Get ready for WikiLeaks to start gushingThe combat part of the Iraq War may be over, but WikiLeaks is expected to soon reveal secret reports and data from a whopping 500,000 events in the Iraq War, making it the WikiLeaks biggest document dump so far. Media outlets including Newsweek will investigate and publish the leaks.
Iraq War
Grog’s Gamut: why the Blair book leaves me cold
Grog’s Gamut explains why offering a free copy of the Tony Blair autobiography is a disincentive to subscribe to Crikey. And it’s not just his attitude towards the Iraq War (but that certainly didn’t help).
Australia starts punching in the right weight division
With long US-led wars involving Australian troops, our role in East Timor’s independence and China as a rising military power in Asia, Brian Toohey examines where Australia’s power now stands in the Asia-Pacific region.
Iraqi Freedom isn’t there… yet
As the US prepares to wind back its military operations in Iraq, the Iraqi government is still a faction-filled mess. The makings of a democracy are there, now it’s time for the Iraqis to move themselves forward.
And so ends Operation Iraqi Freedom
In a speech to disabled veterans, Barack Obama marked the formal end of the combat part of the Iraq War. By August 31 just 50,000 US troops will remain, from a current 146,000. All troops will be brought home by 2011. It’s not “Mission Accomplished”, but it’s getting there.
revealed 
INFOGRAPHIC: Where did the US $9 billion to rebuild Iraq go?
The US Military is apparently in Iraq to aid its reconstruction. But of the US$9.1 billion spent so far, a whopping US$8.7 billion is still unaccounted for.
Political snippets: Richard Farmer’s chunky bits
An hour long and shown early. There’s very little point in this Sunday night’s election debate really. Being shown four weeks before polling day, after a very unexciting first week of campaigning, interest will not be high. Unless someone makes an absolute howler — and that’s unlikely with two experienced television performers — the impact on voting is going […]
Rove: I should’ve fought back harder
Former senior adviser and deputy chief of staff to President George W. Bush, Karl Rove, laments his time in the White House, saying his biggest mistake was not retaliating against the wave of Democrat attacks on his old boss.
Trash & treasure, Iraq style
Garage sales aren’t just limited to the junk filled house down the block. The U.S. military in Iraq are staging their own everything-must-go spring clean out — with fridges, air-cons and other items for sale while stocks last.
For Sale: Blackwater
Blackwater, the US military security company embroiled in civilian killings in the Iraq War, is being put on the market. But what will happen to the its covert CIA activities if it gets sold?
Meet the soldier who leaked the Wikileaks killing video
An 22 year old army intelligence analyst has been arrested for leaking thousands of classified US military documents, videos and surveillance — including the Collateral Murder footage to Wikileaks. And he was dobbed in by a well known former hacker.
Olbermann takes aim at Obama
MSNBC broadcaster Keith Olbermann usually ends each night with a countdown of how many days it has been since President Bush’s “Mission Accomplished” speech on the Iraq War. Now, it’s changed to a countdown from the BP oil spill.
Video of the Day: US soldier caught taunting Iraqi kids
With Facebook’s privacy policies running hot in the headlines, a story that highlight both the upsides and downsides to the site: A local US news outlet catches an American soldier in Iraq posting footage of himself taunting two young Iraqi boys as “gay terrorists”.
The CIA plot to depict Saddam and bin Laden as pedophiles
The CIA created a fake video showing Osama bin Laden and his crew sitting around a campfire drinking and bragging about their “conquests with boys” — and had plans to “flood Iraq” with fake videos of Saddam Hussein having sex with a teenage boy, the Washington Post reveals.
Where’s the line between propaganda and embedded photographer?
Iraq War photographer Patrick Baz gives a fascinating account of his time in the war zone, from dressing up and pretending he was a Lebanese Muslim, to being forced to become embedded with the US military.
War reporting: how much horror is too much?
CNN reporter Michael Ware may be the latest public casualty of post-traumatic stress disorder from covering war zones, but he’s certainly not alone. So what’s the cost of war reporting? Try relationship break downs, excessive drinking, depression and anger problems.
exposed The secret Blackwater tapes
The Nation has secret tapes of the leader of controversial US military contractor Blackwater, in which he reveals details about the group’s clandestine actions in Afghanistan and turns up his nose at the Geneva Convention.
exposed 
Detainee torture at secret Iraqi prison
Human Rights Watch has a shocking investigation into the torture of detainees at a secret Iraqi prison in Baghdad recently: inmates were handcuffed, blindfolded, hung upside down, kicked, whipped, beaten, and once they’d passed out from pain, woken with electric shocks to the genitals.
A letter of apology from the WikiLeaks soldiers
Two soldiers from the unit shown killing 12 civilians in Baghdad in footage released online recently by WikiLeaks pen an open apology to all those hurt and affected.
Bush “knew Guantanamo prisoners were innocent”
A former senior aide to Colin Powell says Bush, Cheney and Rumsfeld knew that “the vast majority of Guantánamo detainees were innocent”, but thought releasing them would harm their case for war in Iraq.
revealed US Iraq War soldier: “We were told to just shoot people”
US soldiers who have served in Iraq tell truthout they were encouraged to shoot first and question later, with instructions that: “The difference between an insurgent and an Iraqi civilian is whether they are dead or alive.”
The Wikileaks killings: was it legal?
The footage of US soldiers killing 12 people in Baghdad in Iraq released online by Wikileaks yesterday is undoubtedly shocking: but were their actions illegal? The New Yorker has a legal analysis
US Army “video game” killings tape goes viral
Internet outrage is growing after website Wikileaks exposed a ‘decrypted’ video from a US Apache helicopter that appears to show US forces in Iraq killing at least 11 unarmed civilians in 2007, reports Harley Dennett.
leaked 
VIDEO: US military slays citizens and journos in Iraq
WikiLeaks has released a classified US military video which it says shows the “indiscriminate slaying” of civilians and Reuters journalists in Iraq in 2007, on a comprehensive website called Collateral Murder, including a timeline and transcript.
