Iraq - WikiLeaks - More Damaging Revelations for the US

Cables reveal that US action in Iraq continues to be questionable

Media organizations, Journeyman Pictures and The Bureau of Investigative Journalism had advanced access to the released cables and produced a documentary for the UK’s Channel 4 Dispatches series, looking at some of the leaked information and what it revealed about Iraq.

Here is a short clip from their documentary:

It showed how the US has killed many innocent civilians, continued torture (even after public revelations about them), and so much more. On their introductory page to the following video clip of their documentary, they give a small example of what these cables reveal:

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WikiLeaks under fire

WikiLeaks is an organization that publishes submissions of documents that are normally not public, usually from anonymous sources as news leaks. Started in 2006 it has won awards from organizations such as Amnesty International and the Economist for exposing issues around the world (not just the US, as has been the case more recently).

In 2010 it started releasing documents that made the US look quite bad, especially in Iraq. Towards the end of 2010, it started to release the first of 250,000 confidential US diplomatic cables that have been leaked and since then has found itself under immense media criticism in the US, some even calling for it to be officially classed as a terrorist organization.

This caused an enormous uproar in the US, and debates about WikiLeaks itself rages on, (whether it is indeed performing a democratic function of providing information citizens should know, even filling the gaps of the mainstream media that fails to do this, whether it has gone too far, etc).

The organization has found itself in the spotlight on numerous fronts, for example, some Internet hosting companies severing ties, their web site facing denial of service attempts, various service providers being pressured to or cutting ties with the organization (e.g. payment providers), and so on. Their founder Julian Assange has also found himself facing charges of rape, which many find suspicious as a flagrant attempt to silence someone who is seen as a thorn in the side of the US establishment. Each of these issues themselves are their own pages, but are not covered here at this time.

However, in the context of Iraq, it revealed more about what has been going on, and confirms more many of our general cynicism about politicians; they say one thing, but another thing is often done.

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More information

This web site is not going to be able to cover the WikiLeaks saga (as I don’t have the time and resources that the mainstream media has, and there is a LOT of mainstream coverage about this anyway), though from time to time, this site will highlight some of the issues that the leaked information reveals.

For further information:

• News on Iraq⁴ from Inter Press Service, whose stories are carried on this web site
• From the Guardian (one of the few news outlets around the world to whom the US diplomatic cables were released)
  • Iraq War Logs⁵, looks at 391,832 previously secret US military field reports and details the unvarnished and often unknown realities of the war in Iraq
  • The US Embassy Cables⁶, coverage of WikiLeaks and the US diplomatic cables that were leaked (including a searchable database of cables)
  • WikiLeaks⁷ more general coverage about the organization
• Iraq War Logs⁸ section from Better World Links presents a growing collection of links to further sources of information.

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