When a congressman tried to jail him for his actions that day he . [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". . We did unto you what we would not want done to us.". Minutes after the first engagement ended, the van returned traveling in an opposite direction (north) once again on this same road. 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. [18] Both helicopters strafe a group of ten men with 30 mm rounds once they became visible again. 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. I don't think that people really want to see this, though, because this is war. They wrote that:[71][72][73][74]. To revist this article, visit My Profile, then View saved stories. 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". ", 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. Responsibility for civilian deaths in such encounters rests with those who violate the rules of war. Wired.com: How much sniper fire were you getting? 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. However, personally I don't feel that the attack on the van was warranted. [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. [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. There is no bringing back all that was lost. When Bravo Company arrived at the scene, they reported finding two RPGs and an AK-47 or AKM. Personally, I believe the first attack on the group standing by the wall was appropriate, was warranted by the rules of engagement. I did see a video on YouTube after the Wikileaks [ video ] came out, of the children being interviewed. [113], The report states that at least two members of the group which were first fired on were armed, that two RPGs and one AKM or AK-47 rifle could be seen in the helicopter video, and that these weapons were picked up by the follow-up U.S. ground troops. Knowing that I was part of the system that took their father away from them and made them lose their house it's heartbreaking. "[88] In this interview, McCord reports that repercussions for seeking mental health help could include being labeled as a "malingerer", a crime under U.S. military law. [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]. But you guys did have a firefight a couple of blocks away. [29], A crew member requests authorization to engage after seeing five or six of the men moving in the direction of U.S. They were destroyed. Plus: Irans secret torture black sites, hacking a bank account with AI-generated voice, and Lance Bass unhinged encounter in Russia. And then the father, who I'm assuming was the father, in the driver's seat slumped over on his side. 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. He kept saying, we were there, we know the truth, they're saying there was no weapons, there was. Seven men (including Noor-Eldeen) were killed during this first strike; Saeed Chmagh, who was injured, later died in a hospital. McCord: I doubt that they were a part of that firefight. Major Brent Cummings claimed they took great pains to prevent the loss of innocent civilian lives. [81] Reuters responded, "It is absolutely untrue that this story was spiked. Solemnly and Sincerely, Josh Stieber, former specialist, U.S. Army Ethan McCord, former specialist, U.S. Army. Ethan McCord pulled your daughter and son from the van, and when doing so, saw the faces of his own children back home. The Apache crew then alerted the ground troops that they believed that they could see an injured child moving around inside the destroyed van. Instead, the Apaches decided to completely obliterate everybody in the van. They're like, oh yeah, we're the "collateral murder" company. Tasked to conduct escort, armed reconnaissance patrols, and counter-IED and counter-mortar operations, the two helicopters left Camp Taji at 9:24a.m. Lawmakers are increasingly hellbent on punishing the popular social network while efforts to pass a broader privacy law have dwindled. 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 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. There were some people taking pot shots, sniper shots, at us on the rooftop. [67], WikiLeaks released a 39-minute version, which shows all three incidents, and a 17-minute version, which shows only the first two incidents. [65][66] [57], Reuters reported that it could locate no witnesses who had seen gunmen in the immediate 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. All rights reserved. [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. "[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. Captain James Hall stated they couldn't drive in Bradleys in fear of running over bodies. Some of them [say] I don't care what anybody says they're not there. "[90], James Spione made a short documentary film about the airstrikes called Incident in New Baghdad, featuring a first-person account from Ethan McCord. 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. 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". 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. Ethan McCord: Right. "The first thing I thought of was my children at home". I don't think that [the] big picture is whether or not [the Iraqis who were killed] had weapons. Ethan McCord was a member of the military unit in "Collateral Murder" - the Wikileaks video showing 12 Iraqis being killed from a US helicopter.He rescued the two children severely wounded in the attack and is now speaking out to corroborate the Collateral Murder video. 