Advertisement. We heard the gunships open up. The event was covered by Al Jazeera English and Reuters,[16] and later by The Washington Post,[82] The New York Times,[2] The Christian Science Monitor,[83] the BBC,[66] and CNN. WIRED is where tomorrow is realized. "[31], In May 2011 the Barcelona Human Rights Film Festival awarded the investigative film Collateral murder, Hellfire, done by Kristinn Hrafnsson, WikiLeaks spokesperson, and Ingi Ingason, with the award for International Journalism and Human Rights. WikiLeaks stated that "some of the men appear to have been armed [although] the behavior of nearly everyone was relaxed" in the introductory text of the shorter video. It is the essential source of information and ideas that make sense of a world in constant transformation. Daniel Ellsberg, a former United States military analyst who was known for having leaked the Pentagon Papers to the media, said of the airstrike: It would be interesting to have someone speculate or tell us exactly what context would lead to justifying the killing that we see on the screen. Soldier on 2007 Apache Attack: What I Saw, Ethan McCord had just returned from dropping his children at school earlier this month, when he turned on the TV news to see grainy black-and-white video footage of a soldier running from a bombed-out van with a child in his arms. Give us a picture of what happened that day. These people were operating in split second situations.". However, I don't feel that the attack on the [rescue] van was necessary. So if people have a different opinion, the full material is there for them to analyse and assess. ", "Hudson Institute > Warfare Through 'a Soda Straw', "Gates assails Internet group over attack video", "WikiLeaks releases video depicting US forces killing of two Reuters journalists in Iraq", "Leaked Video Depicts Civilian Deaths In Iraq", "Video shows death of 2 Reuters employees in Baghdad attack", "WaPo denies allegation it sat on WikiLeaks video", "Two members of the company in the WikiLeaks video speak out", "US soldier in WikiLeaks massacre video: 'I relive this every day', "Former US soldier speaks (interview transcript)", "US intelligence analyst arrested over security leaks", "U.S. Intelligence Analyst Arrested in WikiLeaks Video Probe", "Report: Soldier arrested for allegedly leaking 'Collateral Murder' helicopter video to WikiLeaks", "Bradley Manning pleads guilty to some Wikileaks charges", "Bradley Manning Found Guilty of 19 Counts, Not Guilty of Aiding The Enemy", "Bradley Manning Found Not Guilty of Aiding the Enemy", "Army Pfc. The soldier, Ethan McCord, has since been discharged from the military and has been an outspoken voice against the Iraq War. I do know that there was a teenage girl [in there], just because I saw the pictures when I was there, that one of the soldiers took. The film received an Oscar nomination in January. McCord: My platoon sergeant knew that I was having a hard time with it and that same night he came into the room and he told me, hey, just so you know, both of the children survived, so you can suck it up now. There had been running gun battles. The Push to Ban TikTok in the US Isnt About Privacy. There's also some soldiers who joke about it [as a] coping mechanism. It didn't seem real, in the sense that it didn't look like human beings. Responsibility for civilian deaths in such encounters rests with those who violate the rules of war. It's very disturbing. It was a scene that had played repeatedly in his mind the last three [], All the Settings You Should Change on Your New Samsung Phone, Its Time to Fall in Love With Nuclear FusionAgain, Give Your Back a Break With Our Favorite Office Chairs, Fat, Sugar, Salt Youve Been Thinking About Food All Wrong, Apple Users Need to Update iOS Now to Patch Serious Flaws. He runs the girl to the Bradley. James W. McCord Jr., a security expert who led a band of burglars into the shambles of the Watergate scandal and was the first to expose the White House crimes and cover-ups that precipitated the . Bradley Manning acquitted of aiding the enemy, convicted of six counts of espionage", "Bradley Manning acquitted of aiding the enemy for giving secrets to WikiLeaks", "BBC News Bradley Manning guilty of espionage in Wikileaks case", "Manning Gets 35 years for wikileaks disclosures", "Bradley Manning Sentenced To 35 Years In Prison For WikiLeaks Disclosures", "Bradley Manning sentenced to 35 years in prison live updates", "Judge sentences Bradley Manning to 35 years", "Obama commutes Chelsea Manning's prison sentence", "Obama's final press conference: Chelsea Manning commutation is 'appropriate', "The WikiLeaks Video and the Rules of Engagement", "Exclusive: Reuters Chief Spikes Story on Killing of His Own Staffers In Baghdad", "US 'reviewing' Iraq killing video posted on WikiLeaks", "Ingi Ingason Ragnar and Kristinn Hrafnsson awarded International Journalism and Human Rights Award at Barcelona Human Rights Film Festival", "Verleihung des Whistleblower-Preises 2011", Whistleblower-Preis 2011 geht an Kernforscher, Collateral Murder: U.S. Manning's Providence Inquiry", "US