Wikileaks Documents Paint Grim Picture of Afghan War

Interview with Tom Engelhardt, creator of The Nation Institute's TomDispatch.com, conducted by Scott Harris

In one of the largest unauthorized releases of classified military files since the Vietnam War era Pentagon Papers in 1971, the website Wikileaks published some of the 91,000 documents of Pentagon field reports it obtained related to the war in Afghanistan. The documents, totaling over 200,000 pages, covers the period from January 2004 to December 2009 -- spanning the last five years of the Bush presidency and the first year of the Obama administration.

The archive of military logs reveals a grim picture of a failing war that polls find is increasingly unpopular among a majority of Americans. The documents describe unreported incidents of U.S. and NATO forces killing of Afghan civilians; expansion of a CIA assassination program targeting suspected Taliban and al Qaeda leaders; the Taliban's acquisition of ground to air heat seeking missiles; and the use of increased Predator and Reaper remote-controlled drones piloted from a U.S. base in Nevada.

Among the most publicized information from the classified documents in the U.S. were reports that Pakistan's military intelligence agency, the ISI, continues to actively support and strategize the war with the Taliban leadership. The White House and Pentagon have condemned the release of the documents, as some commentators and politicians call for the prosecution of those who leaked the files and Wikileaks founder Julian Assange, an Australian citizen. Between The Lines' Scott Harris spoke with Tom Engelhardt, creator of The Nation Institute's TomDispatch.com website and cofounder of the American Empire Project. He assesses the importance of the Wikileaks documents and their possible effect on U.S. Afghan war policy.

Tom Engelhardt is author of "The American Way of War: How Bush's Wars Became Obama's."

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