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US Defense Secretary Robert Gates has criticised Wikileaks, over its release of a video showing a 2007 US helicopter attack that killed 12 people in Baghdad. Gates said the videos released by the group were out of context and provided an incomplete picture of the battlefield, comparing it to war as seen “through a soda straw.” “These people can put out anything they want, and they’re never held accountable for it. There’s no before and there’s no after,” Gates said.
On 5 April, Wikileaks, the website that publishes sensitive leaked material, released a video showing a 2007 US military airstrike that killed about a dozen Iraqis in eastern Baghdad. Among the dead were a 22-year-old Reuters photographer, Namir Noor-Eldeen, and his driver, Saeed Chmagh, 40. The Pentagon had previously blocked an attempt by Reuters to obtain the video through a freedom of information request. Wikileaks director Julian Assange said his organisation had to break through military encryption to view the footage.
The government’s control over what the Chilcot Inquiry can publish and the questions it can ask is providing a watered-down account of why Britain went to war and an easy ride for witnesses argues Chris Ames
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Public hearings into the Iraq war are set to begin on 24 November, the panel’s chairman Sir John Chilcot said today. But witnesses still do not know whether the evidence they give will ever make its way into the public domain, says Chris Ames
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