military video showing 2007 Apache attack on Iraqi civilians released", "Leaked video shows US military killing of civilians, Reuters staff", "Permission to Engage: WikiLeaks collateral murder footage examined", "US soldier linked to Iraq helicopter video leak charged", "Leaked U.S. video shows deaths of Reuters' Iraqi staffers", "WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange tells Colbert permission to engage was given before the word RPG was ever used", "Leaked video reveals chaos of Baghdad attack", Investigation into Civilian Casualties Resulting from an Engagement on 12 July 2007 in the New Baghdad District of Baghdad, Iraq, "Gates said leaked military video of shooting in Iraq doesn't show the broader picture of Americans being fired upon", "Records released to the public, under the FOIA, that are or will likely become the subject of subsequent requests", "July 12, 2007 Baghdad airstrike transcript", "Video expands notoriety of WikiLeaks site", "WikiLeaks reveals video showing US air crew shooting down Iraqi civilians", "The pictures that prove US helicopter gunships opened fire on Iraqi civilians", "Calls for inquiry into Apache attack on Iraqi civilians", "U.S. Military Releases Redacted Records on 2007 Apache Attack, Questions Linger", "Wikileaks reveals video showing US air crew shooting down Iraqi civilians", "Video shows deaths of two Reuters journalists in Iraq in 2007", "Massacre Caught on Tape: US Military Confirms Authenticity of Their Own Chilling Video Showing Killing of Journalists", "Military Raises Questions About Credibility of Leaked Iraq Shooting Video", 'Let Us Shoot': US Troops Fire On Journalists, Legal Glance on the Baghdad Helicopter Shooting | Peanik, "U.S. I know the scene by heart; it's burned into my head. "[32], The Guardian stated "It is unclear if some of the men are armed but Noor-Eldeen can be seen with a camera". [47] The Australian newspaper said the group was displaying "no obvious hostile action". Just over a year ago, WikiLeaks released footage from a gunsight camera of an Apache helicopter engaged in an attack that killed two journalists and eight ci. But youyou talked about the fog of war. Many soldiers felt threatened just by the fact that you were looking at them, so they fired their weapons on anybody that was looking at them because they (I . [50] In a later interview on the World Socialist Web Site, Stieber said that the attack "exposes so clearly the fallacy of using war as a tool of foreign policy or as a way to supposedly spread 'freedom and democracy' around the world".[51]. However, the long version of the video shows that this van had already been targeted by one Apache (Crazyhorse 1/8), prior to the second strike, as it traveled south toward the Reuters employees who were simultaneously targeted by the other Apache (Crazyhorse 1/9) as they walked with the group of men north on the same road toward the van. [19], As the tape resumes, two men, one holding an AK-47, are seen walking. This is urban combat and we're taking the war to children and women and innocents. I did see a video on YouTube after the Wikileaks [ video ] came out, of the children being interviewed. [86], Ethan McCord, the soldier seen in the video carrying the injured boy, recalled in an interview on The Marc Steiner Show that on arrival at the scene, "The first thing I did was run up to the van". But this particular eventthis is clearly murder. But you're not supposed to do that in Iraq. It shouldn't have surprised you what you saw. They wrote that:[71][72][73][74]. Home: Wichita, Kansas, AN OPEN LETTER OF RECONCILIATION & RESPONSIBILITY TO THE IRAQI PEOPLE From Current and Former Members of the U.S. Military. The video makes plain that in this incident, as in almost all military encounters in both Iraq and Afghanistan, our soldiers are up against forces that do not wear uniformsa violation of international law precisely because it places innocent civilians in jeopardy. It has also ignored many veterans who have returned physically injured or mentally troubled by what they saw and did in your country. Seven men were killed, including Noor-Eldeen and Chmagh, with three others being wounded. [67], WikiLeaks released a 39-minute version, which shows all three incidents, and a 17-minute version, which shows only the first two incidents. Ethan was on the ground at the scene of the shooting, and is seen on the video rushing one of the injured children to a U.S. It was more of a child who was frightened out of her mind. Lying dead on a street were inanimate objects that turned out to be. I wasn't thinking about it as much. Wired.com: Do you support Wikileaks in releasing this video? (The quote begins at 12:22 in video, and the shot that killed Saaed is at 12:25)", "Stephen Colbert Interviews WikiLeaks Founder", "US veterans write apology letter to Iraqis following WikiLeaks video", "We killed your father I'm heartbroken", "Widow of Iraqi killed by US troops in video 'accepts apology' after letter", "Airstrike Video Brings Attention to WikiLeaks Site", "Elliptical vs. treadmill: Which will give you the better