US OFFICIALS failed to investigate hundreds of reports of abuse, torture, rape and murder in Iraq, according to classified documents leaked to international media by WikiLeaks.
As recently as last December, US authorities were given a video of Iraqi soldiers executing a bound detainee, according to the documents released by the whistleblowing website.
The leaks also indicate that the number of Iraqi civilians killed is greater than the US revealed during the Bush administration, according to The New York Times. The Times does not report a precise number of civilian deaths but lists more than 100,000 deaths overall in the five years to December 31, 2009.
The documents also include incidents of mistreatment of Iraqi prisoners by their own forces, with references to at least six prisoners who had died in Iraqi custody, during the six years covered by the documents, as well as hundreds of accounts of beatings, burnings and lashings.
The New York Times, Britain's The Guardian, Germany's Der Spiegel and France's Le Monde were given advance copies by WikiLeaks of almost 400,000 documents generated between 2004 and 2009 by US military units.
The US Defence Department ''strongly'' condemned the unauthorised release of the documents, said a spokesman, Geoff Morrell. He said the documents ''are essentially snapshots of events, both tragic and mundane, and do not tell the whole story''.
A Pentagon spokesman, Colonel David Lapan, said the information posed a risk to US national security and relations with Iraq. He said the documents might identify Iraqis who worked with the US.
''Our concern is the threat to individuals, our people and our equipment,'' he said.
''But in terms of the insight captured - incidents of innocent Iraqis killed, detainee abuse - all of those things have been very well chronicled. Iraq is still trying to form a government.''
The documents also show Iran waging a shadow war with US troops in Iraq, with a firefight erupting on the border and Tehran allegedly using militias to kill and kidnap US soldiers.
The reports on Iran's role provide details of a dangerous contest for influence in Iraq between Washington and Tehran. But US allegations of Iran arming and training Shiite militants in Iraq are nothing new, and US officials and military commanders have long accused Tehran of trying to sow violence to undermine US influence and weaken its allies in Baghdad.
The documents describe Iran arming and training Iraqi hit squads to carry out attacks on coalition troops and Iraqi government officials.
