Julian Assange Press Conference: 10 Things the WikiLeaks Founder Wants the World to Know

(July 26) -- WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange gave a press conference at the Frontline Club in London today to address the 75,000 Afghan war documents that the organization published Sunday. The group says it will publish an additional 15,000 documents once they have been scrubbed of any names that could potentially put people in danger. (The New York Times says it received 92,000 war reports in all, so Assange may have been rounding off.) You can find the documents here.

Below, Surge Desk outlines 10 points Assange sought to get across at the event.

1. Why WikiLeaks Did It
"There is no perfect information but in the end the truth is all we have," Assange said. "We would like to see this material, the revelations that this material gives, taken seriously, investigated by governments and new policies put in place as a result -- if not prosecutions of those people that committed abuses."

2. Why WikiLeaks Source(s) Did It
Assange said that there is evidence within the database of war crimes being committed, and that he hoped governments would prosecute enough people to deter others in the future who might have considered acting similarly. The anonymous source or sources who gave the information to WikiLeaks wanted to call attention to some of the incidents described within the documents, on suspicion that there were many more like them. Assange didn't clarify what those incidents were, but said the source appeared to be correct.

3. Documents as a History of the War
The 90,000 documents cover six years of the war in Afghanistan, up through 2009. Assange contended that their breadth addresses U.S. Defense Secretary Robert Gates' comment that WikiLeaks' earlier "Collateral Murder" video was like looking at the war through "a soda straw."

"This, if you like, is the beginning, the end and the middle," Assange said. "This is the whole context, with some exceptions, of the Afghan war, and if anything can give us some kind of intellectual understanding, surely this is it."

4. Self-Reporting Shades the Truth
Assange said that analysis of the reports shows that the numbers and figures sent up the chain of command are doctored to make those doing the reporting look better, and compared the process to a policeman filing a report on a crime he is suspecting of committing. An American unit reporting on itself, for example, is more likely to classify a civilian death as an "enemy combatant" kill than it would if it were reporting on a unit from another country, according to Assange.

5. Documents Affect All Sides, Taliban Included
Assange seems to think the information leak could lead the Taliban to reconsider its tactics as well. "This material does not leave anyone smelling like roses," Assange said. "It is an enormous compendium of material that will affect many different people in many different ways."

6. A Call to Action for Global Media
Though WikiLeaks gave three newspapers -- The New York Times, The Guardian of London and Germany's Der Spiegel -- a preview of the documents before their publication Sunday, Assange says they have only "scratched the surface" of the immense amount of information contained in the 90,000 total documents that will be published. Now he wants the rest of the journalism community to dig into the information, analyze the statistics and present it to the world in a way that is emotionally engaging. Assange also called on soldiers, academics, family members and interested parties -- even the Taliban -- to look at the information and come forward to fill in the blanks.

7. Expect More to Come
"Courage is contagious," Assange said in response to a question about whether or not he thought more whistle-blowers would now step forward. Since its founding in 2006, WikiLeaks has published millions of documents, causing the biggest stir in April when it published "Collateral Murder," a video taken from an Apache helicopter that showed the killing of 18 people, including two Reuters employees, by American forces in Iraq.

8. Internal WikiLeaks Operations
Assange gave a small window into the highly secretive world of the WikiLeaks organization, which has no base and is operated from several different countries. He said it has "a small team of dedicated and overworked people" and also about 800 part-time volunteers and "an extended network of 10,000 people" working on the site.

9. How the Leak Will Affect Bradley Manning
Assange said the organization was concerned that the release of the war documents would affect Bradley Manning, the 22-year-old soldier accused of leaking the "Collateral Murder" video and other documents to the organization. Manning is being held in Kuwait and, though WikiLeaks won't comment on whether he was the source for the new documents, the organization has started a legal defense fund for Manning, who is currently being represented by military lawyers. Adding to the intrigue, Assange also said that WikiLeaks could not find any "relation to Mr. Manning" in the "public record."

10. Information Does Not Put Security of Troops at Risk
Because the documents are now several months old, Assange said, there is no concern about their contents revealing information that could put troops at risk.

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