Reuters also stated that local police described the attack as "random American bombardment". [61] Speaking to Reuters on condition of anonymity, a U.S. Defense official confirmed the authenticity of the leaked audio and video. [78] Gates stated: "They're in a combat situation. I would like the American people and the whole world to understand what happened here in Iraq. These people were operating in split second situations.". There's no easy way to kill somebody. I was also told that there would be repercussions if I was to go to mental health. [92][93] The Internet chats between Manning and Lamo were revealed to the public by Wired. [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. When we were on that roof, we were still taking fire. I know the van, I know the faces of everybody that was there that day. Killing of Reuters Employees", "Dealing With Assange and the WikiLeaks Secrets", "Iraq war files: Apache Hellfire victims", "US soldier on aftermath of WikiLeaks Apache attack", Leaked U.S. video shows deaths of Reuters' Iraqi staffers, "Notes from the Courtroom: Alexa O'Brien's Transcript of Pfc. I had blood all down the front of me from the children. I went back outside to the van, and that's when the boy took, like, a labored, breath. Series of air-to-ground attacks conducted in New Baghdad during the Iraqi insurgency, An AH-64 Apache helicopter, the type used in the attack, Arrest, convictions and sentencing of Manning, Attack on personnel and a van per U.S. Army report account, Attack on building per U.S. Army report account, Julian Assange's comments regarding U.S. Army report, List of coalition military operations of the Iraq War 2007, "In Disclosing Secret Documents, WikiLeaks Seeks 'Transparency', "Video Shows U.S. Ethan McCord, a 33-year-old Army specialist, was engaged in a firefight with insurgents in an Iraqi suburb in July 2007, when his platoon, part of Bravo Company, 2-16 Infantry, got orders to. Advertisement. They also found 10-year-old Sajad Mutashar and his five-year-old sister Doaha covered in blood in a van. 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. Ethan McCord: From Atrocities in Iraq to Resisting U.S. Wars Tweet This interview was done by and first appeared in Revolution newspaper Revolution: In the attack shown in the WikiLeaks video, you were part of the unit that was at the scene, on the ground. "[88] McCord also recalled being ordered to "kill every motherfucker on the street" in the event of an attack on their convoy. Reuters responded, "It is absolutely untrue that this story was spiked. How to Make Sure Youre Not Accidentally Sharing Your Location, Security News This Week: Sensitive US Military Emails Exposed. "These people can put out anything they want, and they're never held accountable for it. The film received an Oscar nomination in January. After the incident, we went back to the FOB [forward operating base] and that's when I was in my room. "The first thing I thought of was my children at home". Josh Stieber was in the same company but was not there that day, though he contributed to the your pain, and the pain of your community on many other occasions. Part of Banksy's, This page was last edited on 20 February 2023, at 21:26. 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. [61] The longer video shows the third attack, in which Hellfire missiles were fired into a building.[43]. ", "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. 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. [116] The military did not include the attack on the building in their report. You can hear the medic saying on the video, "There's nothing I can do here, she needs to be evac'd." We did unto you what we would not want done to us.". "[90], James Spione made a short documentary film about the airstrikes called Incident in New Baghdad, featuring a first-person account from Ethan McCord. [89], When interviewed by Wired, McCord stated that he supported WikiLeaks in releasing the video, with some qualifications: "When it was first released I don't think it was done in the best manner that it could have been. The first real serious doubt, where I could no longer justify to myself being in Iraq or serving in the Army, was on that day in July 2007. What we seek is to learn from our mistakes and do everything we can to tell others of our experiences and how the people of the United States need to realize we have done and are doing to you and the people of your country. And cracking jokes is a way of pushing that stuff down. Major Brent Cummings claimed they took great pains to prevent the loss of innocent civilian lives. McCord: I've spoken with one of the medics who was there. "[76], Captain Jack Hanzlik, a spokesman for U.S. Central Command stated that the airstrike video "gives you a limited perspective, [it] only tells you a portion of the activity that was happening that day. To revist this article, visit My Profile, then View saved stories. 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. I wasn't thinking about it as much. Forces Clash With Militias", "Reuters seeks U.S. probe into killing of Iraqi staff", "Return to Ward 17: Making peace with lost comrades", "Bradley Manning's statements during his trial", "U.S. gunfire kills two Reuters employees in Baghdad", "WikiLeaks silent on how it broke encryption", "Twitter / WikiLeaks: Have encrypted videos of U", "WikiLeaks posts video of 'US military killings' in Iraq", "Collateral Murder? You don't just take somebody's life and then go on about your business for the rest of the day. Colbert asked "So 'Collateral Murder' is to get political impact?" [84], Finkel had reported the day in his book The Good Soldiers,[62] including conversations which closely matched the subsequently leaked video footage. [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. 