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WikiLeaks: the largest classified military leak in history

WikiLeaks | 23.10.2010 08:37 | History | Iraq | Terror War | Sheffield | World

At 5pm EST Friday 22nd October 2010 WikiLeaks released the largest classified military leak in history. The 391,832 reports ('The Iraq War Logs'), document the war and occupation in Iraq, from 1st January 2004 to 31st December 2009 (except for the months of May 2004 and March 2009) as told by soldiers in the United States Army. Each is a 'SIGACT' or Significant Action in the war. They detail events as seen and heard by the US military troops on the ground in Iraq and are the first real glimpse into the secret history of the war that the United States government has been privy to throughout.

The reports detail 109,032 deaths in Iraq, comprised of 66,081 'civilians'; 23,984 'enemy' (those labeled as insurgents); 15,196 'host nation' (Iraqi government forces) and 3,771 'friendly' (coalition forces). The majority of the deaths (66,000, over 60%) of these are civilian deaths.That is 31 civilians dying every day during the six year period. For comparison, the 'Afghan War Diaries', previously released by WikiLeaks, covering the same period, detail the deaths of some 20,000 people. Iraq during the same period, was five times as lethal with equivallent population size.

WikiLeaks
- Homepage: http://wikileaks.org/

Additions

WikiLeaks releases documents exposing US war crimes in Iraq

25.10.2010 09:38

The secret US army files made public Friday by the WikiLeaks web site provide massive documentation of the criminal character of the US-led invasion and occupation of Iraq.

WikiLeaks posted nearly 400,000 army field reports, filed by low-ranking soldiers after combat or reconnaissance operations, describing the death tolls due to US military action, attacks by anti-US insurgents, or the internecine civil conflict sparked by the US occupation. The reports cover the period from January 1, 2004 to December 31, 2009, and therefore provide no data on the mass killings that took place during the initial US invasion in March 2003.

The documents were made available several weeks in advance to selected news organizations, including the Guardian in London, the New York Times, the German news magazine Der Spiegel, the French daily Le Monde, and al Jazeera, the Arabic-language broadcaster based in Qatar. These outlets published extensive accounts of the underlying material, posting them on their web sites Friday night.

The Guardian focuses on the scale of the bloodshed, including 15,000 civilians killed in incidents not previously reported by the US military—which publicly denied it was even counting civilian deaths, while keeping an extensive internal log. The newspaper’s report begins: “A grim picture of the US and Britain's legacy in Iraq has been revealed in a massive leak of American military documents that detail torture, summary executions and war crimes.”

The newspaper continues: “The war logs, seen by the Guardian, contain a horrific dossier of cases where US troops killed innocent civilians at checkpoints, on Iraq's roads and during raids on people's homes. The victims include dozens of women and children. The US rarely admitted their deaths publicly.”

The Guardian also details the failure of the US military to investigate torture and murder by the Iraqi forces recruited as part of the buildup of a puppet regime in Baghdad. The newspaper states: “Numerous reports of detainee abuse, often supported by medical evidence, describe prisoners shackled, blindfolded and hung by wrists or ankles and subjected to whipping, punching, kicking or electric shocks. Six reports end with a detainee’s apparent death.”

Another article in the Guardian draws attention to the role of the Wolf Brigade, an Iraqi special forces unit created by the US military and directed by Colonel James Steele, whose experience in counterinsurgency, torture and murder includes his role as an adviser to US-backed death squads in El Salvador during the 1980s.

According to the newspaper: “The Wolf Brigade was created and supported by the US in an attempt to re-employ elements of Saddam Hussein's Republican Guard, this time to terrorise insurgents. Members typically wore red berets, sunglasses and balaclavas, and drove out on raids in convoys of Toyota Landcruisers. They were accused by Iraqis of beating prisoners, torturing them with electric drills and sometimes executing suspects.”

The United Nations special rapporteur on torture, Manfred Nowak, told the BBC television program “Today” that the US government had an obligation to investigate the allegations that the American military handed prisoners over to Iraqi jailers for torture and execution, not only to “bring the perpetrators to justice, but also to provide the victims with adequate remedy and reparation.” Failure to do so, he said, would violate US obligations under international law.

