WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange has conceded that Afghan deaths may be 'unavoidable' as a result of the release of 91,000 secret US files relating to the Afghan war.
He was speaking to Mark Davis from SBS's Dateline, who was given exclusive behind-the-scenes access to Assange as he released the files.
When asked about the possibility of Afghan informants being named in the files and subsequently being killed, Assange told Davis, “It's absolutely not something I want, but… the possibility of that is unavoidable. In the end we are forced to make hard choices.”
Assange says WikiLeaks has removed the names of Afghan informants, but admits “there may be a stray report here or stray report there.”
“We do best effort to minimise harm, which we have done with the understanding that this is an extraordinary body of material capable of producing extraordinary reforms. It belongs in the hands of the Afghan people. Give it to them”, he told Dateline.
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New York Times 'nervous'
The documents include unreported incidents of Afghan civilian killings, covert operations against Taliban figures, allegations of Iran funding Taliban militants and US fears that ally Pakistan's intelligence service was actually aiding the insurgency.
The files were released first to the New York Times, the Guardian in the UK and Germany's Der Spiegel.
But in last night's Dateline, video journalist Mark Davis said the New York Times was nervous about being the first to publish the files in the United States.
In an exchange filmed by Davis between Assange and Gavin MacFadyen, the director of London's Centre for Investigative Journalism, Assange told McFadden that the Times said, "They don't want to go first. They want us to scoop them... so they can claim... 'We weren't involved, we are just reporting what someone else did'."
Mark Davis followed Assange, who's originally from Melbourne, as he worked with the papers to sift through the files and tracked him as he dealt with the huge amount of worldwide media coverage which followed.
Government criticism
The actions of WikiLeaks have been criticised by many of the Governments with troops in Afghanistan.
US Defence Secretary Robert Gates said over the weekend that the WikiLeaks website is 'guilty' on moral grounds for releasing the documents, and that the move was reckless.
As a former CIA analyst who rose to become director of the spy agency, Gates also said 'protecting our sources is sancrosanct' and the leak jeopardises the trust that underpins ties to informants.
The US Justice Department is currently considering whether to bring legal charges against the website.
