IRAQ WAR REALITY - LEAKED!!!

The 391,831 reports, drawn up in many cases by US soldiers of relatively junior rank, perhaps after a long, hot day on patrol in Baghdad, provide a terrifying insight into the anarchy which enveloped Iraq after Saddam Hussein's regime collapsed.
The reports reveal in terrifying detail how any hope of replacing the former dictatorship with a functioning democracy quickly became a faded dream as Iraq descended into an orgy of killing which reached every corner of the country.
In often nauseating detail, the files disclose the coalition commanders turned a blind eye to acts of torture and murder conducted on an industrial scale.
In one log it is reported that an Iraqi man was arrested by the police and shot in the leg by an officer.
The report continues: "this detainee suffered abuse which amounted to cracked ribs, multiple lacerations and welts and bruises from being whipped with a large rod and hose across his back".
The report, with stunning understatement, adds that these acts amount to "reasonable suspicion of abuse" but the outcome was: "No further Investigation Required".
The decision not to investigate was a direct order from the Pentagon as US officials sought to pass the management of security from the coalition to the Iraqis.
It was a cataclysmic error which probably lengthened the insurgency as the victims of abuse sought vengeance and directed their anger at US and British troops. How many dead coalition troops would be alive today had the Iraqi death squads been stopped?
Worryingly the war logs also reveal the true extent of Iran's involvement in the insurgency – a fact which, for political reasons, the British government constantly denied.
The logs also expose the ease with which US troops appeared to open fire on unarmed civilians who made the mistake of approaching, military checkpoints too quickly. One document entitled "Friendly action, escalation of force" reveals how two US soldiers fired two hundred rounds into a car which "would not yield to their patrol". Two adults were killed and two children, aged nine and six, suffered gun shot wounds. The report reveals that the adults were the children's parents.
There are no clues as to whether a subsequent investigation was undertaken but it could be assumed that the reaction form the family of those killed and injured would be hostile.
Fundamental to any counter-insurgency campaign is the need for strong command at the junior level. One mistake by a single soldier can easily have strategic consequences.
The abuse of Iraqi detainees by US guards at Abu Ghraib prison in 2004 became a turning point in the insurgency.
Wars amongst the people are always bloody and for the US soldiers in Baghdad, fighting an enemy indistinguishable from the civilians they were trying to protect, daily life must have been truly terrifying.
But fear can neither be used as either a defence or an excuse. Mistakes will be made in war, they are part of the fabric of conflict, but they must be investigated not ignored for the sake of political expediency.