This particular human rights violation is ongoing under the Obama administration, the documents confirm, with a report that the US military this past December received a video showing Iraqi army officers executing a prisoner in Tal Afar, in northern Iraq. According to the US army log, “The footage shows approximately 12 Iraqi army soldiers. Ten IA [Iraqi army] soldiers were talking to one another while two soldiers held the detainee. The detainee had his hands bound… The footage shows the IA soldiers moving the detainee into the street, pushing him to the ground, punching him and shooting him.”

The logs conclude that “no investigation is necessary,” because no US soldiers were involved in the torture and killing. This is a policy formally adopted by the US army in 2004 in a military order known as FRAG0 242.

The Guardian notes that the army reports, however grisly, significantly underestimate the death toll from US military action, even compared to the figures produced by Iraq Body Count (IBC), which are well below estimates, based on demographic studies, of a million or more Iraqis killed. The newspaper writes:

“A key example of the failure by US forces to record civilian casualties they have inflicted comes in the two major urban battles against insurgents fought in 2004 in Falluja. Numerous buildings were reduced to rubble by air strikes, tank shells and howitzers, and there were well-attested deaths of hundreds of civilians. IBC has identified between 1,226 and 1,362 such deaths during April and November. But the leaked US internal field reports record no civilian casualties at all.”

Both the Guardian and Der Spiegel published accounts of the casualties of all kinds inflicted during a single 24-hour period in the fall of 2006, the period of the most intense civil war, when sectarian killings of Sunni and Shiite civilians were at their peak. The Guardian chose October 17, 2006, when 146 were killed; Der Spiegel examined November 23, 2006, when 318 people died. Each gave the summary the title, “A Day in Hell.” No such material appears in the New York Times.

Both the Guardian and Der Spiegel draw attention to a particularly notorious incident in which an American Apache helicopter gunship trapped two insurgents, who attempted to surrender. When the pilot contacted his base for instructions, he was told by a military lawyer that “they can not surrender to aircraft and are still valid targets.” The two men fled but the copter hunted them down and strafed them, killing them.

In its analysis of the army reports, al Jazeera tabulated all the instances in which American soldiers shot and killed Iraqi civilians at checkpoints along the highways—arriving at a total of 681, many of them women and children. Many of these involved the massacre of entire families, with the worst involving 11 people in a van, including four children.

There is a stark difference between the approach taken by the European and Arab publications and that of the New York Times—largely echoed by the rest of the American media. The non-US publications all focus, quite correctly, on the horrific character of the bloodbath caused by the US-led invasion, and the importance of the material for documenting war crimes.

The Times seeks to draw attention away from the evidence of US government criminality, combining diversions—suggestions that the documents provide new evidence of the role of Iran in the events in Iraq—and secondary issues—a front-page examination of the role of private contractors—with a filthy smear campaign against WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange. (See “New York Times tries character assassination against WikiLeaks founder Assange”  http://wsws.org/articles/2010/oct2010/time-o25.shtml )

The American media in general combines vilification of WikiLeaks with efforts to downplay the significance of the material. The coverage in the Times and the Washington Post starts with the assertion that there is little new information in the army documents—an assessment that would seem to be contradicted by the shrill statements from the Pentagon and Secretary of State Hillary Clinton denouncing the exposé.

Another theme propounded by the American media is that the WikiLeaks material provides an argument for continuing the US military presence in Iraq, because it demonstrates that the Iraqi military and police, under the control of Prime Minister Maliki, is a lawless and criminal force.

Thus the Post writes: “But the logs are perhaps most disturbing in their portrayal of the Iraqi government that has taken control of security in the country as US forces withdraw.” And a Times article suggests that greater details on Kurdish-Arab conflicts in the north of Iraq could support keeping US forces there as peacekeepers.

Despite the censorship and distortion by the US media, the truth about the criminal nature of the US-led wars in Iraq and Afghanistan is reaching an ever-wider public. All over the world, the US government is regarded as imitating the methods of the Nazis, both in its violence and its systematic and shameless lying.

