THE nearly 400,000 war logs relating to the conflict in Iraq publicised by WikiLeaks at the weekend have elicited broadly predictable responses from various sources.

Notable among them have been condemnation by Hillary Clinton and the Pentagon on the basis that the revelations could put American lives at risk, and a complaint from Nouri al-Maliki that the timing of the leaks may have been intended to thwart the complicated task of forming a government in Baghdad.

A more measured reaction has come from Britain`s deputy prime minister, Nick Clegg, the Liberal Democrat leader whose party has consistently opposed the West`s Iraqi misadventure.

Clegg, who stirred controversy some months ago when, while standing in for the prime minister in parliament, accurately described the Iraq war as illegal, has bemoaned the “extraordinarily serious” nature of the “allegations” and called for the investigation of reported incidents involving British troops, adding: “I am assuming the US administration will want to provide its own answer.”

That`s not terribly likely, notwithstanding a call by Manfred Nowak, the United Nations` chief investigator on torture, for the Obama administration to investigate the information contained in the logs, including innumerable reports of serious, and sometimes fatal, physical abuse as well as summary executions. The Guardian

The maltreatment of prisoners at Abu Ghraib evidently pales in comparison with what sections of the Iraqi security forces did to suspects, who in all too many cases were handed over to them by the Americans. Some of the most egregious instances of inhumanity are attributed to the Iraqi interior ministry`s so-called Wolf Brigade, which, according to , “was created and supported by the US in an attempt to re-employ elements of Saddam Hussein`s Republican Guard, this time to terrorise insurgents”.

So it`s not just that some of the Saddam regime`s ugliest features survived its overthrow, but they were apparently sustained by some of the same personnel. Of course, the moral argument for the aggression against Iraq was anyhow never credible, but in the light of facts such as these, it`s amazing it can be made at all.

Even Barack Obama, whose opposition to the war bolstered his presidential candidacy, has suggested that Iraq is better off for having been invaded. Never mind the fact that, nearly nine months after parliamentary elections, Iraq has lately edged closer to the formation of a government on account of Iranian, rather than American, diplomacy.

The hand-over of prisoners to sections of the reconstituted Iraqi military apparatus bears comparison with the abominable practice of “extraordinary rendition” on the international level. Reports of torture — frequently with fatal consequences — by their Iraqi allies were invariably annotated by US military officers with the comment “no further investigation”.

The occupying army likewise considered itself under no obligation to probe random slaughter by sections of its privatised wing. Private contractors now outnumber regular Pentagon employees on Iraqi soil. And Hamid Karzai`s recent threat to banish them from Afghanistan has elicited howls of indignation from all manner of American companies.

The Pentagon`s righteous indignation over WikiLeaks, meanwhile, has been to some extent contradicted by its claim that there is nothing new in the leaked logs. In that case, wherefore the consternation? Of course, given that these are military logs, there isn`t anything in them that should be new to the Pentagon, but there`s plenty that wasn`t previously public knowledge, including 15,000 hitherto unknown civilian deaths, to say nothing of incontrovertible evidence that western military sources were simply lying in claiming they kept no record of such casualties — although it`s more than likely their record is incomplete.

WikiLeaks doesn`t claim to have lifted the fog of war, but even penetrating it with thousands of tiny shafts of light is a step forward. The devil, as they say, is in the detail. And a similar claim could be made, albeit at a different level and in a different context, about recent reports relating to the interrogation of David Headley and associated information.

Headley`s claim to notoriety arises from his confessed role as a scout for Lashkar-i-Taiba (LeT) in planning the 2008 Mumbai massacre. The American-Pakistani formerly known as Daood Gilani changed his name in order to facilitate frequent passages to India, where he photographed the terrorist targets, passing on the pictures not just to the Lashkar but also, apparently, to Pakistan`s Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI). Intriguingly, he was also an informant for the US Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA).

He opted for that role after his second arrest for drug-trafficking back in the 1990s. It`s unclear how long he retained it, but it is at least possible he was still working for the DEA when he joined the Lashkar in 2002. Whether he initially considered himself an infiltrator is among the many hazy spots in his biography.

There`s even confusion about his paternity: one report in the US press says he is the son of a Pakistani diplomat, another describes his father as a renowned broadcaster. His mother was apparently a well-pedigreed Philadelphian. His parents brought him to Pakistan as an infant, but divorced before long. Daood attended the Hasan Abdal Cadet College and subsequently went to live with his mother, thereafter getting into drugs and the DEA. The New York Times The Washington Post

He eventually returned to Pakistan as a DEA spy, and anonymous official US sources cited by and suggest he fell in with the Lashkar-i-Taiba as a mercenary rather than out of ideological conviction. The Guardian

A report in based on documents relating to Headley`s interrogation by Indians gives the strong impression that whereas the Laskhar-i-Taiba was the primary force behind the terrorist attacks in Mumbai, the ISI too wasn`t exactly unaware of what was being plotted.

Suspicions along these lines have existed all along. Headley`s confessions do not in themselves add up to incontrovertible evidence, obviously. But he has named names, and there is certainly scope for a thorough probe into what was not only a dastardly plot against India but could also be interpreted as treason against Pakistan, given the far from implausible suggestion that the terrorist attacks were intended to trigger a military confrontation between the nuclear-armed neighbours. (A catastrophe was averted chiefly on account of Manmohan Singh`s perspicacity.)

Given the ISI`s dismissal of all such reports as “baseless”, chances are it will emulate the Pentagon`s practice of “no further investigation” — a response that is likely to be interpreted across the border as an admission of guilt.