It is usually a long, long time before, or even if, some official documents are released to the public, generally confirming what we all suspected, that the authorities were less than honest about a particular situation or event.
Leaks of public documents, either in the public interest or for political or personal gain, are becoming more commonplace. And now there are sites like Wikileaks, where anyone can ‘leak’ information, with anonymity should they so choose.
The latest leak involves 90,000 documents relating to the Afghanistan conflict, listing mishaps, misgivings about supposed allies and even bringing up the possibility of war crimes being committed by the US and British forces.