New WikiLeaks Cache Reveals More on Iraqi War Deaths, Detainee Abuse

MILITARY -- October 22, 2010 at 5:42 PM EDT

New WikiLeaks Cache Reveals More on Iraqi War Deaths, Detainee Abuse

Analysis of a new cache of secret documents pertaining to the Iraq war surfaced Friday via the WikiLeaks website. Nearly 400,000 documents were obtained by the WikiLeaks organization and provided to several media organizations, including The New York Times, The Guardian, French newspaper Le Monde and German Magazine der Spiegel.

The war logs represent the larges leak of classified U.S. files in history.

The strategy echoes a previous WikiLeaks release that pertained to 92,000 reports on the Afghan war.

A recap of some of the coverage and takeaways:

The New York Times: "A huge trove of secret field reports from the battlegrounds of Iraq sheds new light on the war, including such fraught subjects as civilian deaths, detainee abuse and the involvement of Iran."

The Guardian: "Massive leak of military logs exposes serial abuse of detainees, 15,000 previously unknown deaths and full toll of Iraq's five years of carnage."

Der Spiegel: "The field reports from soldiers cast a new light on the war -- documenting in a unique way how the highly armed American military was helpless in the conflict for years."

ABC News reports that the documents will put the war's Iraqi death toll at 285,000.

The Pentagon mostly panned the release and cited an increased risk to soldiers abroad, according to media organizations. The Christian Science Monitor reports:

"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," Pentagon spokesman Geoff Morrell said Friday.

Beginning October 24, 2012, PBS NewsHour will allow open commenting for all registered users. We hope that the elimination of our moderation process will enable a more organic discussion amongst you, our audience. However, if a commenter violates our terms of use or abuses the commenting forum, their comment will be removed. We reserve the right to remove posts that do not follow these basic guidelines: comments must be relevant to the topic of the post; may not include profanity, personal attacks or hate speech; may not promote a business or raise money; may not be spam. Anything you post should be your own work. The PBS NewsHour reserves the right to read on the air and/or publish on its website or in any medium now known or unknown the comments or emails that we receive. By submitting comments, you agree to the PBS Terms of Use and Privacy Policy, which include more details.