Wikileaks releases 440,000 Iraq files

Richard tea

Wikileaks releases 440,000 Iraq files.

This is going to be Epic. Documents contain info on torture, blackwater goons killing civilians and lots more:mad:

AnonoBoy

I bet 99% of the files will be really boring though.

Richard tea

AnonoBoy wrote: »

I bet 99% of the files will be really boring though.

The sunday papers should have a nice breakdown of the juicy bits;)

eg. The reports detail 109,032 deaths in Iraq, comprised of 66,081 'civilians'; 23,984 'enemy' (those labeled as insurgents); 15,196 'host nation' (Iraqi government forces) and 3,771 'friendly' (coalition forces). The majority of the deaths (66,000, over 60%) of these are civilian deaths.That is 31 civilians dying every day during the six year period. For comparison, the 'Afghan War Diaries', previously released by WikiLeaks, covering the same period, detail the deaths of some 20,000 people. Iraq during the same period, was five times as lethal with equivallent population size.

http://warlogs.wikileaks.org/

Clawdeeus

Dosent look like there is anything terribly surprising, yet, except maybe continuing abuses by Iraqi officials (that the US turned a blind eye to, or passed it on to Iraq authorities to investigate who then... turned a blind eye to it).

That said, it will be interesting to see what there is in there about the activities of PMCs, who I have often heard did not get along with the proffesional soldiers.

Looks like this time they took pains to remove the names of informants. Most good. I tip my hat to thee.

nommm

Theres some good stuff on the guardian website if you don't want to trawl through all of them.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/interactive/2010/aug/13/iraq-war-logs?CMP=twt_gu
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2010/oct/22/iraq-war-logs-military-leaks

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/video/2010/oct/22/iraq-war-logs
And the Americans claim that the middle east are the terrorists. :pac:

Clawdeeus

Does anyone know if its true you cant surrender to an aircraft? I guess it makes sense but really I wouldnt know.

starbelgrade

Holy fuck. I just spent a week trying to kill one fly, now Wikileaks are going to release 440,000 of them.

Have they no cop on at all?

Richard tea

starbelgrade wrote: »

Holy fuck. I just spent a week trying to kill one fly, now Wikileaks are going to release 440,000 of them.

Have they no cop on at all?

You ha dme checking my spellings you little rascal you

Manic Moran

Clawdeeus wrote: »

Does anyone know if its true you cant surrender to an aircraft? I guess it makes sense but really I wouldnt know.

How would you accept the surrender and take prisoners?

There is some precedent, for example in 1991 a group of Iraqis surrendered to a drone which was spotting for one of the battleships. The ship, of course, couldn't accept the surrender, but they just kept an eye on them until some soldiers could be detoured around to accept the surrender. It basically becomes a matter of balancing the chances of the surrender being withdrawn and the enemy escaping vs the ability to actually take the prisoners.

NTM

Saila

Richard tea wrote: »

Wikileaks releases 440,000 Iraq files.

This is going to be Epic. Documents contain info on torture, blackwater goons killing civilians and lots more:mad:

yeah like as if there is going to be anything new.

country was invaded for no reason [breaks UN rules]

lots of CIVILIANS killed

lots of soldiers too

people tortured

were you not watching the news or just plain living under a rock not to know it was all going on

mawk

Richard tea wrote: »

You ha dme checking my spellings you little rascal you

...... Oh you:rolleyes:

Thomas_S_Hunterson

I think the only thing in these files that could surprise anyone would be if the US actually turned out to be compliant with the Geneva Convention et al.

celtic Liger

just like the other releases, unfathomable doc's the masses will do nothing about, whilst the coalition forces continue their war on terror / slash / lithium extraction, heroin production project.

if the US government don't want you to know about something, then you won't.

Nodin

....well, the truth be told its only a section of their own public they need keep on board. Theres fuck all the rest of the world can do to stop them.

KyussBishop

Another interesting site dedicated to it, with lots of articles:
http://iraqwarlogs.com/

Ciaran500

Amazing to think how little will seem to come of this. Its already falling by the waste side in AH.

Johro

'Wikileaks releases 400,000 Iraq files'

Get a big fileswatter if you're worried.;)

Herb Powell

I think Hilary's condemnation of the release is pretty disgusting. The details wouldn't put any lives in danger if the US had done nothing wrong

demolitionman

it think its the sheer gargantuan nature of the whole thing which makes it bypass the general public.

The headline of ''Wikileaks releases 400,000 Iraq war logs'' just doesnt catch the attention of the casual newsreader.

Ilike wikileaks for what their trying to do. But the manner in which they do it just doesnt seem to catch anybodys attention. The only people who really get worked up about it all are th US government, the masses couldnt give two sh1tes!!

