Leaks reveal 'truth' on Iraq War
LONDON - WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange has defended the unauthorized release of 400,000 classified US military documents on the war in Iraq, saying they revealed the "truth" about the conflict.
The mass of documents from 2004 to 2009 offer a grim snapshot of the conflict, especially of the abuse of Iraqi civilians by Iraqi security forces.
"This disclosure is about the truth," Assange told a news conference in London on Saturday after the whistleblowing website published the logs on the Internet.
"The attack on the truth by war begins long before war starts, and continues long after it ends," he said, and WikiLeaks hoped "to correct some of that attack on the truth".
He claimed the documents revealed around 15,000 more civilian deaths than were previously known about.
The heavily redacted logs appear to show that the US military turned a blind eye to evidence of torture and abuse of Iraqis by the Iraqi authorities.
Assange said the documents showed the war had been "a bloodbath on every corner".
Washington and London warned the documents could endanger coalition troops.
Agence France-Presse
(China Daily 10/25/2010 page12)