WikiLeaks has performed an immense public service. It has posted documents that are the raw material for a future war crimes prosecution of US presidents Barack Obama and George W. Bush and all of their top military, intelligence and foreign policy aides.

Patrick Martin
- Homepage: http://wsws.org/articles/2010/oct2010/wiki-o25.shtml


Comments

Hide the following 13 comments

Our genetics contains a happy, natural, alert and emergency materialism.

23.10.2010 09:53

These Wikileaks are but an exposure of an unjust war and illegal violence, conducted by the Imperialist Camp, headed by the United States. They are showing the fact that U.S. Imperialist militarism is not causing liberation, but causing destruction of the peoples, plants, animals, air, land, and water.
The anti-fascist covenants are being broken and they are signed on to by the U.S. Constitution which says that international treaties are to be treated as the supreme laws of the land. That the Nuremburg Trials, Geneva Conventions of war, World Court of the Hague, United Nations Charter, International War Crimes Tribunal,( Bertand Russell Style) have found the U.S. Imperialist military guilty of war crimes throughout the area known as the Holyland, or the Middle East is a fact of material truth.

The world however is in session to find out how to administate full justice to the known war crimes that the U.S. Imperialist Aggressors have done. No justice, no peace is the peoples side. End pollution wars, not endless wars for more and more polluton.

Praxis


Fallujah War Crimes?

23.10.2010 10:07

i see the whole two months regarding the USA's use of the illegal chemical weapon white phosphorous and the horrific murders of thousands of civilians in Fallujah has been withheld, now that is needed to be put into the public domain.

 http://www.thewe.cc/weplanet/news/americas/us/war_crimes_fallujah.html

peace is war @ double speak . com


Nicely managed 'Radical' journo stuff

23.10.2010 13:36

This whole thing stinks of state manipulation.

Where did all these thousands of 'leaks' come from?

It is packaged/spun to give a positive image of the US military.
Iraqi forces do the torturing, US forces report it.
Iranian involvement is messaged in every news report.
BBC and other 'reporters' remain 'embedded' in military units- no true reporting is allowed.

What a joke!

anon


Soros backed

23.10.2010 14:20

anon says:

This whole thing stinks of state manipulation.
Where did all these thousands of 'leaks' come from?

How anyone can take this so called leak seriously is beyond me. The leaks show there is a need for more US imperialism. We are told that it was the Iraqis who did the toruture and the US stood by and let them get on with it. We get a fuss that this may have been a war crime to suckered us into believing that this is a big deal.

What is the war crime? The US did not take over the command of Iraqi forces i.e. not enough imperialism.

This is a joke.

Wikileaks is backed by George Soros,

insidejob


Hypocrites

23.10.2010 17:38

I love how the Amerikkkan and European are always quick to point out socalled 'warcrimes' by the insurgeones, such as the alleged beheading of Nick Steinberg. When in fact, it has long time ago been established that these beheadings are all hoaxes.
If you look at them, you can clearly see their arms and necks, and they do not have a muslim skin colour. It is common knowledge that it was Amerikkkan soldiers playing around with dummies.
They are even too dumb to think that they can manipulate enquiring minds like ours.

And now they try to sell us this load of pony? LOL!

Dissatisfied


SHAM

24.10.2010 10:59

Wikileaks is been used by Authorities as a clearing house, a place to wipe the slate clean.
Where do you think this info came from ? they left it out hoping it to be stolen.
Makes them feel much better.....

malc


oh really?

24.10.2010 14:28

You lot are just pissed that the documents reveal that it is the Iraqi and Iranian people who are the evil ones.

So the USA stood aside. Fuck, its NOT EVEN THEIR COUNTRY.

Thats how people do things in Iraq, what gives the USA the right to interfere in the security forces doing things the way they want to?

stop the bullshit


And the FBI is actually an alien conspiracy featuring Paris Hilton

24.10.2010 18:52

Yeah right. Wikileaks is run by Soros. And Indymedia is the FBI mouthpiece. ???

