October 22, 2010

WikiLeaks Iraq Dump Is On

WikiLeaks/<a href="http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/9/90/WL_Helping_Hand.jpg/500px-WL_Helping_Hand.jpg">Wikimedia Commons</a>

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[UPDATE: As of 5 p.m. EDT Friday, the WikiLeaks Iraq documents have dropped…all 391,831 of them. They are accessible in a searchable database here. Find anything you think is worth highlighting? Want to help drive MoJo‘s coverage? Let us know in the comments below, or email scoop@motherjones.com.]

WikiLeaks and its erstwhile mainstream media partners this weekend will release hundreds of thousands of documents relating to the Iraq war’s conduct, a representative of one of the news organizations confirmed to Mother Jones.

A New York Times representative told MoJo that the data dump is coming soon, and other news outlets are reporting that the leak will form the basis of the Times’ page 1 coverage Saturday. Al-Jazeera also confirmed the leak, saying it “has had full access to the documents.” That would be a new development; in previous Afganistan coverage, WikiLeaks has leaned exclusively on the Times, the Guardian, and Der Spiegel.

The Iraq document dump had been rumored to occur earlier this week, but WikiLeaks’ secretive honcho, Julian Assange, took potshots at those reports. It appears the leak had been held off to give the mainstream news organizations more time to mull the documents over, but that couldn’t immediately be confirmed Friday.

In any case, like the DOD, Mother Jones has a team of knowledgeable investigators ready to pore over the document database once it’s published. What specific issues or incidents would you most like to see investigated? Leave a comment below or email scoop@motherjones.com.

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We just wrapped up a shorter-than-normal, urgent-as-ever fundraising drive and we came up about $45,000 short of our $300,000 goal.

That means we're going to have upwards of $350,000, maybe more, to raise in online donations between now and June 30, when our fiscal year ends and we have to get to break-even. And even though there's zero cushion to miss the mark, we won't be all that in your face about our fundraising again until June.

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