Wikileaks: Pentagon logs show how British troops repeatedly came under ‘friendly fire’

Robert Mendick
London Telegraph
Oct 23, 2010

British soldiers repeatedly came under attack from US forces in a series of ‘friendly fire’ incidents, according to Pentagon logs on the Iraq War leaked to the whistle-blowing website Wikileaks.

The Wikileaks’ files reveal that British forces were attacked in error on at least 11 occasions.

In one incident, a commando with the Royal Marines was shot and wounded while, on another occasion at night, US troops, who had no night vision goggles and were listening to their iPods, began firing on a British patrol.

On October 29 2004, a commando with the Royal Marines was ‘engaged by friendly fire’ after being shot at mistakenly by US Military Police, whose own vehicle had broken down in the middle of the road.

The log states: “US individuals fired rounds on the front [Land Rover] Discovery.”

Full article here

Source...

WikiLeaks papers detail Iraq torture, US killings

AFP
Oct 23, 2010

Al-Jazeera on Friday released what it called “startling new information” from US documents obtained by WikiLeaks, alleging state-sanctioned Iraqi torture and the killing of hundreds of civilians at US military checkpoints.

It said that the major findings included a US military cover-up of Iraqi state-sanctioned torture and “hundreds” of civilians deaths at manned American checkpoints after the US-led invasion of 2003 that ousted Saddam Hussein.

The Qatar-based satellite broadcaster also said the leaked papers, dating from January 1, 2004 to December 31, 2009, show the United States kept a death count throughout the war, despite US denials.

US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton condemned “in the most clear terms” the leaks of any documents putting Americans at risk.

Speaking to reporters in Washington, she declined to discuss the specifics of the WikiLeaks disclosures.

Full article here

Source...

Spiegel: WikiLeaks logs may reveal war crimes

Muriel Kane
Raw Story
Oct 23, 2010

In its early analysis of the Iraq war logs released by whistleblower site WikiLeaks on Friday, the German paper Der Spiegel pointed to several accounts of what it calls “dubious attacks” by US Apache helicopters that may have amounted to war crimes.

One of those accounts has to do with an attack that featured in video released by WikiLeaks last spring. The “Collateral Murder” video shows an Apache repeatedly firing on a group of men which included a Reuters photographer and his driver — and then firing again on a van which stopped to help, killing that vehicle’s driver and wounding his two young children.

Despite these bloody consequences, the brief summation of the incident in the newly released documents refers only to “”13 AIF KIA” — meaning “thirteen anti-Iraq forces killed in action.”

“There is a huge gulf between the brief text of the military report that has now been published by WikiLeaks and the footage captured by the helicopter’s camera,” the Spiegel story comments. “The discrepancy makes clear that the military incident reports do not manage to capture the brutal reality of the war. In fact, the opposite is true — the reports actually distort the reality. Comparing the video evidence and the terse, unspectacular-seeming original report raises the question as to what might have happened during incidents where the internal military reports make for more dramatic reading.”

Full article here

Source...

Wikileaks under doubt as “classified” documents substantiate bogus U.S. claims

Jamshed Abbas
Islam Times
Oct 24, 2010

The war between Wikileaks and the Pentagon supposedly continued on Friday as the famous “whistleblower” website released 400,000 “classified” documents. The Pentagon has reportedly assigned 120 personnel to pore over the documents to determine the potential damage they could cause to U.S. security.

However, like many news reports in this day and age, the real story may be buried under the hype surrounding the release of these supposedly “classified” documents and the “outrage” they are causing.

The documents seem to paint a picture that very much favours official U.S. positions on the Iraq war. For example, the American media, which has a well documented history of shilling for the U.S. government highlighted two stories that it supposedly extrapolated from these documents. The first was the fact that the majority of civilian casualties in the Iraq war were caused by Iraqis. This directly contradicts a comprehensive study conducted by John Hopkins University in 2004. It found that “coalition” forces killed over 600,000 Iraqis, the majority of them killed in airstrikes. The leaked documents conveniently contradict this information. The second major story emanating from the “leaks” is that Iran was actively destabilizing Iraq by funding militants who were assassinating Iraqi officials. One AFP story even highlights the accusation that Iran tried to launch a poison gas attack on the “green zone,” an area where Iraqi and American officials are based. Another factor that makes this “leak” highly suspect is that the Times, a newspaper that played a leading role in validating the illegal invasion of Iraq and is well known for its pro Zionist policy, was one of “few” media outlets that was given “early” access to these “leaked” documents. This meant that the Times was able to weave a narrative around the leaked documents that was then picked up by all the major networks.

