Ad Choices, U.S. He added, "I think what this video shows is really a case that challenges whether the laws of war are strict enough. "The first thing I thought of was my children at home". It's very disturbing. 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. The Washington Post has denied having any copy of the unedited video prior to WikiLeaks release of their edited version, and Finkel (who was on book leave from The Washington Post at the time) said that he has never made any statement about his sources for the story, except that it was "sourced from unclassified information and my presence in the area that day". In an Al Jazeera English interview on April 19, 2010, WikiLeaks' Julian Assange explained why WikiLeaks titled the video Collateral Murder: And you can see that they also deliberately target Saaed, a wounded man there on the ground, despite their earlier belief that they didn't have the rules of engagementthat the rules of engagement did not permit them to kill Saeed when he was wounded. [17] Politifact stated: "When Assange points out in the context of justifying the title 'Collateral Murder' that the word 'RPG' was not used until after permission to engage was given, he leaves the impression that the soldiers were given the okay to open fire on a group of unarmed men, or men believed to be unarmed. "[60], Early in 2010, the Internet whistleblower site WikiLeaks made a public request for assistance in decrypting a video it described as "US bomb strikes on civilians", specifically requesting access to supercomputer time. We are both soldiers who occupied your neighborhood for 14 months. 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. [103], On August 21, 2013, Manning was sentenced to 35 years' imprisonment, reduction in rank from private first class to private, forfeiture of all pay and allowances, and a dishonorable discharge. [43] It concluded that an investigating officer would want to know how the armed men were identified as combatants from the earlier engagement; would question the nature of the collateral-damage estimate carried out by the crew before the missiles were launched; and would wish to determine whether a missile attack was a proportionate response to the threat. 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. I know the van, I know the faces of everybody that was there that day. We acknowledge our part in the deaths and injuries of your loved ones as we tell Americans what we were trained to do and what we carried out in the name of "god and country". 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. I based the account in my book on multiple sources, all unclassified". There's houses behind where the van was. McCord: I have never seen anybody being shot by a 30-millimeter round before. She continued, "the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan are inflicting huge psychological damage on combatants". They wrote that:[71][72][73][74]. Wired.com: How much sniper fire were you getting? In the video, you can clearly see that they did have weapons to the trained eye. "[88] McCord also recalled being ordered to "kill every motherfucker on the street" in the event of an attack on their convoy. I've spoken with other soldiers who were there. Since then, McCord has been receiving threats to him and his family on a regular basis. A unit from Bravo Company 216 was within 100 meters of the individuals that were fired upon with 30mm AH-64 Apache cannons. 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. [19], The events between the attack on the van and the attack on the building (approximately 30 minutes) were not captured on the leaked video footage. [21][79], The New Yorker praised its release, calling it "a striking artifactan unmediated representation of the ambiguities and cruelties of modern warfare".[3]. Fox News reported in 2010 that the rules of engagement in Iraq had not been changed since the incident occurred. I know the scene by heart; it's burned into my head. They arrived on station in New Baghdad at 9:53a.m., where sporadic attacks on coalition forces continued. She said that she was "aghast" at Finkel's portrayal of the incident. McCord's courage and integrity has nothing to do with his US army training. "[90], James Spione made a short documentary film about the airstrikes called Incident in New Baghdad, featuring a first-person account from Ethan McCord. In the video, you can clearly see that they did have weapons to the trained eye." Our heavy hearts still hold hope that we can restore inside our country the acknowledgment of your humanity, that we were taught to deny. That's the hard part to swallow. That's when I started screaming, "The boy's alive! However, according to the co-pilot for Crazyhorse 1/8 they failed to positively identify the occupants as combatants and returned to the previous engagement area. [18] Both helicopters strafe a group of ten men with 30 mm rounds once they became visible again. [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. 