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. [104][105][106][107] Pursuant to a commutation by President Obama, Chelsea Manning was released on May 17, 2017. Two men were identified by Crazyhorse 1/8 as carrying an RPG launcher and an AKM or AK-47. I did see a guy moving from a rooftop from one position to another with an AK-47, who was firing at us. Personally, I believe the first attack on the group standing by the wall was appropriate, was warranted by the rules of engagement. McCord, in New York for the festival premiere, told the story of what he experienced while saving two children wounded in the incident. US soldiers Ethan McCord's Eyewitness Story of coming across the aftermath of the infamous Wikileaks Collateral Murder in which over a dozen innocent civilians, 2 of which were Reuters journalists, were killed. You are seeing only a very narrow picture of the events". That's not leaking, that's a pure editorial." I was diagnosed with chronic, severe PTSD. Now, as far as rules of engagement, [Iraqis] are not supposed to pick up the wounded. "[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. 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. They were destroyed. As the gunner fires the first missile, another man is seen walking along the street in front of the building. [42] According to the internal legal review, the helicopters engaged a group of armed insurgents, and that some were seen entering a nearby building. In fact, that's one of the reasons I went to the van immediately, because I could hear her crying. He later sought help for psychological trauma, but was ridiculed by his NCO and told that if he were to go to the mental health officer, "there would be repercussions". For instance, the Web site takes special care to slow down the video and identify the two photographers and the cameras they are carrying. A unit from Bravo Company 216 was within 100 meters of the individuals that were fired upon with 30mm AH-64 Apache cannons. Ethan McCord who says he scooped up the children and at least one of his comrades say the incident revealed the bankrupt brutality of the war. "[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. soldiers. The Web site does not slow down the video to show that at least one man in that group was carrying a rocket-propelled grenade launcher, a clearly visible weapon that runs nearly two-thirds the length of his body. [47] Greenwald called the second airstrike a "plainly unjustified killing of a group of unarmed men carrying away an unarmed, seriously wounded man to safety". Apache helicopters were called in by a soldier in the Humvee (Hotel 26) under attack from the same position used by Namir Noor-Eldeen to photograph the vehicle. We took her in there and we're checking to see if there were any other wounds. Plus: Microsoft fixes several zero-day bugs, Google patches Chrome and Android, Mozilla rids Firefox of a full-screen vulnerability, and more. In 2009, Stieber left the military as a conscientious objector and became a member of Iraq Veterans Against the War. There's no before and there's no after". "[112], On April 5, 2010, the same day as the release of the video footage by WikiLeaks, the United States Central Command, which oversees the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, released a collection of documents including two investigative reports. And then the father, who I'm assuming was the father, in the driver's seat slumped over on his side. But you guys did have a firefight a couple of blocks away. They were stating that these people had no weapons whatsoever, that they were just carrying cameras. Fox News reported in 2010 that the rules of engagement in Iraq had not been changed since the incident occurred. Ethan Cord (Horsley) is still a man with a conscience, and kids, but he is also less reluctant to rely on his ability with a gun. [Then] we were just told to move to this [other] location. [85] 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. 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 . [67], WikiLeaks released a 39-minute version, which shows all three incidents, and a 17-minute version, which shows only the first two incidents. We are both soldiers who occupied your neighborhood for 14 months. Oh well", and a minute later continued, "Well, it's their fault for bringing kids into a battle". McCord added, "I don't say that Wikileaks did a bad thing, because they didn't. Wired.com: Civilians are supposed to know that they're not supposed to pick up a wounded person crawling in the road? [But] I was actually starting to get kind of better. I've spoken with other soldiers who were there. 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. [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. 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. [81] The breakthroughs and innovations that we uncover lead to new ways of thinking, new connections, and new industries. Seven men (including Noor-Eldeen) were killed during this first strike; Saeed Chmagh, who was injured, later died in a hospital. 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