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WikiLeaks Dumps 400,000 Classified Military Documents Containing Details of Tortured Iraqis
In what is being described as the largest release of secret U.S. military documents ever, the whistle-blowing website WikiLeaks has released a trove of classified reports about the war in Iraq, including a secret U.S. government tally that puts the Iraqi death toll over 100,000, according to news sources that received advanced copies of the documents.
Those documents include evidence of state-sanctioned torture by the Iraqi government, new evidence of Iraqi government death squads, and Iran's involvement in funneling arms to Shiite militias, according to several international news outlets that were able to review the documents before their release.
Some 400,000 documents are being released today. WikiLeaks said it will hold a press conference Saturday morning in Europe. Meanwhile, as the details emerged WikiLeaks' Web site was down for what it called "scheduled maintenance."
ABC News has not viewed the documents firsthand.
Among the highlights is a report that the Iraqi death toll reached 109,000, according to Britain's Guardian newspaper, and watchdog group Iraq Body Count, both of which reviewed the documents.
According to the Arab news outlet Al Jazeera, 63 percent of all Iraqi deaths were civilians.
The U.S. military long has maintained that it does not keep an official death tally, but earlier this month following a Freedom of Information Act request, the Pentagon said some 77,000 Iraqis had been killed from 2004 to 2008.
Al Jazeera also claimed the documents said 681 Iraqi civilians were killed at U.S. checkpoints, 180,000 Iraqis were arrested during the war and 15,000 Iraqis were buried without being identified.
U.S. officials knew that the Iraqi government was engaged in torture and recorded incidents in which government interrogators electrocuted, stabbed and sodomized detainees, according to reports on the documents.
The massive leak was anticipated by the Pentagon, which has warned that publicizing the information could endanger U.S. troops.
"We strongly condemn the unauthorized disclosure of classified information," said Pentagon Press Secretary Geoff Morrell prior to the documents becoming public.
Morrell said the documents "expose secret information that could make our troops even more vulnerable to attack in the future. Just as with the leaked Afghan documents, we know our enemies will mine this information looking for insights into how we operate, cultivate sources and react in combat situations, even the capability of our equipment. This security breach could very well get our troops and those they are fighting with killed."
Sources that have seen the documents report no major revelations, but taken together can be read as a secret history of the war written from a troop's-eye-view of the conflict.
The Pentagon has said the documents include tactical reports from late 2003 to 2010 containing brief unit-level observations of what those units saw on a daily basis.
They include descriptions of attacks on Iraqi Security Forces and US forces, detainee abuse, civilian casualty incidents, IED blasts, discussions with Iraqis, and inquiries into socio-political relations, according to Department of Defense spokesman Col. David Lapan
The release of the documents comes at a critical time as U.S. troops begin a staged withdrawal from Iraq. All 50,000 remaining US troops in the country are expected to leave by the end of next year.
As occurred with the Afghanistan documents, the Iraqi war documents would likely contain the names of Iraqis who cooperated with U.S. Forces.
In July, WikiLeaks published a raft of secret documents from Afghanistan, which the Website obtained from a single rogue soldier, Army Specialist Bradley Manning, who had access to secret intelligence contained on military computers.
Among the documents Manning leaked, was a classified video showing an Apache helicopter attack in 2007 that killed civilians and two Reuters news photographers. Manning is currently in a military brig near Washington DC awaiting a court martial.
As occurred with the Afghanistan documents, the Iraqi war documents would likely contain the names of Iraqis who cooperated with U.S. Forces.
The Pentagon has continued to express concerns about Wiki Leaks releasing unredacted information containing such names because of the potential harm they might face by insurgents. "Our concern is mostly with the threat to individuals, the threat to our people and our equipment," said Lapan.
After WikiLeaks released 70,000 documents in July relating to the war in Afghanistan, the Pentagon quickly set up a 120 person task force to review the documents for potential damage. Lapan has said that in anticipation of a release of Iraq War documents, that same task force has spent the past few weeks reviewing a database of 400,000 "significant acts" from the war in Iraq.
Lapan said the task force looked for names of Iraqi individuals that might be included in the documents and passed this information to U.S. Central Command Centcom, which presumably would pass them on to U.S. forces in Iraq.
Despite the military's concerns that individuals would be threatened following the publication of the Afghan documents in July, the Pentagon said no such cases had been recorded.
"I don't have any information that from the first 77,000 documents that any individuals were killed. But then again I don't think we have perfect knowledge either," Lapan said.
The investigation into the leaked Afghan war documents has focused on Manning, who worked as an Army intelligence analyst in Iraq. He is now under military detention in the Washington, D.C., area under charges that he a classified video showing an Apache helicopter attack in 2007 that killed civilians and two Reuters news photographers.
"We deplore WikiLeaks for inducing individuals to break the law, leak classified documents and then cavalierly share that secret information with the world, including our enemies. We know terrorist organizations have been mining the leaked Afghan documents for information to use against us and this Iraq leak is more than four times as large. By disclosing such sensitive information, WikiLeaks continues to put at risk the lives of our troops, their coalition partners and those Iraqis and Afghans working with us. The only responsible course of action for WikiLeaks at this point is to return the stolen material and expunge it from their websites as soon as possible. "
Wikileaks: Secret Iraq War Death Toll Reportedly at Least 100,000 - ABC News
In what is being described as the largest release of secret U.S. military documents ever, the whistle-blowing website WikiLeaks has released a trove of classified reports about the war in Iraq, including a secret U.S. government tally that puts the Iraqi death toll over 100,000, according to news sources that received advanced copies of the documents.
