What at first glance looked like a potential public relations nightmare for the U.S. gov’t and the Pentagon is now being spun by some media outlets to portray the U.S. military as the “good guys” and the unintended victims of their own best efforts in the Iraq war.
Originally seen as verifiable proof of American incompetence, disingenuous motives and probable war crimes ala Abu Ghraib, the Wikileaks documents on Iraq are now being put forward as evidence that the violence, destruction, murder of innocents and escalating civil unrest in Iraq were brought about by Iraqi criminals, Iranian support and insurgency, corrupt government officials and home-grown sectarian violence.
News articles titled WikiLeaks show U.S. failed to probe Iraqi abuse cases and Leaked Iraq war files portray weak, divided nation epitomize this blame shifting from the disease to the symptoms.
More to the truth, the 400,000 pages of classified military documents about the Iraq war reveal a willful and malicious disregard for innocent civilians and private property by U.S. and allied forces. The documnets identified hundreds of reports of abuse, torture, rape and even murder by Iraqi police and soldiers. The leaks also appeared to show U.S. troops did nothing to stop state sanctioned torture. The leak also added more than 15,000 unreported civilian deaths in previously unknown incidents.
