Wikileaks founder Julian Assange brushed off Pentagon criticism that the publication of thousands of war logs and secret battlefield reports could put the lives of US soldiers or their Iraqi allies at risk.    

At a press conference in London Assange was asked: “Are you worried that the careful vetting that you outlined this morning maybe wasn’t careful enough and that those lives have been put at risk?”

Assange answered “No, I’m worried that the press chooses to credibly report statements like that from the Pentagon. In fact the Pentagon would not have been able to review our material in those few hours. It is simply logistically impossible.”

He was responding to reports from Pentagon officials that a task force of 120 Defense Intelligence analysts had identified 300 Iraqi individuals who could be targeted if their names were published by Wikileaks. US Central Command had reportedly had begun to reach out to the Iraqis in an effort to protect them.

“There are thousands of Iraqi names in these documents that have been compromised. 300 of whom we believe are particularly in danger and we have shared that information with our forces in Iraq for them to take prophylactic measures to protect them,” Pentagon Press Secretary Geoff Morrell said Friday.

But Assange said that Wikileaks and the four newspapers that it shared the documents with back in June, including the New York Times, decided to redact all Iraqi names from the war logs.

What the trove of battlefield reports reveal are 15,000 more civilian deaths than previously thought, according to a British human rights group that keeps track of deaths in Iraq. Instances of abuse and torture by Iraqi security forces.

For instance, according to one war log, on November 13, 2005, the 2nd Brigade Combat Team in Baghdad found 173 Iraqis detained by the Iraqi police. But no investigation was ordered.

There is also evidence of more Iranian involvement in Iraq than previously reported. An incident on Sept 7, 2006 is just one example.  One Iranian gunner was killed by US gunfire at that confrontation, and the Iranians took 5 Iraqi soldiers hostage along with their interpreter. All were eventually released. But it is not the kind of activity that the US military highlighted during much of the war.