Monday, October 25, 2010

WikiLeaks Iraq War Logs Expose U.S.-Backed Iraqi Torture, 15,000 More Civilian Deaths, and Contractors Run Amok

Democracy Now!
With Amy Goodman



Don't Miss This Segment!

"The online whistleblower WikiLeaks has released some 390,000 classified U.S. documents on the Iraq War — the largest intelligence leak in U.S. history and the greatest internal account of any war on public record. The disclosure provides a trove of new evidence on the violence, torture, and suffering that has befallen Iraq since the 2003 U.S. invasion. Despite U.S. government claims to the contrary, the war logs show the Pentagon kept tallies of civilian deaths in Iraq. The group Iraq Body Count says the files contain evidence of an additional 15,000 previously unknown Iraqi civilian casualties. The number is likely far higher as the war logs omit many instances where U.S. forces killed Iraqi civilians, including the U.S. assault on Fallujah in 2004. The war logs also show the U.S. imposed a formal policy to ignore human rights abuses committed by the Iraqi military. Under an order known as "Frago 242" issued in June 2004, coalition troops were barred from investigating any violations committed by Iraqi troops against other Iraqis. Hundreds of cases of killings, torture, and rape at the hands of the Iraqi troops were ignored. To help analyze the documents, we hold a round table discussion with three guests including David Leigh, the investigations editor at The Guardian newspaper of London, and investigative journalists Pratap Chatterjee and Nir Rosen....."

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