Wikileaks detail torture, Iranian involvement in Iraq War

Documents to be released will provide details on Iraqi civilian deaths, detainee abuse by Iraqi forces, Iranian support of Shi'ite combatants.

US army Iraq 311 (photo credit: AP)
US army Iraq 311
(photo credit: AP)
Wikileak documents set to be released on Saturday will expose more information about the United States Iraq war including details about Iraqi civilian deaths, detainee abuse, and Iran's involvement in Iraq, according to a New York Times report on Friday.
In documents made available to the New York Times, The Guardian, Le Monde and Der Spiegel, Wikileaks provides fresh information on such subjects such as the deaths of Iraqi civilians by Iraqi and American forces, abuse and torture of prisoners by Iraqi allies and the intervention of Iran who "intervened aggressively in support of Shi'ite combatants, offering weapons, training and sanctuary and in a few instances directly engaging American troops."
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The release also describes the newly "spawned reliance on private contractors" by the US in Iraq which was "on a scale not well recognized at the time and previously known in American wars." The Times continued to say that, "The documents describe an outsourcing of combat and other duties once performed by soldiers that grew and spread to Afghanistan to the point that there are more contractors there than soldiers."
The 391,832 documents were released to the various newspapers on condition that they be embargoed until now.
The Pentagon expressed concern at the exposure of the classified information by the organization, the second of its kind. The release of the documents and the Wikileaks organization were condemned by the US Defense Department press secretary Geoff Morrell on Friday.
“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,” The Times quoted Morrell as saying.
“We know terrorist organizations have been mining the leaked Afghan documents for information to use against us and this Iraq leak is more than four times as large. By disclosing such sensitive information, WikiLeaks continues to put at risk the lives of our troops, their coalition partners and those Iraqis and Afghans working with us.”