The Iraq logs

    Quote

• Massive leak reveals serial detainee abuse

• 15,000 unknown civilian deaths in war

• Full coverage of the Iraq war logs

 

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.

Almost 400,000 secret US army field reports have been passed to the Guardian and a number of other international media organisations via the whistleblowing website WikiLeaks.

The electronic archive is believed to emanate from the same dissident US army intelligence analyst who earlier this year is alleged to have leaked a smaller tranche of 90,000 logs chronicling bloody encounters and civilian killings in the Afghan war.

The new logs detail how:

• US authorities failed to investigate hundreds of reports of abuse, torture, rape and even murder by Iraqi police and soldiers whose conduct appears to be systematic and normally unpunished.

• A US helicopter gunship involved in a notorious Baghdad incident had previously killed Iraqi insurgents after they tried to surrender.

• More than 15,000 civilians died in previously unknown incidents. US and UK officials have insisted that no official record of civilian casualties exists but the logs record 66,081 non-combatant deaths out of a total of 109,000 fatalities.

in before elusive4

should be fun to see nothing be done about this

doobiedoo

I always get the feeling journos don't like this stuff because they didn't find it out, that is wasn't given to one of them personally, that they're no longer the news channel.

I mean, the amount of fuss that would be made if this was some newspapers exclusive or something would be phenomenal.

Of course, they wouldn't publish the stuff anyway, as national security would come down on them, but still, the coverage seems lackluster.

If only we had the ability to harness the pundits for good, they could be all over this. "Arrest him!! prosecute them!!"

  On 10/23/2010 at 12:52 AM, kaen said:

should be fun to see nothing be done about this

 

doobiedoo

Exactly, it will be news for a few days and then it's quickly forgotten and nothing will come of this. Just how the way the world works.