PREDICTABLY, the Pentagon yesterday condemned the WikiLeaks release of nearly 400'000 war logs from Iraq. As in the case of the similar release earlier this year of Afghanistan military documents the Pentagon claimed that publication broke the law and cavalierly shared secret information with the US's enemies. I write about the content of these latest logs in my Looking Around column in today's Bulletin but it is also necessary to comment on the Pentagon's statement.
The logs were provided to the New York Times, The Guardian, Le Monde and Der Spigel in June by the founder of WikiLeaks, Julian Assange, who specialises in releases of this kind. Since June the newspapers have been reviewing the information to ensure that nothing of use to the US's enemies is published. It is always difficult for a newspaper to decide whether to print information marked secret or higher but consideration of the public interest must be given full weight. In this case the Iraq war, if not its consequences, is over yet many questions about it remain to be answered. The newspapers entrusted with his material by Mr Assange have high reputations and can be counted on not to do anything irresponsible. These war logs do not tell the whole Iraq story but they provide insights previously not available.
Understandably governments do not like leaks but they are a fact of media life today. Publish and be damned is an older saying but it still holds good
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