Clawdeeus

Herb Powell wrote: »

I think Hilary's condemnation of the release is pretty disgusting. The details wouldn't put any lives in danger if the US had done nothing wrong

Not true, specifically the condemnation comes from the nature of the reports as an intelligence rescource with regard to things like the effectivness of certain tactics. Probablly wont have much of an effect regardless, but in theory it could.

With regard to how little waves the documents will make, its probablly because it reveals little that is actually new, just gives details to certain things. The impact of the release itself, rather than the content is much more important; if they had been released in the normal fashion following 10 years (less if requested through the freedom of information act) there probably wouldnt have been even the small bit of attention it got now.

Come to think of it, if the US government didnt even comment on it, it probablly would have gotten less.

FoxT

The documents that I have seen are virtually unreadable unless you are a military analyst. There are 440, 000 of them If each one takes a minute to read, then just reading them all will be about 5 manyears of work. Sorting, collating, prioritising, and assembling into a meaningful narrative will probably be another 20-30 manyears of labour.
I am glad that they are released, but their true value will not be known for a few years at least, and I doubt they will yield anything of lasting historical value.

Iraq has been a disaster. Bush snr should have pressed on & wiped out saddam in Iraq 1, but he didnt do it. Subsequently, Blair & bush jnr lied about WMD & went in again - but in the meantime Saddam had murdered, jailed & tortured thousands of civilians who opposed the regime. In Iraq II, the citizens on the ground trusted neither the western forces, nor their own government & civil institutions. Hundreds of thousands of violent deaths was the inevitable result.

In the meantime Afghanistan is shaping up to become an Iraq III.

It is clear that Bush Snr failed dismally in Iraq, and that failure was compounded by Bush jnr & Blair in Iraq II. They finally got rid of Saddam, but at such a cost that it is fair to doubt whether it was worth it. I have never understood the Afghanistan war, what its aims are, what progress is being made, or when it can end.

- FoxT

Clawdeeus

I agree.

With regard to Afghanistan, I believe the objective (intially) was to remove the government which did not deem it necessary to crack down on al Qaedas organistational and logistic nexus, which was on the Af-Pak border at the time (probablly still is, but analysts believe its capablities are much reduced).

Right now? I have no idea.

Johro

Herb Powell wrote: »

I think Hilary's condemnation of the release is pretty disgusting. The details wouldn't put any lives in danger if the US had done nothing wrong

You wouldn't really expect anything else though from official quarters.

old_aussie

The civillian death rate is believed to be around 100,000

http://www.iraqbodycount.org/database/

The 66,000 deaths include those killed by muslim suicide bombers, killing many civillians.

The worst year was 2007 when muslim suicide bombers killed an average 21 people per day (7665 in the year)

Manic Moran

Iraq has been a disaster. Bush snr should have pressed on & wiped out saddam in Iraq 1, but he didnt do it.

Then all that outrage currently focused on Bush Jr would have applied to him. His coalition was very wide-ranging, even the Syrians sent troops. There was no support for the ousting of Saddam, even if he wanted to do it. The coalition would have fractured instantly.

NTM

James T Kirk

@demolitionman: True, the general public couldn't give a fcuk about any of this. Once they can watch X Factor and similar prole feed in peace, all that **** can be left to the restless student/AdBuster crowd. It's only if the boot kicks in their own front door, will they care.

Ronin247

Clawdeeus wrote: »

I agree.

With regard to Afghanistan, I believe the objective (intially) was to remove the government which did not deem it necessary to crack down on al Qaedas organistational and logistic nexus, which was on the Af-Pak border at the time (probablly still is, but analysts believe its capablities are much reduced).

Right now? I have no idea.

There was no al qaeda when Russia invaded.This is all about spheres of influence,footholds in areas,oil and mineral exploitation and drugs trade.

Herb Powell

Johro wrote: »

You wouldn't really expect anything else though from official quarters.

obviously not

Pookah

Clawdeeus wrote: »

Looks like this time they took pains to remove the names of informants. Most good. I tip my hat to thee.

According to a report on Al-Jazeera, earlier, there were no instances in the first release of files where informants could be identified.

It was just more U.S. shit-talk.

Clawdeeus

Pookah wrote: »

According to a report on Al-Jazeera, earlier, there were no instances in the first release of files where informants could be identified.

It was just more U.S. shit-talk.

Several humanitarian agenices criticised wikileaks for not retracting the names, wikileaks themselves admitted there were names but stated there was no documented instances of the information being used to kill the informants. So no, there probabll were.

Clawdeeus

Ronin247 wrote: »

There was no al qaeda when Russia invaded.This is all about spheres of influence,footholds in areas,oil and mineral exploitation and drugs trade.

The Soviets objectives were obviously different than the US's, they invaded to prop up a socialist government, by their request, to fight mujahdeen groups (many splintered ones, al qaeda's germ was there, though they did not form fully untill later) .

