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The soldier arrested in the biggest leak of classified material in U.S. history gave the first detailed explanation of his actions Thursday, offering to plead guilty to charges that could send him to prison for 20 years and saying he spilled the secrets to expose the U.S. military’s “blood lust” in Iraq and Afghanistan.

It was the first time Army Private Bradley Manning directly admitted leaking the material to the anti-secrecy website WikiLeaks and detailed the frustrations that led him to do it.

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Sitting before a military judge, the slightly built 25-year-old soldier read from a 35-page statement through his wire-rimmed glasses for more than an hour. He spoke quickly and evenly, showing little emotion even when he described how troubled he was by what he had seen.

“I believed that if the general public, especially the American public, had access to the information … this could spark a domestic debate on the role of the military and our foreign policy in general,” he said.