WIKILEAKS IRAQ WAR LOGS SPECIAL - acipss
WIKILEAKS IRAQ WAR LOGS SPECIAL - acipss
WIKILEAKS IRAQ WAR LOGS SPECIAL - acipss
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=============================<br />
ACIPSS-newsletter<br />
- collecting intelligence news of today<br />
that will become intelligence history of tomorrow -<br />
=============================================================<br />
nr: 43a / 2010<br />
date: 24 October 2010<br />
from: www.<strong>acipss</strong>.org<br />
contact: newsletter@<strong>acipss</strong>.org<br />
ISSN: 1993-4939<br />
Table of contents:<br />
<strong>WIKILEAKS</strong> <strong>IRAQ</strong> War <strong>LOGS</strong> - <strong>SPECIAL</strong><br />
3432/2010 Wikileaks veröffentlicht Irak-Protokolle<br />
3433/2010 SPIEGEL : Echo eines verdrängten Kriegs<br />
3434/2010 Guardian: Iraq war logs: secret files show how US ignored torture<br />
3435/2010 NYT: In Disclosing Secret Documents, WikiLeaks Seeks ‘Transparency’<br />
3436/2010 Al jazeera: The Secret Iraq Files, Interactive<br />
3437/2010 JP: 'Hizbullah trained Iraqis how to kidnap soldiers'<br />
3438/2010 Iraq War Logs on Swedish TV<br />
<strong>WIKILEAKS</strong> <strong>IRAQ</strong> <strong>WAR</strong> <strong>LOGS</strong> <strong>SPECIAL</strong><br />
3432/2010 ---------------------------------------------------------------<br />
Wikileaks veröffentlicht Irak-Protokolle<br />
---------------------------------------------------------------------------<br />
(Heise) Die Online-Plattform für politische Indiskretionen Wikileaks hat in<br />
Zusammenarbeit mit etlichen Medienpartnern 391.832 Dokumente im<br />
Zusammenhang mit dem Irak-Krieg aus den Jahren 2004 bis 2009<br />
veröffentlicht. "Diese Veröffentlichung ist ein Akt der Wahrheit", erklärte<br />
Wikileaks-Gründer Julian Assange auf der ins Internet gestreamten<br />
Pressekonferenz, die heute in London stattfand. "Sie zeigt, dass der<br />
Angriff auf die Wahrheit lange vor dem Krieg erfolgt und noch länger<br />
anhält. Aber wir brauchen nicht 40 Jahre und länger darauf zu warten, dass<br />
die Archive geöffnet werden, wir haben Wikileaks."<br />
Assange nannte die Zahlen von 109.000 Toten, darunter 66.000 Zivilisten,<br />
die von Wikileaks in Zusammenarbeit mit dem Bureau of Investigative<br />
Journalism und dem Projekt Iraq Body Count ermittelt wurden. Die<br />
offiziellen Angaben des US-amerikanischen Militärkommandos sprechen von<br />
rund 40.000 Zivilisten.<br />
Gegenüber den Militärberichten aus Afghanistan vor drei Monaten, an deren<br />
Veröffentlichung der Spiegel, der Guardian und die New York Times beteiligt<br />
waren, konnte Wikileaks erheblich zulegen, was die Zahl der Medienpartner<br />
anbelangt. Neben dem Spiegel, dem Guardian und der New York Times sind<br />
diesmal auch der Fernsehsender Al Jazeera und die Jerusalem Post dabei,<br />
außerdem das schwedische Fernsehen, der britische Channel 4 und BBC Radio.<br />
Trotz der sehr unterschiedlichen Aufbereitung der Dokumente durch diese<br />
Medien wird deutlich, dass vor allem die Diskussion über Folter und<br />
kriegswidrige Tötungen im Irak neue Nahrung bekommt. In der Pressekonferenz<br />
betonte Assange, dass die Dokumente "Beweise für Kriegsverbrechen"<br />
ACIPSS-Newsletter 43a/2010 1
enthalten würden. Nach Darstellung des Guardian haben die US-Militärs<br />
insbesondere Berichte über Folter, Vergewaltigung und Mord ignoriert, die<br />
von irakischen Truppen und der irakische Polizei ausgingen. Insgesamt<br />
sollen über 300 Vorfälle dieser Art dokumentiert sein. Auch sollen die<br />
Einsatzberichte der US-Truppen belegen, dass Gegner getötet wurden, obwohl<br />
sich diese zuvor ergeben hatten.<br />
In einer ersten Reaktion auf die Veröffentlichung der Dokumente hat US-<br />
Außenministerin Hillary Clinton empört reagiert. Der Schritt gefährde<br />
Leben, erklärte sie. Die nationale Sicherheit der USA und die ihrer<br />
Verbündeten seien bedroht. Genau diesem Eindruck traten die Journalisten<br />
des Guardian auf der Pressekonferenz entgegen. Zitiert wurde ein Brief des<br />
US-Verteidigungsministers Gates zu den Afghanistan-Dokumenten, in denen<br />
dieser die Veröffentlichung als Harmlos einstufte.<br />
http://www.heise.de/newsticker/meldung/Wikileaks-veroeffentlicht-Irak-<br />
Protokolle-1124155.html<br />
3433/2010 ---------------------------------------------------------------<br />
SPIEGEL: Echo eines verdrängten Kriegs<br />
---------------------------------------------------------------------------<br />
(SPIEGEL) Hunderttausende geheime US-Militärprotokolle zum Irak-Krieg sind<br />
enthüllt - WikiLeaks-Gründer Assange weist alle Vorwürfe zurück, mit dieser<br />
Veröffentlichung Menschenleben zu gefährden. Die US-Regierung ist trotzdem<br />
verärgert. Kann die Aktion eine neue Debatte über die Grauen des Feldzugs<br />
auslösen?<br />
(a) http://www.spiegel.de/politik/ausland/0,1518,724880,00.html<br />
(b) Die Irak-Protokolle im SPIEGEL:<br />
http://www.spiegel.de/thema/irak_protokolle_2010/<br />
3434/2010 ---------------------------------------------------------------<br />
Guardian: Iraq war logs: secret files show how US ignored torture<br />
---------------------------------------------------------------------------<br />
(Guardian) A grim picture of the US and Britain's legacy in Iraq has been<br />
