The promise we make to our sources is that not only will we defend them through every means that we have available technologically, legally and politically but we will try and get the maximum possible political impact for the material that they give to us. 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). For instance, the Web site takes special care to slow down the video and identify the two photographers and the cameras they are carrying. WIRED may earn a portion of sales from products that are purchased through our site as part of our Affiliate Partnerships with retailers. WikiLeaks identified the leak's source as "a number of military whistleblowers". [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". After the incident, we went back to the FOB [forward operating base] and that's when I was in my room. Towards the end of the show, the star actor became an active member of the Screen Actors Guild and after he left "Adam-12." Seven men (including Noor-Eldeen) were killed during this first strike; Saeed Chmagh, who was injured, later died in a hospital. It claimed reporters' "furtive attempts to photograph the Coalition Ground Forces made them appear as hostile combatants". McCord: I would be smoked. 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. I was trying to wash it off in my room. Well in all actuality, we brought the battle to your kids. We are both soldiers who occupied your neighborhood for 14 months. That's the hard part to swallow. He gave his view of the context of the killings: the Reuters guys walked into the hottest spot of a very hot morning. [32], U.S. Defense Secretary Robert Gates criticized WikiLeaks for releasing the video without providing any context. There's no front lines here. Describing doubts over his initial enthusiasm in Iraq, McCord said that "I didnt understand why people were throwing rocks at us, why I was being shot at and why we're being blown up, when I have it in my head that I was here to help these people. We are both soldiers who occupied your neighborhood for 14 months. I was called a pussy and that I needed to suck it up and a lot of other horrible things. Josh . "[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. The company was supported by two Apache helicopters from the 1st Cavalry Division's Aviation Brigade, call signs "Crazyhorse 1/8" and "Crazyhorse 1/9". Ethan and Josh claim that though their unit was following the Rules of Engagement that day, they are taking responsibility for their role in the incident and initiating a dialogue around it; "Though we have acted with cold hearts far too many times, we have not forgotten our actions towards you. Two former soldiers from the Army unit responsible for the Wikileaks "Collateral Murder" incident have written an open-letter of "Reconciliation and Responsibility" to those injured in the July 2007 attack, in which U.S. forces wounded two children and killed over a dozen people, including the father of those children and two Reuters employees. A draft version of the video WikiLeaks produced made reference to the AK-47s and RPGs, but WikiLeaks said that ultimately they became unsure about the RPG, believing the long object could have been a camera tripod, so they decided not to point it out in the released version. After the non-combatants were clear Crazyhorse 1/8 engaged the targets. McCord: Yeah. You are seeing only a very narrow picture of the events". [58] Reuters subsequently asked the U.S. military to probe the deaths. WikiLeaks stated that the footage shows the "murder of Iraqi civilians and two Reuters journalists". According to Tom Raju, a reporter at CNN, "the soldiers of Bravo Company, 216 Infantry had been under fire all morning from rocket-propelled grenades and small arms on the first day of Operation Ilaaj in Baghdad". 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. It was nominated as a Documentary Short Subject for the 84th Academy Awards. 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. Since then, McCord has been receiving threats to him and his family on a regular basis. [18][24][25][26][27] While the two are carrying media cards, a military officer claimed they were not wearing distinctive clothing identifying themselves as such. Though we have acted with cold hearts far too many times, we have not forgotten our actions towards you. Plus: Irans secret torture black sites, hacking a bank account with AI-generated voice, and Lance Bass unhinged encounter in Russia. It was the video that put WikiLeaks on the map: "Collateral Murder" turned the tide of war in Iraq and landed Private first class Bradley Manning in military detention. McCord: There were approximately two to three other people who were moving who were still somewhat alive, and the medics were attending to them. Advertisement. 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. [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. A third, an infantry solider named Ethan McCord, was one of the men who had scooped up the bodies of the wounded children in the apache helicopter attack, what is now known as the "Collateral. After attending to the girl's wounds and handing her to a medic, McCord was ordered to take position on the roof but he returned to the van to find the boy moving his hand. Wired.com: But you had been in combat before. When they arrived, they found a scene of fresh carnage the scattered remains of a group of men, believed to be armed, who had just been gunned down by Apache attack helicopters. They split up and the footage follows one who appears to be armed. The crew for Crazyhorse 1/9 could not engage due to target obfuscation from buildings and dust. [59][16] In a personal statement during her court-martial, Chelsea Manning stated that the military had access to the video, and was actively examining it, yet it told Reuters in response to the FOIA request that the information might no longer exist. It's very clear that that is the approach, to try and find any mechanism to excuse the behavior, and that is what ended up happening. The editors asked to see the remaining footage so Reuters could check whether it had been edited or manipulated. From our own experiences, and the experiences of other veterans we have talked to, we know that the acts depicted in this video are everyday occurrences of this war: this is the nature of how U.S.-led wars are carried out in this region. [55], Assange stated that the attack on the van was the most damning part of the video: "I'm very sceptical that was done under the rules of engagement; and, if it was legal, the rules of engagement must be changed". Minutes after the first engagement ended, the van returned traveling in an opposite direction (north) once again on this same road. It was a scene that had played repeatedly in his mind the last three years, and he knew exactly who the soldier was. Was it reasonable for the Apache soldiers to think that maybe the people they attacked were part of that insurgent firefight? Lying dead on a street were inanimate objects that turned out to be. [60] The Pentagon eventually blocked the FOIA request[25] despite several follow-up requests by Reuters. [8] The video, which WikiLeaks titled Collateral Murder, showed the crew firing on a group of men and killing several of them, then laughing at some of the casualties, all of whom were civilians, including two Reuters journalists. 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. The second strike, also using 30mm rounds, was directed at a van whose driver, Saleh Matasher Tomal, appeared to happen to drive by and who proceeded to help the wounded Chmagh. Their 43-year-old father, Saleh, had been driving them to a class when he spotted one of the wounded men moving in the street and drove over to help him, only to become a victim of the Apache guns. That's not leaking, that's a pure editorial." In 2009, Stieber left the military as a conscientious objector and became a member of Iraq Veterans Against the War. We took her in there and we're checking to see if there were any other wounds. [61] The longer video shows the third attack, in which Hellfire missiles were fired into a building.[43]. In the first strike, the crews of two Apaches directed 30mm cannon fire at a group of ten Iraqi men, including some armed,[17][18][19] standing less than 100 meters away from U.S. ground troops at a location where insurgents earlier that day had attacked an American Humvee with small arms fire. I've lived with seeing the children that way since the incident happened. As the pilot positions the helicopter to attack the building, two unarmed men walk towards, and perhaps into, the building. [87], McCord discussed his experience in the battle in an interview with the World Socialist Web Site on April 28, 2010, stating, "What happened then was not an isolated incident. 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. That classified video created its own firestorm. As the ground troops advanced, a wounded Chmagh was seen crawling and attempting to stand. Home: Wichita, Kansas, AN OPEN LETTER OF RECONCILIATION & RESPONSIBILITY TO THE IRAQI PEOPLE From Current and Former Members of the U.S. Military. 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 . They arrived on station in New Baghdad at 9:53a.m., where sporadic attacks on coalition forces continued. [25] Both videos depict the attack on the van, van driver, and two other men, and the aftermath when the two seriously injured children were evacuated by U.S. ground forces who arrived on the scene. 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