Pookah

Clawdeeus wrote: »

Several humanitarian agenices criticised wikileaks for not retracting the names, wikileaks themselves admitted there were names but stated there was no documented instances of the information being used to kill the informants. So no, there probabll were.

http://bigthink.com/ideas/21807

Clawdeeus

Pookah wrote: »

http://bigthink.com/ideas/21807

http://www.techeye.net/security/five-human-rights-groups-slam-wikileaks-for-endangering-lives

It was an accident.

http://www.theaustralian.com.au/news/world/publication-of-afghan-informant-details-worth-the-risk-wikileaks-founder-julian-assange/story-e6frg6so-1225898273552

This is not in contention. It is not a conspiracy theory; it was found by numerous independant scources. The effect it may have had is questionable; the publication of the names themselves are not.

Biggins

US troops killed 680 civilians at checkpoints

Leaked files reveal the number of Iraqi civilians killed at checkpoints by American troops was six times the number of insurgents

American troops shot dead 681 innocent civilians at security checkpoints in Iraq, including 30 children, leaked files reveal.

Troops who were ordered to shoot at cars that failed to stop killed nearly six times as many Iraqi civilians as insurgents. Survivors claim that American troops opened fire without adequate warnings. The deaths are revealed in the biggest leak of military documents in history.

President Barack Obama faces calls for an inquiry into the disclosure by WikiLeaks, the whistleblowers’ website, which also documents alleged torture of detainees by the Iraqi authorities.

On June 14, 2005, US marines repeatedly fired at a vehicle containing 11 civilians that failed to stop at a checkpoint at Ramadi, west of Baghdad, according to the files.

“A maroon four-door Opel disregarded all hand and arm signals and continued at a high rate of speed,” the military report said. “The vehicle disregarded the warning shots. The marines engaged [shot at] the driver to stop the vehicle.”

Seven Iraqi civilians were killed, including two children.

In Baghdad in December 2005 a three-year-old boy was shot dead after a car driven by a middle-aged woman failed to stop. She had glass in her eyes and a bullet wound to her hand, but refused treatment because she wanted to bury the child before nightfall.

Toby Dodge, a reader in international politics at Queen Mary, University of London, said: “There was almost a cavalier use of force against Iraqi civilians.”

An analysis of the leaked military files by the Bureau of Investigative Journalism for Channel 4’s Dispatches reveals that 832 people were killed approaching checkpoints or convoys between 2004 and 2009, and 2,200 were wounded. Of those killed, 681 were innocent civilians, 120 were insurgents and the remainder were Iraqi soldiers or police officers.

Source below - Please note - it contains a child covered in blood and crying/screaming that some might find unsettling.
So think before you click!

Johro

It's an awful shame we're seeing these files about ten years too late..

Manic Moran

On June 14, 2005, US marines repeatedly fired at a vehicle containing 11 civilians that failed to stop at a checkpoint at Ramadi, west of Baghdad, according to the files.

“A maroon four-door Opel disregarded all hand and arm signals and continued at a high rate of speed,” the military report said. “The vehicle disregarded the warning shots. The marines engaged [shot at] the driver to stop the vehicle.”

How do you even get 11 people into a four-door Opel?

Here's the problem. One of the biggest visual indicators of a car bomb is that the vehicle is very heavily loaded down.

NTM

KyussBishop

Really good news report/documentary (hour long) on the leaked documents:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pU718vXkrwY

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pU718vXkrwY

Nodin

Manic Moran wrote: »

How do you even get 11 people into a four-door Opel?

Well, if they're Arabs, you just tell them the Americans are coming to liberate them...

Turtwig

Nodin wrote: »

Well, if they're Arabs, you just tell them the Americans are coming to liberate them...

Is that a joke? If so, it's not really the thing to be joking about. Put yourself in any troopers shoe, regardless of rank or class, you see a car approaching that looks packed to the brim your adrenaline levels are going to rise and fast.

On a more serious note, I'm all for the US getting their asses handed to them over the questionable nature on the Iraq War, but what Wikileaks has done is nothing near heroic, or righteous, it's down right stupid and ignorant. Yes the acknowledgements of abuse, civilian casualties make for great headlines, but let's be honest a war without casualties would be the most bizarre war in human history. Even more so, when one sides know's that a huge weakness of the other side is that civilian casualties are not to be tolerated. If you are an enemy of the US (or in the case of Afghanistan, NATO) then you now have inside valuable knowledge of what tactics tend to be used in various situations and how viable those tactics appear to be. Put it this way, let's say a Spec Ops team is charged with rescuing some hostages (assuming they don't use a frag grenade as room prep) if the opposing force knows the tactics and procedures that team is going to use then the chances of a successful rescue has dropped immensely and the chances of a staunch defence by the opposing force has risen substantially. I hate to reference Hollywood in this sort of stuff, but it's kinda a kin to the first Die Hard movie where the terrorists knew the FBI SOPs step by step.

