Pentagon braces up for a massive WikiLeaks dump on Iraq war
If the whistle blower website releases the documents on the Iraq war, the action would be on a much more larger scale than it had done with the Afghan war documents wherein it had released 70,000 documents last July.
TAKING A serious note of the massive war documents which are likely to be released by WikiLeaks, the Pentagon on Sunday said that it had a 120-member team prepared to review a massive leak of as many as 500,000 Iraq war documents, which are expected to be released by the WikiLeaks website sometime this month. If the whistle blower website releases the documents on the Iraq war, the action would be on a much more larger scale than it had done with the Afghan war documents wherein it had released 70,000 documents last July. The documents fuelled debates on the 9-year old conflict although it did not mention any path breaking revelations. The document leak was the largest security breach in the history of the U.S. Military. "It's the same team we put together after the publication of the (Afghan war documents)," Lapan said, adding it was unclear how many of the 120 personnel would be needed to contribute to the Iraq leak analysis. Although the Iraq conflict has faded from public debate in the United States in recent years, the document dump threatens to revive memories of some of the most trying times in the war, including the Abu Ghraib prisoner abuse scandal. It could also renew debate about foreign and domestic forces influencing Iraq, which has been wrestling with a political vacuum since an inconclusive election in March. One source familiar with the Iraq documents said they are likely to contain revelations about civilian casualties, but expected them to cause less of a stir than the Afghan leak. Lapan said the Pentagon team believed it knew which documents WikiLeaks may be releasing since it had already reviewed the Iraq war file. That could speed up its assessment about potential fallout. NO INTEL SOURCES COMPROMISED At the time of the Afghan war leak, the top U.S. military officer, Admiral Mike Mullen, warned that WikiLeaks may have the blood of U.S. soldiers and Afghan civilians on its hands because it had leaked documents naming U.S. collaborators. Still, U.S. Defence Secretary Robert Gates said in a letter to the head of the Senate Armed Services Committee, that the leak had not revealed any "sensitive intelligence sources or methods."Gates said disclosing the names of cooperating Afghans, who could become targets for the Taliban, could cause "significant harm or damage to national security interests of the United States." The letter was dated August 16. WikiLeaks says it is a non-profit organization funded by human rights campaigners, journalists and the general public. But the Pentagon has demanded it return classified information and critics have questioned its perceived anti-war agenda. So far the investigation into the Afghan war leak has focused on Bradley Manning, who worked as an Army intelligence analyst in Iraq. Manning is already under arrest and charged with leaking a classified video showing a 2007 helicopter attack that killed a dozen people in Iraq, including two journalists. The Pentagon, citing the criminal investigation, has refused to discuss the Manning case. Source: Reuters
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