revealed in a massive leak of American military documents that detail<br />
torture, summary executions and war crimes.<br />
Almost 400,000 secret US army field reports have been passed to the<br />
Guardian and a number of other international media organisations via the<br />
whistleblowing website WikiLeaks.<br />
The electronic archive is believed to emanate from the same dissident US<br />
army intelligence analyst who earlier this year is alleged to have leaked a<br />
smaller tranche of 90,000 logs chronicling bloody encounters and civilian<br />
killings in the Afghan war.<br />
The new logs detail how:<br />
• US authorities failed to investigate hundreds of reports of abuse,<br />
torture, rape and even murder by Iraqi police and soldiers whose conduct<br />
appears to be systematic and normally unpunished.<br />
• A US helicopter gunship involved in a notorious Baghdad incident had<br />
previously killed Iraqi insurgents after they tried to surrender.<br />
• More than 15,000 civilians died in previously unknown incidents. US and<br />
UK officials have insisted that no official record of civilian casualties<br />
ACIPSS-Newsletter 43a/2010 2
exists but the logs record 66,081 non-combatant deaths out of a total of<br />
109,000 fatalities.<br />
The numerous reports of detainee abuse, often supported by medical<br />
evidence, describe prisoners shackled, blindfolded and hung by wrists or<br />
ankles, and subjected to whipping, punching, kicking or electric shocks.<br />
Six reports end with a detainee's apparent death.<br />
(a) http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2010/oct/22/iraq-war-logs-militaryleaks?utm_source=lalatube+blog&utm_medium=facebook<br />
(b) Iraq War Logs at the Guardian: http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/iraqwar-logs<br />
3435/2010 ---------------------------------------------------------------<br />
NYT: In Disclosing Secret Documents, WikiLeaks Seeks ‘Transparency’<br />
---------------------------------------------------------------------------<br />
(New York Times) WikiLeaks.org, the online organization that posted tens of<br />
thousands of classified military field reports about the Afghan war on<br />
Sunday, says its goal in disclosing secret documents is to reveal<br />
“unethical behaviour” by governments and corporations.<br />
The trove of war reports posted Sunday dwarfs the scope and volume of<br />
documents that the organization has made public in the past.<br />
WikiLeaks withheld some 15,000 documents from release until its technicians<br />
could redact names of individuals in the reports whose safety could be<br />
jeopardized.<br />
WikiLeaks’ critics range from the military, which says it jeopardizes<br />
operations, to some open government advocates who say the organization is<br />
endangering the privacy rights of others in favour of self promotion.<br />
(a) http://www.nytimes.com/2010/07/26/world/26wiki.html?_r=5<br />
(b) The War Logs at the NYT:<br />
http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/world/war-logs.html<br />
3436/2010 ---------------------------------------------------------------<br />
Al jazeera: The Secret Iraq Files, Interactive<br />
---------------------------------------------------------------------------<br />
(aljazeera) IED use dropped off markedly in 2008 and 2009, with only about<br />
12,000 of the devices detonated over that two-year period.<br />
Their effectiveness plummeted as well: IEDs killed slightly more than 5,300<br />
people during those two years, according to the leaked documents, down from<br />
nearly 17,000 in the previous two-year period.<br />
The decrease doesn't appear due to better American tactics, since the<br />
number of IEDs found and cleared each year remains roughly proportional to<br />
the number detonated. Instead, it seems to be a consequence of the<br />
generally improved security situation in Iraq: As the insurgency waned, it<br />
planted fewer bombs.<br />
http://english.aljazeera.net/secretiraqfiles/2010/10/20101022172059236587.h<br />
tml<br />
ACIPSS-Newsletter 43a/2010 3
3437/2010 ---------------------------------------------------------------<br />
JP: 'Hizbullah trained Iraqis how to kidnap soldiers'<br />
---------------------------------------------------------------------------<br />
(Jerusalem Post) Inside the some 400,000 US military documents released by<br />
WikiLeaks on Friday, were stories of tense and deadly border incidents on<br />
the Iraqi-Iranian frontier, Hizbullah training Iraqi operatives, and<br />
unmanned US surveillance aircraft lost deep in Iranian territory.<br />
One such document made available to The New York Times by WikiLeaks, was a<br />
military report describing a 2006 encounter between a joint American-Iraqi<br />
patrol on the Iranian border that ended with one Iranian soldier dead and a<br />
handful of Iraqi soldiers detained in Iran.<br />
http://www.jpost.com/International/Article.aspx?id=192465<br />
3438/2010 ---------------------------------------------------------------<br />
Iraq War Logs on Swedish TV<br />
---------------------------------------------------------------------------<br />
http://svt.se/2.22584/1.2206041/flera_torterade_barn_i_krigsdagboken<br />
Deadline for application: 26 October 2010<br />
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