Wikileaks collaborating with numerous media organizations to release cache of Iraq war documents

WASHINGTON, D.C. (BNO NEWS) – Whistleblower website Wikileaks is collaborating with print media in several countries and a number of major television networks, including one or more American media outlets, to release a large number of documents and military field reports related to the Iraq War, Newsweek reported on Thursday.

The release is certain to be larger than the 92,000 documents released that painted a dark picture of the U.S.-led conflict in Afghanistan, which caused significant international controversy and spurred a sharp criticism from nearly every relevant agency in the U.S. Government. Iain Overton, editor of The Bureau of Investigative Journalism, said that release will be several weeks from now but he declined to mention any of the media organizations participating in the project.

Overton defined the material held by Wikileaks as the “biggest leak of military intelligence” that has happened in U.S. history, and possibly internationally as well. It’s understood that the media organizations participating in the project will be making financial contributions to “help meet production costs” and that each organization will come up with its own take on the material.

Wikileaks has “significantly learned from past experiences” regarding the disclosure of material that would put lives in danger, Overton said. He said that the organization won’t be posting raw U.S. government reports on the web, saying that he sees the group’s job as digging stories out of the raw material and not publishing it in the original form.

The extra caution has been apparent in recent weeks, as Wikileaks has said that it would not post the remaining 15,000 Afghan war documents until activists or other volunteers take the time to review and, if necessary, edit the sensitive information from the material. This comes after significant criticism from the U.S. Government and even some human rights groups, saying that the leak could put Afghan informants and leaks at risk, as their names were present in the document.

Pentagon officials have condemned Wikileaks’ handling of classified defense files and demanded that the website hand over all of its documents to U.S. authorities and destroy all of its copies of the material.

It’s unclear what role Julian Assange is going to play in the release of the information, as he’s currently under investigation for allegations of rape and sexual molestation by Swedish authorities. Assange claims that the charges are absurd and is an apparent smear campaign against him, but Swedish authorities staunchly deny this.

(Copyright 2010 by BNO News B.V. All rights reserved. Info: sales@bnonews.com.)