[16] The military reported that it could not find its copy of the video. [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. [18] Both helicopters strafe a group of ten men with 30 mm rounds once they became visible again. [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. The soldier in the video said that your husband shouldn't have brought your children to battle, but we are acknowledging our responsibility for bringing the battle to your neighborhood, and to your family. 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". 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. I was called a pussy and that I needed to suck it up and a lot of other horrible things. 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. 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. [18] Al Jazeera stated that the Army had received "reports of small arms fire", but were unable to positively identify the gunmen. That's the hard part to swallow. [32] Assange also said "it's ludicrous to allege that we have taken anything out of context in this video". 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. Ethan McCord describes the moment he realised Sajad Toman was alive In July 2007, 19 people were killed when an Apache helicopter opened fire on a group of Iraqis whom the pilots had identified. Ethan McCord pulled your daughter and son from the van, and when doing so, saw the faces of his own children back home. The crew for Crazyhorse 1/9 could not engage due to target obfuscation from buildings and dust. Josh states that these casualties demonstrate the impact of U.S. military policy on both the civilians and the soldiers on the ground. I was up on a rooftop at that time. It didn't seem real, in the sense that it didn't look like human beings. 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. With such pain, friendship might be too much to ask. [110], Mark Taylor, an international law expert and a director at the Fafo Institute for International Studies in Norway, told Al Jazeera "there's a case to be made that a war crime may have been committed." [118][119], Coordinates: .mw-parser-output .geo-default,.mw-parser-output .geo-dms,.mw-parser-output .geo-dec{display:inline}.mw-parser-output .geo-nondefault,.mw-parser-output .geo-multi-punct{display:none}.mw-parser-output .longitude,.mw-parser-output .latitude{white-space:nowrap}331849N 443043E / 33.3137N 44.512E / 33.3137; 44.512 (Airstrike of 2007-07-12). "[4] The New York Times wrote that "Critics contend that the shorter video was misleading because it did not make clear that the attacks took place amid clashes in the neighborhood and that one of the men was carrying a rocket-propelled grenade. "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. Major Brent Cummings claimed they took great pains to prevent the loss of innocent civilian lives. The material on this site may not be reproduced, distributed, transmitted, cached or otherwise used, except with the prior written permission of Cond Nast. They're trained as soldiers to go into a building and clear a building. McCord: There were approximately two to three other people who were moving who were still somewhat alive, and the medics were attending to them. Our hearts are open to hearing how we can take any steps to support you through the pain that we have caused. [45][114], "Cameramen and armed insurgents" (all captions from the Army report), "Cameraman peering around corner of wall", "Pictures taken by ground forces after reaching the site". [22], In the video on the morning of July 12, 2007, the crews of two United States Army AH-64 Apache helicopters observe a gathering of men near a section of Baghdad in the path of advancing U.S. ground troops, some armed with AKMs and RPGs. 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. It claimed reporters' "furtive attempts to photograph the Coalition Ground Forces made them appear as hostile combatants". We took her in there and we're checking to see if there were any other wounds. However, personally I don't feel that the attack on the van was warranted. I'm guilty of it, too, myself. Assange responded: Yes, absolutely Our promise to the public is that we will release the full source material. That's when I started screaming, "The boy's alive! [19], As the tape resumes, two men, one holding an AK-47, are seen walking. There is a period of 20 minutes not included on the leaked tape. McCord: I wasn't around that building when it happened. [32] The legal review carried out by the U.S. Army stated that the two children were evacuated to the 28th Combat Support Hospital via Forward Operating Base Loyalty, then transferred to an Iraqi medical facility the next day. I don't think that [the] big picture is whether or not [the Iraqis who were killed] had weapons. [18][25][31] Chmagh was killed[18][25][31] along with three other men, while two children, not known to be in the van to the U.S. forces, were injured. We did unto you what we would not want done to us. 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. Captain James Hall stated they couldn't drive in Bradleys in fear of running over bodies. This is his account of what he saw. The owner told him that three families were living in the building and seven residents had died, including his wife and daughter. She continued, "the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan are inflicting huge psychological damage on combatants". 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. [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. "[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. [2], After the U.S. military concluded that the actions of the soldiers were in accordance with the law of armed conflict and its own "Rules of Engagement", WikiLeaks released the classified Rules of Engagement for 2006, 2007 and 2008, revealing the rules before, during, and after the attacks. As the killing goes on, you obviously would see the killing of men who are lying on the ground in an operation where ground troops are approaching and perfectly capable of taking those people captive, but meanwhile you're murdering before the troops arrive. We were engaged in our own conflict roughly about three or four blocks away. 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 . When I saw their faces, I was relieved, but I was just heartbroken. I know the scene by heart; it's burned into my head. 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. They split up and the footage follows one who appears to be armed. 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. ", "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. I wasn't thinking about it as much. They're like, oh yeah, we're the "collateral murder" company. "[111] An article at Gawker stated that Reuters reporter Luke Baker had written an article claiming that the airstrikes may have been war crimes, but Reuters refused to run the story. [84], Finkel had reported the day in his book The Good Soldiers,[62] including conversations which closely matched the subsequently leaked video footage. [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. It was sent back for more reporting in an effort to incorporate a wider range of experts. McCord: I doubt that they were a part of that firefight. Their age, their weapons, and the fact that they were within the distance of the forces that had been engaged made it apparent these guys were potentially a threat. After the incident, we went back to the FOB [forward operating base] and that's when I was in my room. Our heavy hearts still hold hope that we can restore inside our country the acknowledgment of your humanity, that we were taught to deny. When the cameraman on the ground aimed his camera in the direction of Bravo Company 216, a pilot remarked "He's getting ready to fire". On 19 April 2010, Ethan McCord, who appears on the ground in the video, and Josh Steiber, a member of the same company who was not present on the day, wrote an open Letter of Reconciliation & Responsibility to the Iraqi People apologising for the events in the video. Our government may ignore you, concerned more with its public image. [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. 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. [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. Oh well", and a minute later continued, "Well, it's their fault for bringing kids into a battle". They asked for an explanation of the confiscation of the journalists' two cameras, access to the on-board footage and voice communications from the helicopters involved, and access to the reports of the units involved in the incident, particularly logs of weapons taken from the scene. That's a violation of the laws of war and of course what the mainstream media have omitted from their stories is this context. 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