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Iraq war logs: An introduction
David Leigh Guardian 22 October 2010
DATELINE: 25/10/10
The leaking of more than 390,000 previously secret US military reports details the hidden realities of the war in Iraq. The invasion and subsequent occupation of Iraq has been one of the most bloodily divisive international conflicts of the past decade. The reputations of George W Bush and Tony Blair, are stained, perhaps indelibly, by it.
Today's (Friday 22 October) gigantic leak from that long-running battleground, of 391,832 previously secret US military field reports, details the unvarnished and often unknown realities of the war in Iraq. It is history in the raw. The story these documents tell is ugly and often shocking.Between 2004 and 2009, a sectarian civil war merged with a war of "resistance" by nationalist Iraqis, and with a ruthless jihadist campaign by foreign al-Qaida supporters, to plunge Iraq into a three-way bloodbath of roadside bombs, assassinations and high-explosive shelling of villages and towns.
The Iraq logs detail how soldiers, civilians, insurgents, foreign aid workers, private contractors, old men and young girls, Americans, Britons, foreign Arabs and above all, the Iraqi people themselves, fell victim to a new dynamic of "asymmetric warfare", in which guerrillas armed mainly with improvised landmines, competed with the awesome weaponry of hi-tech US air power.More than 100,000 people died and whole towns such as Falluja were reduced to near-rubble, amid allegations of brutal abuse by some US and UK soldiers at Abu Ghraib prison and elsewhere.
The raw material in these Iraq war logs, like databanks of previous classified files the Guardian has published on the Afghan war, comes from US military archives. A dissident US intelligence analyst, Bradley Manning, formerly based in Baghdad, is currently facing a court martial charged with leaking similar material to WikiLeaks, the online whistleblowing activists.
WikiLeaks has defied the Pentagon to pass this data on to a wide range of media organisations, including the Guardian. WikiLeaks intends to post much of it on its own website.
The Guardian is publishing extracts from original documents where to do so will not endanger identifiable individuals.
Last modified: Friday, December 10, 2010
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Events & Announcements
World Press Freedom Day
More reporters are currently imprisoned in Turkey than in any other country in the world. Only a matter of weeks ago lawyers failed to persuade a Turkish court to release a 76-year-old journalist from a Turkish internet news station.
World Press Freedom Day on Friday May 3, 2013 is being marked in Britain by a rally to highlight the dangers facing journalists in Turkey and in this podcast, Nicholas Jones speaks to Barry White, Organiser at the Campaign for Press and Broadcasting Freedom, and Sam Bamford, the TUC's policy officer for Eastern Europe and Africa about the importance of a campaign to highlight international press freedom.
The World Press Freedom Day rally is being staged by the National Union of Journalists at the NUJ head office, Gray’s Inn Road, London WC1 on Thursday May 2, 6pm-8pm.
DATELINE: 27/4/13
UK launch of EU media campaign
DATELINE: 13/3/13
The UK launch of a 'European Citizens' Initiative' calling for EU rules against concentration of media power will take place on Thursday March 21 from 11:00am – 12:30pm in Committee Room 4A at the House of Lords, London. Guest speakers will include actor and activist Hugh Grant (pictured), media consultant Claire Enders, Professor Steven Barnett, Barry McCall (President of the NUJ) and Marc Gruber (Director of the European Federation of Journalists).
A European Citizens' Initiative is an official petition, like a Downing Street petition. If it succeeds in gathering a million signatures across the EU, the Commission is obliged to respond.
This petition calls for the EU to act to protect media pluralism and press freedom.
CPBF Annual General Meeting
DATELINE: 1/3/13
Make a note in your diary
Saturday 13 July 2013 from 10.00am
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DATELINE: 26/3/10
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MEDIA FOR ALL CONFERENCE
DATELINE: 26/3/10
Papers from the Media for All Conference
MEDIA MANIFESTO
DATELINE: 26/3/10
The media’s job is to inform and entertain us but we rely on them too to tell us what our rulers and representatives are up to. In the run-up to the Iraq war the government used spin and disinformation in the media to create panic and mislead people. The truth is coming out now, but we need stronger, more independent media to be able to scrutinise governments and make informed choices.
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Previous stories
International
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