WikiLeaks has posted on its Twitter feed that it will be holding a news conference shortly.
The program Democracy Now reported this morning that “WikiLeaks is preparing to release up to 400,000 U.S. intelligence reports on the Iraq war. The disclosure would comprise the biggest leak in U.S. history, far more than the … Afghanistan war logs WikiLeaks released this summer.” The program interviewed Daniel Ellsberg, who leaked the Pentagon Papers, a secret government history of the Vietnam war. Ellsberg (who will reportedly be participating in the WikiLeaks news conference) stated his support for Bradley Manning, who is being detained by the military, allegedly in connection with the WikiLeaks documents. See interview with Ellsberg
COLEEN ROWLEY
Rowley, whose May 2002 memo described some of the FBI’s pre-9/11 failures, was named one of Time magazine’s people of the year in 2002. She recently co-wrote a Los Angeles Times oped titled “WikiLeaks and 9/11: What if? Frustrated investigators might have chosen to leak information that their superiors bottled up, perhaps averting the terrorism attacks.”
RAY McGOVERN
Adm. Mike Mullen, chairman of the U.S. Joint Chiefs of Staff, claimed on July 29, following the release of the Afghan war logs, that WikiLeaks “might already have on their hands the blood of some young soldier or that of an Afghan family.”
McGovern recently wrote the piece “How Truth Can Save Lives,” which states: “If independent-minded websites, like WikiLeaks or, say, Consortiumnews.com, existed 43 years ago, I might have risen to the occasion and helped save the lives of some 25,000 U.S. soldiers, and a million Vietnamese, by exposing the lies contained in just one SECRET/EYES ONLY cable from Saigon.”
McGovern was for two years an Army infantry/intelligence officer, then a CIA analyst for 27 years. He now serves on the Sam Adams Associates for Integrity in Intelligence nominating committee, which is giving this year’s award to Julian Assange, the founder of WikiLeaks.
Rowley, McGovern and Ellsberg released a statement on Wikileaks in June.
Background: Pentagon head Robert Gates claimed on July 29 that as a result of the leak of the Afghan war logs, “intelligence sources and methods, as well as military tactics, techniques and procedures will become known to our adversaries.” However, in a letter dated Aug. 16, Gates wrote that “the review to date has not revealed any sensitive intelligence sources and methods compromised by this disclosure.” See Glenn Greenwald’s piece: “How propaganda is disseminated: WikiLeaks Edition — On the eve of a new leak, widely trumpeted Pentagon accusations about the whistleblowing site have proven false“.
For more information, contact at the Institute for Public Accuracy:
Sam Husseini, (202) 347-0020; or David Zupan, (541) 484-9167
