WikiLeaks: Evidence of War Crimes in Afghan Docs

(CBS/AP)  WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange said Monday he believes there is evidence of war crimes in the thousands of pages of leaked U.S. military documents relating to the war in Afghanistan.

The remarks came after WikiLeaks, a whistle-blowing group, posted some 91,000 classified U.S. military records over the past six years about the war online, including unreported incidents of Afghan civilian killings and covert operations against Taliban figures.

The White House, Britain and Pakistan have all condemned the release of the documents, one of the largest unauthorized disclosures in military history.

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Assange told reporters in London that "it is up to a court to decide really if something in the end is a crime. That said ... there does appear to be evidence of war crimes in this material."

Assange compared the impact of the released material to the opening of the East German secret police archives. "This is the equivalent of opening the Stasi archives," he said.

The documents cover much of what the public already knows about the troubled nine-year conflict: U.S. special operations forces have targeted militants without trial, Afghans have been killed by accident, and U.S. officials have been infuriated by alleged Pakistani intelligence cooperation with the very insurgent groups bent on killing Americans.

WikiLeaks posted the documents Sunday. The New York Times, London's Guardian newspaper and the German weekly Der Spiegel were given early access to the records.

White House national security adviser Gen. Jim Jones said the release "put the lives of Americans and our partners at risk." In a statement, he then took pains to point out that the documents describe a period from January 2004 to December 2009, mostly during the administration of President George W. Bush. And, Jones added, before President Obama announced a new strategy.

Pakistan's Ambassador Husain Haqqani agreed, saying the documents "do not reflect the current on-ground realities," in which his country and Washington are "jointly endeavoring to defeat al Qaeda and its Taliban allies."

The U.S. and Pakistan assigned teams of analysts to read the records online to assess whether sources or locations were at risk.

Pakistan's powerful spy agency, Inter-Services Intelligence, said Monday that the accusations it had close connections to Taliban militants were malicious and unsubstantiated.

A senior ISI official said they were from unverified raw intelligence reports and were meant to impugn the reputation of the spy agency. He spoke on condition of anonymity in line with the agency's policy.

Hamid Gul, a former head of the ISI who is mentioned many times in the documents, also denied allegations that he'd worked with the insurgents.

Assange said his group also had many more documents on other subjects, including files on countries from across the globe.

"We have built up an enormous backlog of whistleblower disclosures," he said. "We have in this backlog ... files that concern every country in the world with a population of over 1 million."

He refused to go into detail, but said the information included "thousands of databases and files about all sorts of countries."

Assange said that he believed more material would flood amid the blaze of publicity.

"It is our experience that courage is contagious," he said. "Sources are encouraged by the opportunities that they see before them."

[Overruled1]

My Posting was removed between last night and now.
I broke no rules with my posting.
It seems I may be on the right side of facts of the US rogue government.
We have been betrayed and lied to from every administration since WW2,(Pentagon Papers), now Wikileaks has courageously exposed the lies.
I am considering not posting on CBSNEWS.COM ever again...This is shameful since I have as much right to the 1st amendment as anyone.
I will be seen instead joining a new political affiliation since we cannot trust either of the dominant parties in power......I may just step aside and move away from this dieing country.
Along with my missing post is the replies to it and my response to them.
Shame on the US Government, shame on CBS, shame on you all for allowing our country to be taken so easily without repercussions.
The constitution has been used as tissue paper for too long.
Wikileaks has worked to inform us of the facts, not the lies we've been accustomed to believing.....see you on the front.

[zoeymaddy]

not to beat a dead horse,but you are so right,if the president of the united states,or the vice president could be so callous as to leak valeries name as a get back to her husband,WHAT else are they capable of politics was always politics but ever since2000,it has been don't cross me or question what i do or did or you will pay.i do believe the previous administration should be very closely investigated and if they did wrong they must pay!!!!!

[babooph]

The dependency on the centrally & fully controlled "news" in the States broke down a bit here-there is also foreign news "adapted" by the propaganda system that really shows how the US public is brainwashed.

[pinchebill]

tIME TO WAKE UP PEOPLE. THIS WAR IS SAME SAME VIETNAM. A TOTAL LOSS OF LIVES OF OUR SOLDIERS. THEIR DEATHS IS FOR WHAT?
OH YOU SAY THE SURGE WORKED IN IRAQ, YEAH RIGHT WE ARE NOT OUT OF THERE YET AND WHEN WE DO LEAVE IT WILL BE IN DEFEAT. STILL HAVE NOT FOUND THEM WEAPONS OF MASS DESTRUCTION.
YOU ALL ARE CRYING ABOUT OUR ECONOMY AND NATIONAL DEBT. MONEY IS BEING WASTED ON UNNECESSARY WARS. WHY DO WE STILL OCCUPY GERMANY? WHY ARE WE IN KOREA? WHY ARE WE STILL JAPAN? YET WE NEED ROADS, BRIDGES, DAMS, AND INTER CITIES REPAIRED. WE HAVE TOO MANY PEOPLE UNEMPLOYED.
OH YEAH YOU RIGHT THE WARS PROVIDE JOBS FOR THE UNDERTAKERS.
WHEN I RECIEVED THE BRONZE STAR I WAS TOLD THAT IT AND A QUARTER WOULD GET ME A CUO OF COFFEE. I AM ASHAME OF THE SERVICE I GAVE THIS NATION AND HOPE THE LORD WILL FORGIVE ME.

