LONDON: Washington Sunday came under increasing pressure to investigate the allegations in the leaked Iraq war documents published by WikiLeaks, which Britain's deputy premier called “shocking”. Governments and human rights organizations alike put the focus on answers to the allegations made against US, allied and Iraqi troops as the whistleblowing website released 400,000 classified US military documents. The flood of material from 2004 to 2009 offers a grim snapshot of the conflict, especially of the abuse of Iraqi civilians by Iraqi security forces. The heavily redacted logs appear to show that the US military turned a blind eye to evidence of torture and abuse of civilians by the Iraqi authorities. WikiLeaks claim the documents reveal around 15,000 more civilian deaths than were previously known about. British Deputy Prime Minister Nick Clegg called the allegations “extremely serious” and said people would be wanting to hear “what the answer is”. “We can bemoan how these leaks occurred but I think the nature of the allegations made are extraordinarily serious. They are distressing to read about,” he told BBC television. “I'm assuming the US administration will want to provide its own answer. It's not for us to tell them how to do that. “People will want to hear what the answer is to what are very, very serious allegations of a nature which I think everybody will find quite shocking.” Australia joined Iraq war allies Britain and the United States in saying that the leaks could put troops' lives at risk. Human Rights Watch said Iraq should investigate reports that its forces systematically tortured and abused detainees. “Iraq should prosecute those responsible for torture and other crimes,” the rights ombudsman said in a statement. “The US government should also investigate whether its forces breached international law by transferring thousands of Iraqi detainees from US to Iraqi custody despite the clear risk of torture.” Amnesty International called on Washington to investigate how much US officials knew about the alleged torture and other ill-treatment of detainees held by Iraqi security forces. – Agence France
