21 October 2020 — Assange Defense

Ten years ago today, WikiLeaks released the largest classified military leak in history: the Iraq War Logs.

The Assange Defense Committee will release a video tomorrow to commemorate this anniversary. The video explores the background of the leaks, what was revealed, and their impact. Today, we want to give you a sneak preview of our video!

What Happened?

In early 2010, U.S. Army intelligence analyst Chelsea Manning was alarmed by the abuses she saw on the ground in Iraq. Her superior officers showed little concern, so she eventually decided to share evidence with the media.

When national news outlets weren’t interested, she contacted WikiLeaks and later sent them the files. WikiLeaks reviewed them, redacted sensitive information, and released 391,832 documents online several months later.

What Was Revealed?

The three biggest categories of revelations are:

1. Civilian Casualties. At least 15,000 unreported civilian casualties, which had been concealed by coalition forces, were verified as a result of the release.
2. War Crimes: The Iraq War Logs showed how coalition forces had killed journalists and other innocent civilians, often dishonoring their memories by labelling them “enemy killed in action” in order to cover up the events.
3. Human Rights Abuses: The documents revealed that U.S. forces knew prisoners they turned over to allies were subjected to abuse, torture, rape, and murder, but that they had a “formal policy of ignoring such allegations.”

The Iraq War Logs were a major factor in helping to public opinion about the war. We hope you will watch and share our video on social media (check us out on Twitter and Facebook), or visit our blog at AssangeDefense.org.

Solidarity,

Assange Defense Committee