Washington on Sunday came under increasing international pressure to investigate the allegations in the leaked Iraq war documents published by WikiLeaks, which Britain’s deputy prime minister Nick Clegg called “shocking”.
Governments and human rights organisations alike put the focus on answers to the allegations made against US, allied and Iraqi troops as the whistleblowing website released 400,000 classified US military documents.
Mr Clegg, calling the claims “extremely serious”, said people would want to know “what the answer is”. He told BBC-TV: “We can bemoan how these leaks occurred, but I think the nature of the allegations made are extraordinarily serious. They are distressing to read about... I’m assuming the US will want to provide its own answer. It’s not for us to tell them how to do that.
“Anything that suggests that basic rules of war and conflict and of engagement have been broken or that torture has in any way been condoned are extremely serious and need to be looked at.”