October 23rd, 2010
05:41 AM ET

WikiLeaks editor defends release of classified Iraq docs

The publishing of nearly 400,000 classified military documents aims to reveal hidden truths about the Iraq war, the founder of WikiLeaks said Saturday.

"The attack on the truth by war begins long before war starts and continues long after a war ends," WikiLeaks editor-in-chief Julian Assange told reporters in London, England. "In our release of these 400,000 documents about the Iraq war, the intimate detail of that war from the U.S. perspective, we hope to correct some of that attack on the truth that occurred before the war, during the war and which has continued on since the war officially concluded."

The whistleblower website published the military documents from the Iraq war on Friday, calling it the largest classified military leak in history.

After the leak in July of more than 70,000 Afghanistan war documents, the website was heavily criticized by the U.S. government, the military and human rights groups for failing to redact names of civilians in the documents, putting them at risk of retaliation by the Taliban.

Pentagon officials had warned that it had similar concerns of exposure of Iraqi names.

The WikiLeaks site used new methodology to redact sensitive information from the classified Iraq war military documents, according to WikiLeaks' Kristinn Hrafnsson.

Hrafnsson said the website used new methodology, an electronic redaction method combined with tests done by groups of people.

"It can best be described as a reverse approach to redaction. At the outset, everything in all reports was deemed harmful and redacted until proven otherwise," Hrafnsson told reporters.

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Filed under: Iraq • WikiLeaks
soundoff (162 Responses)
  1. buck

    I also find it strange that everyone just "has to know the truth".So what are you going to do with it? Ohh I see yup Bush you are being replaced and not allowed to demonstrate the power of good ole USA anymore. Wake up people and quit trying to cause more problems.No wonder were in the fix were in. Too many nosy people that want to whine. Dam an people wonder why??????shaking head in disgust.

    October 23, 2010 at 10:22 pm | Report abuse |
  2. phil

    @buck....this "fix" you say we USians are in? Would that have anything to do with US spending more on drugs than we spend on national defense? Could that "fix" have anything to do with our fat epidemic? this fix is of substance. simply "whining" or having thought provoking discussions about it neither caused it nor maintains it. but does hold the promise of dragging it out into the open so we can at least see what it is we are actually looking at.

    October 24, 2010 at 9:57 am | Report abuse |
  3. jerryfelldown

    Wake up people bush lied to line his party with money. an beside are we not happy about free press. Oh no that's not what it was meant for. It was meant to spread lies for our own good. U over educated people.Cnn only prints lies i read that lots on these blogs so y arn't they llieing today.Talk about parasites u should read newspapers more.lol

    October 24, 2010 at 1:09 pm | Report abuse |
  4. phil

    If major media showed you what was really happening, you would change the channel. There is no gov. controlled media....other than federal judges habitually banning certain programs from airing. Like Connie Chungs expose' concerning the invasion of Iraq. haven't heard from her since have ya?

    October 24, 2010 at 10:11 pm | Report abuse |
  5. ray gibbs

    Power of a leveraged 'Net for Peace.

    October 24, 2010 at 11:02 pm | Report abuse |
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