workout? In addition to five[98][99] or six[100][101][102] espionage counts, she was also found guilty of five theft specifications, two computer fraud specifications and multiple military infractions. He responded, "I hadn't heard of WikiLeaks before yesterday. Oh well", and a minute later continued, "Well, it's their fault for bringing kids into a battle". ", The letter, which they hope to get to the family who lost their father and whose children were injured in the attack, states that they "are acknowledging our responsibility for bringing the battle to your neighborhood, and to your family. Minutes after the first engagement ended, the van returned traveling in an opposite direction (north) once again on this same road. The Apache crew then alerted the ground troops that they believed that they could see an injured child moving around inside the destroyed van. McCord: I would be smoked. He kept saying, we were there, we know the truth, they're saying there was no weapons, there was. Well in all actuality, we brought the battle to your kids. A Pentagon spokesman said the video did not contradict the official finding that the helicopters' crew acted within the rules of engagement and said that the inquiry backed the assessment that the group of men were carrying a rocket-propelled grenade (RPG). [32] The Apache crew alerted the ground troops of the van and requested permission to engage the vehicle before the ground troops arrived. [62] At a February 2013 pretrial hearing, Manning stated that Finkel "was quoting, I feel in verbatim, the audio communications of the aerial weapons team crew". The footage was portrayed as classified,[7] but the individual who leaked it, U.S. Army soldier Chelsea Manning,[a] testified in 2013 that the video was not classified. I did see a guy moving from a rooftop from one position to another with an AK-47, who was firing at us. [But] I was actually starting to get kind of better. I didn't know if he was telling me that just to get me to shut up and to do my job or if he really found something out. The breakthroughs and innovations that we uncover lead to new ways of thinking, new connections, and new industries. Both children were said to have been evacuated to the 28th Combat Support Hospital via Forward Operating Base Loyalty, then transferred to an Iraqi medical facility the next day. When this video first came out, there was a lot of outrage by the soldiers, just because it depicted us as being callous, cruel, heartless people, and we're not that way. McCord: When it was first released I don't think it was done in the best manner that it could have been. Assange responded:[69][70]. We are doing what we can to speak out against the wars and military policies responsible for what happened to you and your loved ones. [58] Reuters subsequently asked the U.S. military to probe the deaths. [20] According to a military review, soldiers in that company "had been under sporadic small arms and rocket propelled grenade fire since" the operationdescribed as "clearing their sector and looking for weapons caches"began. Our heavy hearts still hold hope that we can restore inside our country the acknowledgment of your humanity, that we were taught to deny. McCord: There were approximately two to three other people who were moving who were still somewhat alive, and the medics were attending to them. "I grabbed him and ran to the Bradley myself". You are seeing only a very narrow picture of the events". Tasked to conduct escort, armed reconnaissance patrols, and counter-IED and counter-mortar operations, the two helicopters left Camp Taji at 9:24a.m. [43] He walks into a building which has been identified as the source of fire at U.S. ground troops. I based the account in my book on multiple sources, all unclassified". Colbert asked "So 'Collateral Murder' is to get political impact?" [108][109], In a June 7, 2010, article in The New Yorker, Raffi Khatchadourian addressed several issues involved in determining the legality of the attacks, including "proportionality", "positive identification" ("reasonable certainty" that the target has hostile intent), and "the treatment of casualties during an ongoing military operation". That's why so many soldiers come back home and they're no longer in the situations where they have other things to think about or other people to joke about what happened and they explode. We're sorry for the system that we were involved in that took their father's life and injured them. They were destroyed. But the video and accompanying audio make clear that the soldiers in the helicopter said they spotted 'weapons' among those in the grouplater identified by an internal army investigator as an AK-47 and an RPG. They also found 10-year-old Sajad Mutashar and his five-year-old sister Doaha covered in blood in a van. You can see in this particular image he is lying on the ground and the people in the van have been separated, but they still deliberately target him. There's no before and there's no after". That's the hard part to swallow. When Bravo Company arrived at the scene, they reported finding two