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Washington (AFP) Oct 22, 2010 The United States on Friday said the expected release of secret military documents by the WikiLeaks website could endanger US troops and Iraqis but would not shed new light on 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," Pentagon press secretary Geoff Morrell said. US officials identified the roughly 400,000 documents that they expected WikiLeaks to disclose, and the files contained no major revelations, said military spokesman Colonel Dave Lapan. The vast cache of documents cover a period from late 2003 to 2010 and are based on "significant activities" reports from military units that convey "raw" intelligence, much of it lacking context, Lapan said. US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton condemned "in the most clear terms" the release of any files placing American troops, allies or civilians at risk. She declined to discuss the specifics of the disclosures by WikiLeaks, as Al-Jazeera alleged the papers show state-sanctioned Iraqi torture and the killing of civilians at US military checkpoints. The website, which portrays itself as playing a whistleblower role, published 77,000 classified US military documents on the war in Afghanistan in July and is expected to publish another 15,000. The release of the documents on Afghanistan, revealing details of incidents that claimed civilian lives and supposed links between Pakistan and the Taliban insurgents, infuriated the US military. But unlike Afghanistan, where the American and NATO military presence has escalated to unprecedented levels, the US mission in Iraq is winding down and the disclosure of the files may carry less potential political fallout. Pentagon officials played down the significance of the information in the Iraq war files, saying the documents contained no surprises and failed to provide any insights into a conflict that has been thoroughly documented. "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." The WikiLeaks website has promised a "major announcement" in Europe on Saturday, amid speculation it will release thousands of secret documents about the Iraq conflict. The Pentagon said the files expected to be released did not contain any photos but did include references to US talks with Iraqi political representatives, roadside bomb attacks on troops, civilian casualties and the alleged abuse of detainees. The reports also include the names of Americans and Iraqis, Lapan said, and if those documents are released, the military would take action to try to protect those whose identities had been revealed, he said. WikiLeaks has not identified the source of the documents it has released so far, but suspicion has fallen on Bradley Manning, a US Army intelligence analyst who is in military custody. Manning was arrested in May following the release by WikiLeaks of video footage of a US Apache helicopter strike in Iraq in which civilians died, and he has been charged with delivering defense information to an unauthorized source.
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