Originally posted by the Voice of America. Voice of America content is produced by the Voice of America, a United States federal government-sponsored entity, and is in the public domain. WikiLeaks Defends Release Of US Iraqi War Documents VOA News 23 October 2010 Founder of the Wikileaks website Julian Assange speaks to the media on during a press conference at the Park Plaza hotel in central London, 23 Oct 2010 Photo: AFP Founder of the Wikileaks website Julian Assange speaks to the media on during a press conference at the Park Plaza hotel in central London, 23 Oct 2010 WikiLeaks officials Saturday defended their release of nearly 400,000 classified U.S. military files from the Iraq war that revealed new details about civilian deaths, detainee abuse and actions by Iran. WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange said the documents revealed the truth about the Iraq war. During a London news conference, Assange said the documents of raw battlefield reports contained no names or information harmful to any group or individual. Earlier, the U.S. military condemned the release, saying it could endanger the lives of American troops and their Iraqi allies. The documents reveal a count of more than 109,000 people killed in Iraq's violence between the U.S.-led invasion in March 2003 and the end of last year, and indicate more than 60 percent were Iraqi civilians.  A group called Iraq Body Count disputed the U.S count, saying 80 percent of the deaths involved Iraqi civilians.  IBC also accused the U.S. military of withholding information on 15,000 Iraqi civilian deaths not previously made public, bringing the total death toll to more than 120,000. The group says newly revealed deaths include assassinations, executions and drive-by shootings. The group also described cases where the United States allegedly knew of prisoner abuse by Iraqi police and soldiers, but failed to intervene. Earlier this year, WikiLeaks published some 77,000 secret documents relating to the war in Afghanistan, including the names of Afghan informants.  Pentagon spokesman Morrell said just as with the previous leak, enemies of the United States will be looking through the Iraq documents for insights into military actions and procedures.  WikiLeaks has not identified the source of the documents but suspicion has fallen on an Army intelligence analyst, Bradley Manning, who is currently in military custody. He was arrested earlier this year for allegedly leaking a 2007 video of a helicopter strike in Iraq that killed two Iraqis on assignment for the Reuters news agency. Some information for this report was provided by AP, AFP and Reuters. .