Secret war files reveal brutal killing of over 100,000 Iraqis over six years

WASHINGTON - Secret U.S. field reports from the Iraq war have revealed s grim new details, indicating that over 100,000 Iraqis were killed during a six-year stretch and that American forces often failed to intervene as the U.S.-backed government brutalized detainees.

According to news organizations given access to the documents by the WikiLeaks Web site, the nearly 400,000 records are described as offering a chilling, pointillist view of the war’s peak years, documenting thousands of civilian deaths - including hundreds killed at checkpoints manned by U.S. soldiers - and the burgeoning role that American contractors came to play in the conflict.

But according to the Washington Post, the logs are perhaps most disturbing in their portrayal of the Iraqi government that has taken control of security in the country as U.S. forces withdraw.

The documents, including some dated as recently as 2009, report the deaths of at least six detainees in Iraqi custody because of abuse, and cite hundreds of other cases in which prisoners were subjected to electric shock, sodomized, burned, whipped or beaten by Iraqi authorities.

The news organizations given access to the documents included the Guardian, the New York Times, the Qatar-based al-Jazeera satellite television network, Germany’s Der Spiegel magazine, the French newspaper Le Monde and the Channel 4 news program in Britain.
WikiLeaks, an anti-secrecy group that uses servers in several countries, published the records on its Web site (WikiLeaks.org) Friday evening.

The Pentagon has condemned the release but did not question the authenticity of the files.

“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,” said Pentagon spokesman Geoff Morrell.

He said the military would not comment on the information contained in the records but stressed that the “reports are initial, raw observations by tactical units. They are essentially snapshots of events, both tragic and mundane, and do not tell the whole story.” (ANI)