The fact that the supposedly damaging leaks are in fact bolstering American accusations against Iran while minimizing American complicity in Iraqi deaths leads some to believe that the leaks are in fact engineered by the Pentagon to either discredit Wikileaks, or are in conjunction with Wikileaks which is a U.S. government outfit.

Source...

Iraq’s Maliki: Opponents will use U.S. leaks against him

Ernesto Londoo
Washington Post
Oct 24, 2010

BAGHDAD – Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki said Saturday that his opponents are using leaked classified U.S. military reports to discredit his administration as he struggles to secure a second term in office.

Maliki’s government also said in a statement in response to the trove of documents released Friday night by the whistleblower group WikiLeaks that it would investigate newly disclosed shootings by employees of the American security company formerly known as Blackwater.

“We need to take these documents into consideration in order to achieve justice for our citizens,” the statement said.

Referring to details of cases in which U.S. forces had killed Iraqi civilians, the statement said the U.S. military’s “permissive” rules of engagement had led to a “point of crisis” between the two countries.

The documents show that U.S. soldiers killed at least 700 Iraqi civilians in situations where the troops felt threatened.

Full article here

Source...

UN calls for probe into US inaction on torture

Daniel Tencer
Raw Story
Oct 24, 2010

‘Fragmentary order 242′ allowed US forces to ignore torture allegations: report

The United Nations’ point man on torture is calling on the Obama administration to open a full investigation into newly-released documents that suggest the US may have turned a blind eye to torture in Iraq.

Manfred Nowak, the UN’s special rapporteur on torture, told the BBC Saturday that the US has an “obligation” to look into reports of torture within the nearly 400,000 war documents released by WikiLeaks on Friday.

The documents chronicle numerous allegations of torture by Iraqi forces against their own citizens, as well as what appears to have been a standing order in the US military to ignore the allegations — potentially a violation of international conventions on torture.

“There is an obligation to investigate whenever there are credible allegations torture has happened – and these allegations are more than credible – and then it is up to the courts,” Nowak, an Austrian human rights lawyer, said, as quoted at the Telegraph.

Full article here

Source...

No coincidence – Assange and Gadahn’s new “leaks”

kenny’s sideshow
Oct 24, 2010

“In politics, nothing happens by accident. If it happens you can bet it was planned that way”

http://www.nydailynews.com/news/wor...urges _wannabe_terrorists_to_go_it_alon.htmlAdam is looking well for a most wanted man while Julian appears to be feeling the strain of his ‘job.’

If you’ve watched some news today you may have noticed that the Wikileaks story of the release of the Iraq war logs is being followed by the ‘news’ of ’s latest video.
No coincidence there. The torture, corruption and mayhem of American policy and actions must be countered by the perception of the neverending threat of Muslim jihad. That makes everything we do OK or at least that’s what the pentagon and the compliant media hope we think.**

The UN has asked the US administration to probe the involvement of American forces’ in human rights abuses, summary executions and war crimes in following the “largest classified military leak” detailing accounts of torture and killing of over 66,000 civilians.

Asking the fox to investigate the chicken house certainly won’t result in any military or government heads rolling but for those who think Wikileaks is working for the CIA or the Mossad, what is planned is that the Wikileaks Propaganda Helps Build A Case for Attacking Iran. With reports like “how Iran devised new suicide vest for al-Qaeda to use in Iraq,” war crimes by the U.S. and/or Israel against Iran can be looked at as justifiable.

The Mossad front SITE institute most likely had the the latest Gadahn video ‘in the can’ and ready for release as soon as Wikileaks gave the world their Iraq ‘leaks.’*

The timing of the release of both the Wikileaks and SITE ‘reports’ is not coincidental but to be expected. In the intelligence services psyops against* humanity, game planning is essential. Most may not see it but the game is transparent. More folks are realizing that everyday and that’s the edge we have. Now we just have to act on it.

Source...