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. He responded, "I hadn't heard of WikiLeaks before yesterday. [60] The Pentagon eventually blocked the FOIA request[25] despite several follow-up requests by Reuters. This is urban combat and we're taking the war to children and women and innocents. The breakthroughs and innovations that we uncover lead to new ways of thinking, new connections, and new industries. When we were on that roof, we were still taking fire. Ethan McCord pulled your daughter and son from the van, and when doing so, saw the faces of his own children back home. We lost our country and our lives were destroyed. [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. Wired.com: Have you heard from any other soldiers since the video came out? I was pretty distraught over the whole situation with the children. The men become obscured behind a building as the Apache moves around the group. 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. Bill Keller of The New York Times wrote, "But in its zeal to make the video a work of antiwar propaganda, WikiLeaks also released a version that didn't call attention to an Iraqi who was toting a rocket-propelled grenade and packaged the manipulated version under the tendentious rubric Collateral Murder. [81] [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. Wired.com: Was anyone moving when you got there other than the two children? However, I do know some soldiers went in to clear that building afterwards and there were some people with weapons in there, but there was also a family of four that was killed. With Russia regularly knocking out Ukraines power grid, the country has turned to high-capacity batteries to keep it connected to the worldand itself. In an interview on NPR on April 6, the day after the Collateral Murder video release, David Finkel said that the Reuters reporters were not embedded with anyone, but working independently. Soldier Ethan McCord speaking about the civilian massacre documented in WikiLeaks's April 2010 vid. Tasked to conduct escort, armed reconnaissance patrols, and counter-IED and counter-mortar operations, the two helicopters left Camp Taji at 9:24a.m. WikiLeaks also does not point out that at least one man was carrying an AK-47 assault rifle. Ethan McCord, a soldier who arrived on the scene after the attack, stated in an interview for the Australian Broadcasting Corporation: From being in the perspective of the Apache helicopter crew, I can see where a group of men gathering, when there's a firefight just a few blocks away, which I was involved in, and theyre carrying weapons, one of which is an RPG. Instead, the Apaches decided to completely obliterate everybody in the van. There's also some soldiers who joke about it [as a] coping mechanism. [32], On the day of the attack the U.S. military reported that the two journalists were killed along with nine insurgents, and that the helicopter engagement was related to a U.S. troop raid force that had been attacked by small-arms fire and RPGs. "[32][77] He said that WikiLeaks "does not point out that at least one man was carrying an AK-47 assault rifle. I think that the bigger picture is what are we doing there? Those guys could have just been protecting their area". Our secretary of defense may say the U.S. won't lose its reputation over this, but we stand and say that our reputation's importance pales in comparison to our common humanity. [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]. "The helicopters were approximately a mile and a half away and they were zooming in on these guys . [57], Reuters reported that it could locate no witnesses who had seen gunmen in the immediate area. So if people have a different opinion, the full material is there for them to analyse and assess. WikiLeaks identified the leak's source as "a number of military whistleblowers". [23] Among the group are two journalists working for Reuters, Namir Noor-Eldeen and Saeed Chmagh. Iraq war veteran Ethan McCord was one of three US soldiers who were on the ground during the Apache helicopter assault on twelve civilians in Baghdad in 2007 that was captured in a video. "Reading his account," she explained, "one would believe the engagement was somehow justified as 'payback' for an earlier attack that led to the death of a soldier. Plus: Irans secret torture black sites, hacking a bank account with AI-generated voice, and Lance Bass unhinged encounter in Russia. The co-pilot/gunner for Crazyhorse 1/9 spotted three individuals near this building get into a red SUV and drive away to the west. After the incident, we went back to the FOB [forward operating base] and that's when I was in my room. The story was then overtaken by a more updated one out of Washington that incorporated reporting from the original piece. We were engaged in our own conflict roughly about three or four blocks away. [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. Oh well", and a minute later continued, "Well, it's their fault for bringing kids into a battle". [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". It also states that "The cameras could easily be mistaken for slung AK-47 or AKM rifles, especially since neither cameraman is wearing anything that identifies him as media or press". It was sent back for more reporting in an effort to incorporate a wider range of experts. 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