RPGs and an AK-47 or AKM. [Then I] took my children to school one day and I came home and sat down on the couch and turned on the TV with my coffee, and on the news I'm running across the screen with a child. I think it is good that they're putting this stuff out there. She draws parallels with soldiers who suffered post-traumatic stress disorder in earlier wars. It claimed reporters' "furtive attempts to photograph the Coalition Ground Forces made them appear as hostile combatants". "The first thing I thought of was my children at home". [97] On July 30, Manning was acquitted of the most serious charge, that of aiding the enemy, for giving secrets to WikiLeaks. The crew for Crazyhorse 1/9 could not engage due to target obfuscation from buildings and dust. The film received an Oscar nomination in January. [61] Speaking to Reuters on condition of anonymity, a U.S. Defense official confirmed the authenticity of the leaked audio and video. Eamonn McCann Mon Aug 19 2013 - 20:49 Bradley Manning was scheduled to speak yesterday at the sentencing phase of his trial for having leaked 750,000 pages of classified documents and videos to. "When I did come up on the scene, there was an RPG as well as AK-47s there," he said. I don't think that people really want to see this, though, because this is war. The ground controller responds, "If you've [positively identified] the individuals in the building with weapons, go ahead and engage the building". Seven men (including Noor-Eldeen) were killed during this first strike; Saeed Chmagh, who was injured, later died in a hospital. [18] The report recommends encouraging journalists in Iraq to wear special vests to identify themselves, and to keep the U.S. military updated about their whereabouts. If you wish to use copyrighted material from this site for purposes of your own that go beyond fair use, you must obtain permission from the copyright owner. When we were on that roof, we were still taking fire. We believe this constitutes a fair use of any such copyrighted material as provided for in 17 U.S.C 107. Wired.com: There was another attack depicted in the video that has received little attention, involving a Hellfire and a building that was fired on. Gates said that the video provides the public with a view of warfare "as seen through a soda straw". Plus: Microsoft fixes several zero-day bugs, Google patches Chrome and Android, Mozilla rids Firefox of a full-screen vulnerability, and more. [61], Washington Post reporter David Finkel, who at the time was embedded with Bravo Company 216 Infantry, later covered the incidents of the day in his book, The Good Soldiers. They heard about something, they came to it and they just wantedfrom everything I've learned since, they were just there to get that side of the story. [85] It happened because my content was bad. You can hear the medic saying on the video, "There's nothing I can do here, she needs to be evac'd." Ethan McCord had just returned from dropping his children at school earlier this month, when he turned on the TV news to see grainy black-and-white video footage of a soldier running from a bombed-out van with a child in his arms. She was crying. On June 7, 2010, The New Yorker reported that Kristinn Hrafnsson, an investigative reporter who worked on the Collateral Murder video and later became a spokesman for WikiLeaks,[54] said he had found the owner of the building involved in the incident. That stays with you. We are both soldiers who occupied your neighborhood for 14 months. We humbly ask you what we can do to begin to repair the damage we caused. Two children were found in the van, a four-year-old girl with gunshot wounds and embedded windscreen glass wounds and an eight-year-old boy with multiple wounds, including brain damage arising from shrapnel damage to his right temporal lobe. [43] The report stated that the helicopter crew did not know how many people were in the building when they destroyed it with missiles, and that "there is evidence that unarmed people have both entered and are nearby". So I just sucked it up and tried to move on with everything. McCord: Yeah. Soldier on 2007 Apache Attack: What I Saw", "Redacted internal US Army report: "Investigation into Civilian Casualties Resulting from an Engagement on 12 July 2007 in the New Baghdad District of Baghdad", "WikiLeaks releases video of slaughter in Iraq", "Military shooting of Reuters men online", "Joan Smith: Now we see what war does to those who wage it", "US soldier on Baghdad airstrike: "Not out of the ordinary in Iraq", "2 soldiers in 'Collateral Murder' video apologize. She concluded that command structures need to be in place to identify "combatants with serious psychological problems". US Soldiers from Wikileaks Collateral Murder Video Apologize. 85 ] it what happened to ethan mccord because my content was bad sources, all unclassified '' look. It could have been support Wikileaks in releasing this video that we uncover lead to new ways of thinking new... Really want to see this, though, because this is urban combat and 're! 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