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June 16, 2014

Manning Criticizes Limits on Media Coverage of U.S. Wars 
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U.S. Army whistleblower Chelsea Manning has spoken out about the news in
Iraq in a New York Times op-ed. Manning is serving a 35-year sentence
for leaking classified information to Wiki Leaks, including the
"Collateral Murder" video showing a U.S. military helicopter strike in
Iraq that killed two Reuters employees. In the op-ed, Manning criticizes
the limits placed on reporters who embed with U.S. troops and describes
an information gap between past news reports on the Iraq War and
information she had access to as an intelligence analyst. "As Iraq
erupts in civil war and America again contemplates intervention, that
unfinished business should give new urgency to the question of how the
United States military controlled the media coverage of its long
involvement there and in Afghanistan," Manning writes. "I believe that
the current limits on press freedom and excessive government secrecy
make it impossible for Americans to grasp fully what is happening in the
wars we finance."

 

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