Pentagon ‘Warning Iraqis’ Ahead of WikiLeaks Release

Task Force Reviewing Possible Iraq War Documents

Pentagon officials say that they have been scrambling to issue “warnings” to any Iraqis who might potentially be named in WikiLeaks’ upcoming release of some 400,000 documents related to the Iraq War.

A task force, initially set up in the wake of the WikiLeaks Afghan release, has been trying to guess which documents the new leak might be and then trying to figure out which Iraqis might be named in the documents.

Officials made much of the danger in the wake of the Afghan release, with Joint Chiefs chairman Admiral Michael Mullen claiming the organization had “blood on its hands.” At the same time, Defense Secretary Robert Gates admitted that no intel sources were actually outed in the release.

WikiLeaks has attempted to avoid any releases that might “name names” in this regard, and has previously offered to let the US military help with this. Yet Pentagon officials condemned this call, insisting that the only acceptable move was for WikiLeaks to return all the documents and unrelease those it has already made public. They have also warned media outlets to keep their coverage of the upcoming leaks free of any actual leaked content.

Author: Jason Ditz

Jason Ditz is Senior Editor for Antiwar.com. He has 20 years of experience in foreign policy research and his work has appeared in The American Conservative, Responsible Statecraft, Forbes, Toronto Star, Minneapolis Star-Tribune, Providence Journal, Washington Times, and the Detroit Free Press.