that Manning was a troubled soldier who should not have been given access to classified materials, his defense team appeared to shift course Monday, suggesting there was no proof that Manning was behind the downloads or the chats. 
 
 Shaver acknowledged that the military computers were secure workstations from which analysts were authorized to view material from the State Department and the Defense Department and that more than one analyst was assigned to the computers. 
 
 He said that more than 100,000 diplomatic cables couldn't be connected to Manning, and that 10,000 that were found on his computer didn't match the cables published by WikiLeaks. 
 
 Investigator Mark Johnson, who examined Manning's personal MacBook Pro, said it was set to boot up without a password — meaning, he acknowledged, he can't say for certain that Manning was responsible for the chats, the IP addresses or Assange's details found on his computer. 
 
 "I cannot put somebody at the keyboard, no," Johnson said. 
 
 Manning, wearing the standard green Army camouflage uniform also worn by prosecutors and his military attorneys, sat quietly through the testimony. He has appeared at ease through the first four days of the hearing, talking with his attorneys, taking notes and occasionally smiling. 
 
 The Army convened the Article 32 hearing to determine whether the case against Manning should proceed to a court-martial. 
 
 Lt. Col. Paul Almanza, the investigating officer presiding over the hearing, will weigh testimony and arguments before making a recommendation to Maj. Gen. Michael Linnington, the commander of the Military District of Washington. 
 
 Aiding the enemy is a capital offense, but Army prosecutors say they will not seek the death penalty. If convicted, Manning could be sentenced to life in prison. 
 
 Twice on Monday, Almanza cleared the courtroom to hear testimony from Shaver on classified information. 
 
 Among those excluded were an attorney for the Center for Constitutional Rights, which is representing WikiLeaks and Assange. 
 
 Baher Azmy, legal director for the New York-based nonprofit, said the hearing has been "more restrictive than those at Guantanamo." 
 
 "We have a compelling interest in monitoring the hearing, given both that Manning stands accused of providing evidence of war crimes to our clients, and that the proceedings are clearly closely linked to a grand jury in Virginia reported to be issuing subpoenas for information on our clients," Azmy said in a statement. 
 
 Manning supporters say footage of an Apache helicopter attack that he is alleged to have released appears to show evidence of a war crime.
– Who could've given nearly 1 million classified Afghanistan war documents to WikiLeaks? The military is taking a close look at Bradley Manning, an intelligence analyst already charged with leaking documents to the site. Manning would be a perfect suspect, except for one fact: He was stationed in Iraq and had no access to Afghanistan documents. Nonetheless, investigators are examining his computers to see if he could have hacked other military computers to gain the files, the Wall Street Journal reports. Manning is more commonly linked to the leak of footage of the Iraq war released to the public as a video called "Collateral Murder", but he also boasted of having given WikiLeaks 260,000 diplomatic cables. Julian Assange, founder of WikiLeaks, said there is "no allegation as far as we can determine" that the Afghanistan leak is "connected to Bradley Manning." Click here for more on Manning.