[zoeymaddy]

i may be wrong but since that fateful day of september11,2001,and it came out alquida and bin laden was responsible for it i thought our first target should have been saudi arabia.this being that most of the evildoers were from there,oh but wait OIL was in saudi arabi.yes afganistan HAD a major role in it,and i had no major qualms goin there.my one problem was GI george and ensign cheney couldn't wait to get into iraq,so thus we fabricated information,dropped the ball,bragged about riding the world of the taliban,lied cheated and stole just to get into iraq.i do believe that OUR government committed war crimes and it makes me sick to think that,but if they did,then yes they SHOULD be brought up on war crimes charges.so if this leads to the truth then i say thank-you yo the brave men,and or women who finally had the guts to bring this out in the open

[noloyalisti]

This is just like the last illegal, immoral and unnecessary occupation in Vietnam. What do we expect people when we let rich, greedy big corporations take over the country to run it for their own profits?

The best thing to happen is for the masses to see what war is really all about since the military-industrial complex is hiding it from its people.

[talkaboutit]

I was against the war from the beginning, but like every war all will never go well. The White House should look into a breach of National Security with violatng the right of WikiLeaks. This person can't be concerned about the country, if so he would have only released certain info. His ASS should be locked up.

[noloyalisti]

Call Congress to tell your rep not to approve any more funding for the occupation. Except to get them home now.

[Rajah88]

This information release is further indication that, like the Vietnam War, the purpose of the Iraq and Afghanistan Wars, is to perpetuate war to benefit THE MILITARY INDUSTRIAL MAFIA. Taxpayers be damned.

Americans spend a trillion dollars a year on such wars but cannot bring their elected officials to spend a trillion dollars, over 10 years, on domestic healthcare.

America*s priorities are inverted and YOU are being robbed, while our nation*s sons and daughters die for nothing.

[blitzder]

Well said, its OUTRAGEOUS that a hyper-power like the US has spent more than 2 trillion dollars in a war with a landlocked, impoverished,tribal country, which has no Navy, Air-force or any semblance of a military. And still the US has lost thousands of soldiers with this awesome imbalance of power. Its like a major league baseball team playing a pee-wee league team and still losing. Plus hundreds of thousands of innocent Afghan women and children dead. Looks like the US is looking for a hundred year war to feed Pentagon cronies for ever.

[ibsteve2u]

A few problems, here...

There is the technology issue...just because somebody can make big bucks selling the g'ment and the military technology that has more functionality than a teletype doesn't mean that it is wise to permit technology with more functionality than a teletype if the additional technology is not necessary to get the job done. Those hard and removable drives appear to be...problematic.

Then there is the personnel issue....I wonder, for example, if security would be any better if the professional leakers in the Pentagon were identified and eliminated?

You see, I often wonder if the increasingly sloppy security exhibited over the last few decades can be traced back to political scum (in or out of uniform) who feel the need to ensure that information that passes before their eyes "could" have leaked somewhere else.

That strikes me as being particularly likely in light of a recent Administration whose culpability in the intentional leaking of a covert CIA operative's name was just barely concealed.

When such behavior comes from the very top...and involves individuals who had been in our government for so very long...years spent grooming allies and pawns, demanding and gaining allegiances...decades of carefully selecting who would be promoted based upon the behavior that the latter could be expected to exhibit and tolerate...

Well, it is all too easy to believe that the last Administration and/or their carefully-chosen-for-the-right-"political allegiances" appointees and/or their favorites in the military authorized and ordered some counter-productive actions that may very well have been criminal.

After all, if it walks like a duck, quacks like a duck, has feathers like a duck, and has routinely stuck our country with the bill in the past...

Shame, though, that so very many have to pay that bill.

[hatshepsut2]

Sorry, my mistake. The redoubtable 22-year-old "analyst" Julian Assange is with Wikileaks. I feel more secure, already. Let's see, where was he five years ago? Well, at least now he can "analyse" the Christopher Columbus myth and inform us on that issue.

[raoulz]

why is everyone so afraid to know the truth??. ..and to my knowledge, pakistan or Irak or Afganistan never attaked the US, so what is the point of these wars?
Wars are fought when peoples are attacked..but if not..they why do you go to war?..

The US policies around the world are "Equivocadas".. a seven year old kid could make better foreing policy than the US and that is sad.