Nodin

Malty_T wrote: »

Is that a joke? If so, it's not really the thing to be joking about.

I wasn't aware that God had manifested himself and equipped you with the nessecary high horse to lecture me from. Maybe I was asleep......

Turtwig

Nodin wrote: »

I wasn't aware that God had manifested himself and equipped you with the nessecary high horse to lecture me from. Maybe I was asleep......

You probably were as you seemed to have missed two questions* you were asked.

*Ok technically one, as you took it upon yourself to provide comment on another.

Genghiz Cohen

Nodin wrote: »

I wasn't aware that God had manifested himself and equipped you with the nessecary high horse to lecture me from. Maybe I was asleep......

Well I agree with Malty, so maybe you should reconsider you style of 'humor'.

karma_

Manic Moran wrote: »

How do you even get 11 people into a four-door Opel?

Here's the problem. One of the biggest visual indicators of a car bomb is that the vehicle is very heavily loaded down.

NTM

I have been in cars with 8 or 9 adults coming home after a sat night out, if your talking about a lot of kids then yes it would be no problem to get 11 people into a car.

If there is any justice in the world then a lot of the trigger happy soldiers who did kill civilians indiscriminately in Iraq or Afghanistan will have get severe PTSD and top themselves, and good riddance.

Nodin

Genghiz Cohen wrote: »

Well I agree with Malty, so maybe you should reconsider you style of 'humor'.

emmmm.....no, I don't think I will.

orourkeda

How does a so called anti establishment whistle blower website get 440,000 documents from the same "establishment" that they have a gripe with.

Something fishy going on here.

karma_

orourkeda wrote: »

How does a so called anti establishment whistle blower website get 440,000 documents from the same "establishment" that they have a gripe with.

Something fishy going on here.

Whistleblowers.

Also since when has telling the truth been looked so down upon? Wikileaks should be commended.

Genghiz Cohen

Nodin wrote: »

emmmm.....no, I don't think I will.

That's fine but don't get all defensive and butthurt the next time someone calls you out on some comment that is both incredibly dickheaded and immature.

Turtwig

karma_ wrote: »

Whistleblowers.

Also since when has telling the truth been looked so down upon? Wikileaks should be commended.

Because in War information is a vital asset, by "leaking" the data and intel of one side you are inadvertently handing the other side initiative. A side, need I remind you, that does it utmost to maximise civilian casualties. If Wikileaks really cared about the truth, leaking Iranian documents would be a good step towards that. I'd actually love if they did that, but something tells me they'll just jump off the Iraq war and move onto Israel...

karma_

Malty_T wrote: »

Because in War information is a vital asset, by "leaking" the data and intel of one side you are inadvertently handing the other side initiative. A side, need I remind you, that does it utmost to maximise civilian casualties. If Wikileaks really cared about the truth, leaking Iranian documents would be a good step towards that. I'd actually love if they did that, but something tells me they'll just jump off the Iraq war and move onto Israel...

These documents are 10 years old, what relevant information could they possibly provide to an insurgency that has already fairly much wound down?

Also, if someone were to leak Iranian documents to wikileaks I am certain they would be released. Your double standard I find more worrying, you have no problem leaking Iranian secrets, its just US ones that you have any real issue with.

orourkeda

karma_ wrote: »

Whistleblowers.

Also since when has telling the truth been looked so down upon? Wikileaks should be commended.

I'm not suggesting that telling the truth is a bad thing.

I'm suggesting that it appears odd to me that so many documents can be obtained from the U.S Miliitary by a website that markets itself (for want of a better expression) as being anti establishment. Perhaps I'm reading too much into it and my doubts may be misplaced but there's something about this that doesn't seem right.

Turtwig

karma_ wrote: »

These documents are 10 years old, what relevant information could they possibly provide to an insurgency that has already fairly much wound down?

Also, if someone were to leak Iranian documents to wikileaks I am certain they would be released. Your double standard I find more worrying, you have no problem leaking Iranian secrets, its just US ones that you have any real issue with.

The various methods the US used to combat the insurgency and instill trust and ease tensions in the various communities, their security patrols, agreements with Militia etc. All of these inform the US's enemies.

I'm all for the truth, but if you're going to release the "truth" of war then surely you should release the documents of all parties involved simultaneously not just one single party? I'm almost 100% confident the taliban have changed their approach in Afghanistan, wouldn't it be nice to know why they chose to make such a decision? And wouldn't it be even nicer to know what their plans on are in unsettling various communities, placing IEDs, combatting ISAF forces, how they pick ambush points etc. Either release both sides, or release none.