Those documents include evidence of state-sanctioned torture by the Iraqi government, new evidence of Iraqi government death squads, and Iran's involvement in funneling arms to Shiite militias, according to several international news outlets that were able to review the documents before their release.
Some 400,000 documents are being released today. WikiLeaks said it will hold a press conference Saturday morning in Europe. Meanwhile, as the details emerged WikiLeaks' Web site was down for what it called "scheduled maintenance."
ABC News has not viewed the documents firsthand.
Among the highlights is a report that the Iraqi death toll reached 109,000, according to Britain's Guardian newspaper, and watchdog group Iraq Body Count, both of which reviewed the documents.
According to the Arab news outlet Al Jazeera, 63 percent of all Iraqi deaths were civilians.
The U.S. military long has maintained that it does not keep an official death tally, but earlier this month following a Freedom of Information Act request, the Pentagon said some 77,000 Iraqis had been killed from 2004 to 2008.
Al Jazeera also claimed the documents said 681 Iraqi civilians were killed at U.S. checkpoints, 180,000 Iraqis were arrested during the war and 15,000 Iraqis were buried without being identified.
U.S. officials knew that the Iraqi government was engaged in torture and recorded incidents in which government interrogators electrocuted, stabbed and sodomized detainees, according to reports on the documents.
The massive leak was anticipated by the Pentagon, which has warned that publicizing the information could endanger U.S. troops.
"We strongly condemn the unauthorized disclosure of classified information," said Pentagon Press Secretary Geoff Morrell prior to the documents becoming public.
Morrell said the documents "expose secret information that could make our troops even more vulnerable to attack in the future. Just as with the leaked Afghan documents, we know our enemies will mine this information looking for insights into how we operate, cultivate sources and react in combat situations, even the capability of our equipment. This security breach could very well get our troops and those they are fighting with killed."
Sources that have seen the documents report no major revelations, but taken together can be read as a secret history of the war written from a troop's-eye-view of the conflict.
The Pentagon has said the documents include tactical reports from late 2003 to 2010 containing brief unit-level observations of what those units saw on a daily basis.
They include descriptions of attacks on Iraqi Security Forces and US forces, detainee abuse, civilian casualty incidents, IED blasts, discussions with Iraqis, and inquiries into socio-political relations, according to Department of Defense spokesman Col. David Lapan
The release of the documents comes at a critical time as U.S. troops begin a staged withdrawal from Iraq. All 50,000 remaining US troops in the country are expected to leave by the end of next year.
As occurred with the Afghanistan documents, the Iraqi war documents would likely contain the names of Iraqis who cooperated with U.S. Forces.
In July, WikiLeaks published a raft of secret documents from Afghanistan, which the Website obtained from a single rogue soldier, Army Specialist Bradley Manning, who had access to secret intelligence contained on military computers.
Among the documents Manning leaked, was a classified video showing an Apache helicopter attack in 2007 that killed civilians and two Reuters news photographers. Manning is currently in a military brig near Washington DC awaiting a court martial.
As occurred with the Afghanistan documents, the Iraqi war documents would likely contain the names of Iraqis who cooperated with U.S. Forces.
The Pentagon has continued to express concerns about Wiki Leaks releasing unredacted information containing such names because of the potential harm they might face by insurgents. "Our concern is mostly with the threat to individuals, the threat to our people and our equipment," said Lapan.
After WikiLeaks released 70,000 documents in July relating to the war in Afghanistan, the Pentagon quickly set up a 120 person task force to review the documents for potential damage. Lapan has said that in anticipation of a release of Iraq War documents, that same task force has spent the past few weeks reviewing a database of 400,000 "significant acts" from the war in Iraq.
Lapan said the task force looked for names of Iraqi individuals that might be included in the documents and passed this information to U.S. Central Command Centcom, which presumably would pass them on to U.S. forces in Iraq.
Despite the military's concerns that individuals would be threatened following the publication of the Afghan documents in July, the Pentagon said no such cases had been recorded.
"I don't have any information that from the first 77,000 documents that any individuals were killed. But then again I don't think we have perfect knowledge either," Lapan said.
The investigation into the leaked Afghan war documents has focused on Manning, who worked as an Army intelligence analyst in Iraq. He is now under military detention in the Washington, D.C., area under charges that he a classified video showing an Apache helicopter attack in 2007 that killed civilians and two Reuters news photographers.
"We deplore WikiLeaks for inducing individuals to break the law, leak classified documents and then cavalierly share that secret information with the world, including our enemies. We know terrorist organizations have been mining the leaked Afghan documents for information to use against us and this Iraq leak is more than four times as large. By disclosing such sensitive information, WikiLeaks continues to put at risk the lives of our troops, their coalition partners and those Iraqis and Afghans working with us. The only responsible course of action for WikiLeaks at this point is to return the stolen material and expunge it from their websites as soon as possible. "
Wikileaks: Secret Iraq War Death Toll Reportedly at Least 100,000 - ABC News