Idiots! Paid by Israel/US to troll on boards like this and post lies. Go back to your crappy lives.

Let the rest of us digest this leak of information.

Indymedia is FBI


Soros and Wikileaks

25.10.2010 08:02

Find out more about Wikileaks and George Soros:

 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TNKZ4iY0sGA

insidejob


insidejob = state asset?

25.10.2010 09:45

Strange how insidejob seems to be trying to rubbish one of the biggest exposés of the US military ever, that shows in brilliant detail the obscenity of war.

I wonder why? Are they working for the US government trying to use dirty tricks and bad PR for their enemies? Or do they just have a personal axe to grind about WIkileaks?

anon


online propaganda war

25.10.2010 11:05

Yes, I think it's no coincidence that this greatest leak ever (and the previous ones too) have generated an awful lot of nonsense in the 'conspiracy theory' camp. I think their real allegiance in this case is clear to see. I'm not saying everyone who is suspicious of Wikileaks is paid by the FBI to post crap about then (see for example  http://palestinechronicle.com/view_article_details.php?id=15293) but they have the resources to pay hundreds of people to write stuff FULL TIME just about this one organisation. Online, this might have a big impact on opinion. At the very least, it creates the impression of a debate.

Krop


Not real US war crimes?

25.10.2010 15:54

insidejob = state asset?
25.10.2010 09:45
Strange how insidejob seems to be trying to rubbish one of the biggest exposés of the US military ever, that shows in brilliant detail the obscenity of war.

From BBC Have Your Say webpages
At 01:12am on 23 Oct 2010, MellorSJ wrote:
Who can say until we read them?
Nonetheless, we can reasonably predict that the Iraqis have been involved in some atrocities, and possibly Coalition forces too. We can also reasonably predict that the media (and assorted left-wingers--we have two here already) will scream blue murder.
While we should neither encourage no condone such behaviour, neither should we get over-excited about it. Could be worse, after all. We could behead journalists on video, for example. Or put schoolteachers in jail for calling a teddy bear Mohammed. Or threaten the life of someone who drew a cartoon. Or fly an airplane into a skyscraper.
This is, like it or not, a war. Get over it.

At 04:18am on 23 Oct 2010, effinuts wrote:
Oh my god!!! This story is a like hitting the jackpot for some of you HYS dwellers. Let the America bashing begin.
The US was not intentionally killing civilians. When you don't know who your enemy is but you know they are all around (because they blend in with the population) it's unfortunately inevitable that civilians will die. Allegedly the US ignored reports of torture by the IRAQI FORCES (read the article carefully), it is after all Iraq. That's the way they do things in that part of the world (does it mean it's right? NO). It does not say that US forces were torturing Iraqi's (and yes I know about waterboarding but that was then), it says Iraqi forces were torturing Iraqi's.

Are people in the US who had been convinced that they should support the Anglo-American war in Iraq going to believe that Wikileaks shows US abuse? Or that the US didn't seek to civilise the Iraqis.

insidejob


re: Not real US war crimes?

25.10.2010 16:30

"Are people in the US who had been convinced that they should support the Anglo-American war in Iraq going to believe that Wikileaks shows US abuse?"

Er, yes. You'll get some jingoistic idiots who won't believe it or will justify it whatever, and you will get some astroturfers posting on public forums (Israel's paid cyber PR army?) but a lot of people will be sickened by this.

The leak is from within the US military, so it isn't surprising it glosses over US atrocities and is more explicit about Iraqi atrocities. Even so it is pretty damning for the US. You can see the press starting to dig out the juicy stories already. Why do you think the US are so out to get Julian Assange? This is a PR disaster for them.

Are you seriously suggesting there is a conspiracy by the US to manufacture hundreds of thousands of fake documents that show them to be total shits, only not quite as bad as the Iraqi army? Come on, that is almost as ludicrous as the idea that 9/11 was an inside job!

The guy who supposedly leaked them is a hero and is facing a lot of jail time for his public-spirited actions. For you to smear them as a conspiracy is pissing on his face.

anon