WikiLeaks Iraq War Documents

Summary: In October 2010, WikiLeaks.org made public a collection of almost 400,000 US secret military documents relating to the Iraq war. The release was followed by three months after the release of similar documents pertaining to the Afghan war. Most documents comprised field reports on incidents ranging from friendly fire to deadly fire on civilians at US military checkpoints. The documents were made available in advance to selected news organizations that published reports on the same day WikiLeaks made the documents available to the public. The Pentagon denounced the release as dangerous to American troops. Among other disclosures, according to the organizations that had an advance look at the enormous trove of material, the documents disclosed about 15,000 previously unknown deaths of civilians and numerous incidents in which US troops handed over suspected insurgents to Iraqi authorities, who then proceeded to use torture on the suspects.

On October 23, 2010, WikiLeaks made public almost 400,000 US military documents marked "secret" related to the war in Iraq. It was the second time WikiLeaks had made public a large store of "classified" military documents. In July 2010, about 77,000 classified US military documents related to the war in Afghanistan were made public under the same circumstances. In July, the Iraq documents were made available to the New York Times, the Guardian, and Der Spiegel to review in advance, with the proviso that the contents of the documents not be made public until their WikiLeaks release.

What was leaked? WikiLeaks posted 391,832 US military documents dated from 2004 to 2009. Most of the documents comprised "significant activities" reports, described by the Defense Department as "initial, raw observations by tactical units." The reports, describing unusual events, were written by soldiers involved shortly after the incidents took place. Many reports describe incidents at checkpoints in which soldiers opened fire on vehicles, sometimes containing civilians. The collection of reports mentioned civilian deaths about 34,000 times. Broadly, the subjects of the reports fell into eight categories: explosive hazard, enemy action, friendly action, friendly fire, crimes, suspicious incidents, non-combat events, and perceived threats.

According to Germany's Der Spiegel's analysis, many widely publicized events in the Iraq war were not mentioned. The publication said, "This may be because the documents being released are only classified up to and including the level of 'secret.' The war logs do not, however, include reports classified as 'top secret.'" According to WikiLeaks, thousands of documents were not included on its website to protect its sources' identity(ies).

Disclosures. The preliminary analysis of the documents by news organizations yielded some new information about the Iraq war, including:

• Civilian deaths. The New York Times's analysis of the documents said they "reveal many previously unreported instances in which American soldiers killed civilians—at checkpoints, from helicopters, in operations." The organization Iraq Body Count, which keeps track of civilian deaths, said its analysis of the leaked documents listed about 15,000 deaths of civilians not previously disclosed. (Published sources agree that the most significant civilian casualties occurred in sectarian warfare between warring Iraqis, not at the hands of the US military.) The leaked documents contained instances of individual instances in which US soldiers opened fire on civilians—at checkpoints, for example—inadvertently, in cases where hand signals were misunderstood or where troops could not clearly see who was inside a vehicle.
• Torture. The collection is replete with descriptions of torture methods used by Iraqis on other Iraqis and witnessed by Americans. The Guardian newspaper's analysis of the documents said that "the logs show how US authorities failed to investigate hundreds of reports of abuse, torture, rape and murder by Iraqi police and soldiers whose conduct appears to be systematic and generally unpunished." The UN's chief investigator on torture said the UN Convention Against Torture (1984) required signatories, including the United States, to investigate or prevent torture.
• "Frago 242." Standing for "fragmentary order," which summarizes a more complex requirement, "Frago 242" was issued a year after the invasion, ordering US and other allied troops not to investigate actions by Iraqi forces. In particular, the order appeared to relate to cases of torture of Iraqi detainees by Iraqi authorities. In such cases, the order stipulated that "only an initial report will be made" and "no further investigation will be required unless directed by HQ."
• Iranian involvement. According to The New York Times, "scores of documents" refer to suspicions by American troops that Iran, and specifically the Revolutionary Guards, were involved in providing support to Iraqi Shiite militias during sectarian warfare. The reported Iranian support included supplying both weapons and training (in Iran) for Shiite militias.

Reactions.

• The US Defense Department said, "This security breach could very well get our troops and those they are fighting with killed. Our enemies will mine this information, looking for insights into how we operate, cultivate sources, and react in combat situations, even the capability of our equipment." As with the earlier set of leaked documents, the Pentagon unsuccessfully tried to persuade WikiLeaks not to release the documents and to return them to Washington; WikiLeaks refused. The Defense Department also asked news organizations not to cooperate and not publish the documents. The request was denied.
• Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said she condemned "in the most clear terms" the release of the documents that, she said, "may have a very negative security impact for people involved." She was speaking at a news conference with visiting German Chancellor Angela Merkel.
• Britain's Deputy Prime Minister Nick Clegg (leader of the Liberal Democratic Party) said allegations of prisoner abuse in the documents were "extremely serious and need to be looked at. People will want to hear what the answer is to what are very, very serious allegations of a nature which I think everybody will find quite shocking."
• The United Nations chief investigator on torture, Manfred Nowak, said the leaked documents showed violations of the UN Convention Against Torture. He was quoted calling on the Obama administration to open an investigation into leaked reports seeming to show that American forces may have been complicit in torture by handing over suspected terrorists or militants to Iraqi authorities. Nowak said UN members were obligated "to assess whether or not these individuals are under specific risk of torture. If this assessment is not done, or authorities hand over detainees knowing there is a serious risk of them being subjected to torture, they violate article 3 of the UN convention that precludes torture."

What is WikiLeaks? WikiLeaks, launched in 2006, says it "will accept restricted or censored material of political, ethical, diplomatic or historical significance. We do not accept rumor, opinion, other kinds of first-hand accounts or material that is publicly available elsewhere." It maintains what it calls "an anonymous electronic drop box" that uses a "novel method of submission based on a suite of security technologies designed to provide anonymity." WikiLeaks has posted videos as well as documents.

Founder and Editor in Chief Julian Assange of Australia stated that the site has published documents related to many subjects, not just the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq. According to the Guardian, Assange claims to have "several million" American government files on different activities. In February 2010, for example, the site made public communication from the US Embassy in Reykjavik, Iceland, reporting on politicians' reactions to that country's financial crisis and including a negative assessment by one politician of the president of Iceland. WikiLeaks has said it receives its content from anonymous sources. In that sense, WikiLeaks does not leak documents but mounts them on its servers for public access.

Bibliography

Maurizi, Stefania, et al. Secret Power: Wikileaks and Its Enemies. Pluto Press, 2022.

"Iraq War Logs." Der Spiegel, 2010, www.spiegel.de/thema/iraq‗war‗logs‗en. Accessed 4 Oct. 2023.

"Iraq war logs: An introduction." The Guardian, 22 Oct. 2010, www.theguardian.com/world/2010/oct/22/iraq-war-logs-introduction. Accessed 5 Oct. 2023.

"The War Logs." The New York Times, 2010, www.nytimes.com/interactive/world/war-logs.html. Accessed 4 Oct. 2023.