WikiLeaks claims Iraq civilian toll is higher
Source: Agencies |
October 24, 2010, Sunday
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UNITED States military documents in the biggest leak of secret information in US history suggest that far more Iraqis died than previously acknowledged during the years of sectarian bloodletting and criminal violence unleashed by the 2003 US-led invasion.
The accounts of civilian deaths among nearly 400,000 purported Iraq war logs released on Friday by the WikiLeaks website include deaths unknown or unreported before now - as many as 15,000 by the count of one independent group.
The field reports from US forces and intelligence officers also indicated that US forces often failed to follow up on credible evidence that Iraqi forces mistreated, tortured and killed their captives as they battled a violent insurgency. The war logs were made public in defiance of Pentagon insistence that the action puts the lives of US troops and their military partners at risk.
Although the documents appear to be authentic, their origin could not be independently confirmed, and WikiLeaks declined to offer any details about them.
The 391,831 documents date from the start of 2004 to January 1, 2010, providing a ground-level view of the war written mostly by low-ranking officers in the field. The dry reports, full of military jargon, were meant to catalog "significant actions" over six years of heavy US and allied military presence in Iraq.
The Pentagon has previously declined to confirm the authenticity of WikiLeaks released records, but it has employed more than 100 US analysts to review what was previously released and has never indicated that any past WikiLeaks releases were inaccurate.
At a news conference in London yesterday, WikiLeaks said it would soon publish 15,000 additional secret Afghan war papers. The group has already published some 77,000 US intelligence reports about the war in Afghanistan in addition to the almost 400,000 alleged secret US papers about the Iraq war.
Casualty figures in the US-led war in Iraq have been hotly disputed because of the high political stakes in a conflict opposed by many countries and a large portion of the American public. Critics on each side of the divide accuse the other of manipulating the death toll to sway opinion.
Iraq Body Count, a private British-based group that has tracked the number of Iraqi civilians killed since the war began, said it had analyzed the information and found 15,000 previously unreported deaths, which would raise its total from as many as 107,369 civilians to more than 122,000 civilians.
Al-Jazeera, one of several news organizations provided advance access to the WikiLeaks trove, reported the documents show 285,000 recorded casualties, including at least 109,000 deaths. Of those who died 66,000, nearly two-thirds of the total, were civilians.
The Iraqi government has issued a tally claiming at least 85,694 deaths of civilians and security officials killed between January 2004 and October 31, 2008.
The accounts of civilian deaths among nearly 400,000 purported Iraq war logs released on Friday by the WikiLeaks website include deaths unknown or unreported before now - as many as 15,000 by the count of one independent group.
The field reports from US forces and intelligence officers also indicated that US forces often failed to follow up on credible evidence that Iraqi forces mistreated, tortured and killed their captives as they battled a violent insurgency. The war logs were made public in defiance of Pentagon insistence that the action puts the lives of US troops and their military partners at risk.
Although the documents appear to be authentic, their origin could not be independently confirmed, and WikiLeaks declined to offer any details about them.
The 391,831 documents date from the start of 2004 to January 1, 2010, providing a ground-level view of the war written mostly by low-ranking officers in the field. The dry reports, full of military jargon, were meant to catalog "significant actions" over six years of heavy US and allied military presence in Iraq.
The Pentagon has previously declined to confirm the authenticity of WikiLeaks released records, but it has employed more than 100 US analysts to review what was previously released and has never indicated that any past WikiLeaks releases were inaccurate.
At a news conference in London yesterday, WikiLeaks said it would soon publish 15,000 additional secret Afghan war papers. The group has already published some 77,000 US intelligence reports about the war in Afghanistan in addition to the almost 400,000 alleged secret US papers about the Iraq war.
Casualty figures in the US-led war in Iraq have been hotly disputed because of the high political stakes in a conflict opposed by many countries and a large portion of the American public. Critics on each side of the divide accuse the other of manipulating the death toll to sway opinion.
Iraq Body Count, a private British-based group that has tracked the number of Iraqi civilians killed since the war began, said it had analyzed the information and found 15,000 previously unreported deaths, which would raise its total from as many as 107,369 civilians to more than 122,000 civilians.
Al-Jazeera, one of several news organizations provided advance access to the WikiLeaks trove, reported the documents show 285,000 recorded casualties, including at least 109,000 deaths. Of those who died 66,000, nearly two-thirds of the total, were civilians.
The Iraqi government has issued a tally claiming at least 85,694 deaths of civilians and security officials killed between January 2004 and October 31, 2008.
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