Wikileaks publishes major RAND intelligence study

By IAN ALLEN| intelNews.org |
Wikileaks, the public website that anonymously publishes leaks of sensitive documents, has aired a major US government study on intelligence and counterinsurgency operations in Iraq and Afghanistan. The study, titled Intelligence Operations and Metrics in Iraq and Afghanistan, was initially published on a confidential basis in November of 2008 by the Research and Development (RAND) Corporation, the research arm of the US Pentagon. Originally prepared for the Pentagon’s Joint Forces Command, the 318-page study is described by Wikileaks as the “Pentagon Papers” of the Iraq and Afghanistan wars. The RAND Corporation report findings are reportedly not as interesting as the “candid and revealing interview quotes” scattered throughout the document, which represent the views on the wars of nearly 300 intelligence officers and diplomats from the US, Britain and the Netherlands. These interviews form the majority of the 200-page appendix, which accompanies the report. The list of interviewees includes “the UK Ambassador and the former head of the Defense Intelligence Agency [and even] on-the-ground intelligence officers” active in Iraq and Afghanistan. The report, which is marked “for official use only”, can be accessed and downloaded in its entirety on the Wikileaks website.