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. Wired.com: Civilians are supposed to know that they're not supposed to pick up a wounded person crawling in the road? But this particular eventthis is clearly murder. [84], Finkel had reported the day in his book The Good Soldiers,[62] including conversations which closely matched the subsequently leaked video footage. But the time is long overdue that we say that the value of our nation's leaders no longer represent us. [19], Fox News said that of the attack "WikiLeaks appears to have done selective editing that tells only half the story. After the incident, we went back to the FOB [forward operating base] and that's when I was in my room. The boy's alive!" [58], On July 25, 2007, during an off-the-record briefing in Baghdad by the U.S. military, two Reuters editors were shown "less than three minutes of video from the Apaches gun camera, up to the exact moment it opened fire the first time." 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. McCord: It was random sporadic spurts. Use of this site constitutes acceptance of our User Agreement and Privacy Policy and Cookie Statement and Your California Privacy Rights. 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. Gates said that the video provides the public with a view of warfare "as seen through a soda straw". Their request was denied at the briefing and they were told to seek access under the U.S. Freedom of Information Act. Ethan McCord, a former US soldier, has shown great courage and integrity by exposing and condemning US war crimes in Iraq. Our government may ignore you, concerned more with its public image. And With Reason", July 12, 2007 Baghdad airstrike radio traffic, US intelligence analyst arrested over Wikileaks video, WikiLeaks editor on Apache combat video: No excuse for US killing civilians, Families of Victims of 2007 US Helicopter Killing React to Leaked Video, Ethan McCord Describes Emotional Toll of Witnessing Killings, 'Collateral Murder' in Baghdad Anything But, Use of white phosphorus by the United States, United States and the International Criminal Court, A Responsible Plan to End the War in Iraq, "The wrong war, at the wrong place, at the wrong time", AfghanIraqi Freedom Memorial (Salem, Oregon), The Iraq War: A Historiography of Wikipedia Changelogs, Democratic National Committee v. Russian Federation, WikiLeaks: Inside Julian Assange's War on Secrecy, https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=July_12,_2007,_Baghdad_airstrike&oldid=1140602029, Articles with dead external links from May 2019, Articles with permanently dead external links, Articles with dead external links from July 2022, Short description is different from Wikidata, Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike License 3.0, Press reports of the number killed vary from 12, Representation (including audio) by Banksy, October 9, 2013. McCord: I've spoken with one of the medics who was there. 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). Though we have acted with cold hearts far too many times, we have not forgotten our actions towards you. 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? Wired.com: At the time you arrived on the scene, you didn't know what had happened, is that right? Give us a picture of what happened that day. That classified video created its own firestorm. [59], An internal legal review by staff at Forward Operating Base Loyalty in Iraq during July 2007 stated that the helicopters had attacked a number of armed insurgents within the rules of engagement, and that in an apparent case of civilian casualties two reporters working for Reuters had also been killed. I went back outside to the van, and that's when the boy took, like, a labored, breath. [58] Reuters subsequently asked the U.S. military to probe the deaths. Highlighted in the 17-minute version of the video are Noor-Eldeen with a camera and Chmagh talking on his mobile phone. It happened because my content was bad. Assange said that Finkel had seen the video and that at least one individual at the offices of The Washington Post had a copy of the video for at least a year, prior to its release by WikiLeaks. [68], Stephen Colbert, in an interview with Assange in April 2010, asked him about the title: "You have edited this tape, and you have given it a title called 'Collateral Murder'. [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. 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. 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. McCord: There were approximately two to three other people who were moving who were still somewhat alive, and the medics were attending to them. [30], Assange stated that some of the press had not reported on the third airstrike, in which three Hellfire missiles were fired onto an apartment complex, which only appears in the longer unedited version of the two videos.[31]. I just kept telling him, "Don't die; don't die." 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. [78] Gates stated: "They're in a combat situation. [49], On Democracy Now!, Josh Stieber, who was at the time assigned to Bravo Company 216, said that although it's natural to "judge or criticize the soldiers", in fact "this is how [they] were trained to act". It was sent back for more reporting in an effort to incorporate a wider range of experts. 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". 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