WASHINGTON: The Pentagon said Friday the threatened release of a massive cache of secret military documents by the WikiLeaks website could endanger US troops and Iraqis, but not offer any new insights into the war.
"By disclosing such sensitive information, Wikileaks continues to put at risk the lives of our troops, their coalition partners and those Iraqis and Afghans working with us," press secretary Geoff Morrell said in an email.
The Pentagon had identified what it believed were roughly 400,000 documents that WikiLeaks would likely release, after having been contacted by news organizations who had been given the files by the website, another spokesman, Colonel Dave Lapan told reporters.
The documents are based on "significant activities" reports from military units that convey "raw" intelligence, but do not shed new light on a war that has been thoroughly documented, he said.
"They are essentially snapshots of events, both tragic and mundane, and do not tell the whole story," Morrell said.
"That said, the period covered by these reports has been well-chronicled in news stories, books and films and the release of these field reports does not bring new understanding to Iraq’s past."
