Advertisement

WikiLeaks editor: Truth about Iraq clearer

A series of frame grabs from a video posted on a website, WikiLeaks.org, shows a U.S. Army Apache helicopter firing on a group of people in a street east of Baghdad, Iraq on July 12, 2007. It is believed that a Reuters press photographer Namie Noor-Eldeen, his driver Saeed Chmagh, and two children were among those killed in the attack, and that Noor-Eldeen's camera equipment was mistaken for AK-47s. UPI/WikiLeaks.org
A series of frame grabs from a video posted on a website, WikiLeaks.org, shows a U.S. Army Apache helicopter firing on a group of people in a street east of Baghdad, Iraq on July 12, 2007. It is believed that a Reuters press photographer Namie Noor-Eldeen, his driver Saeed Chmagh, and two children were among those killed in the attack, and that Noor-Eldeen's camera equipment was mistaken for AK-47s. UPI/WikiLeaks.org | License Photo

LONDON, Oct. 23 (UPI) -- The head of the WikiLeaks Web site said Saturday the latest release of U.S. military documents challenges a number of misconceptions about the war in Iraq.

The nearly 400,000 documents posted by the controversial whistleblower site details alleged instances of assaults and unjustified killings of Iraqi civilians and raises the estimated civilian death toll by approximately 15,000.

Advertisement

"We hope to correct some of that attack on the truth that occurred before the war, during the war and which has continued on since the war officially concluded," WikiLeaks editor-in-chief Julian Assange told a news conference in London Saturday.

The release is the second major batch of classified U.S. military documents to be publicized by Sweden-based WikiLeaks. The Obama administration has condemned the releases for placing U.S. and Iraqi allies in danger.

CNN said U.S. and British newspapers given early access to the documents found that while many of the civilian deaths were the result of encounters with American troops, the majority of the killings were carried out by other Iraqis.

CNN also said Saturday the Pentagon has concluded that nothing in the material rises to the level of evidence of war crimes against individual U.S. soldiers. They also contain documents describing behind-the-scenes aid to insurgents by the Iranian military.

Advertisement

Latest Headlines