There's no easy way to kill somebody. A passing van then stopped and attempted to load a wounded man. It shouldn't have surprised you what you saw. You can hear the medic saying on the video, "There's nothing I can do here, she needs to be evac'd." 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. He was shot and killed. (quote begins at 5:15)", "Soldiers in 'Collateral Murder' video apologise", "Meet The New Public Face Of WikiLeaks: Kristinn Hrafnsson Forbes", "2 Iraqi Journalists Killed as U.S. 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. [21][79], The New Yorker praised its release, calling it "a striking artifactan unmediated representation of the ambiguities and cruelties of modern warfare".[3]. Well in all actuality, we brought the battle to your kids. 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. If you or I saw someone wounded on the ground what is your first inkling? "[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. Wired.com: Civilians are supposed to know that they're not supposed to pick up a wounded person crawling in the road? They split up and the footage follows one who appears to be armed. The soldier, Ethan McCord, has since been discharged from the military and has been an outspoken voice against the Iraq War. I think that the bigger picture is what are we doing there? That's not leaking, that's a pure editorial." They wrote that:[71][72][73][74]. And I picked him up and started running with him over to the Bradley. Ethan Mccord and Josh Stieber deployed to Baghdad with Bravo Company 2-16 in 2007. There were some people taking pot shots, sniper shots, at us on the rooftop. WIRED may earn a portion of sales from products that are purchased through our site as part of our Affiliate Partnerships with retailers. McCord states he was yelled at for not "pulling security". Manning's Providence Inquiry", "US military video showing 2007 Apache attack on Iraqi civilians released", "Leaked video shows US military killing of civilians, Reuters staff", "Permission to Engage: WikiLeaks collateral murder footage examined", "US soldier linked to Iraq helicopter video leak charged", "Leaked U.S. video shows deaths of Reuters' Iraqi staffers", "WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange tells Colbert permission to engage was given before the word RPG was ever used", "Leaked video reveals chaos of Baghdad attack", Investigation into Civilian Casualties Resulting from an Engagement on 12 July 2007 in the New Baghdad District of Baghdad, Iraq, "Gates said leaked military video of shooting in Iraq doesn't show the broader picture of Americans being fired upon", "Records released to the public, under the FOIA, that are or will likely become the subject of subsequent requests", "July 12, 2007 Baghdad airstrike transcript", "Video expands notoriety of WikiLeaks site", "WikiLeaks reveals video showing US air crew shooting down Iraqi civilians", "The pictures that prove US helicopter gunships opened fire on Iraqi civilians", "Calls for inquiry into Apache attack on Iraqi civilians", "U.S. Military Releases Redacted Records on 2007 Apache Attack, Questions Linger", "Wikileaks reveals video showing US air crew shooting down Iraqi civilians", "Video shows deaths of two Reuters journalists in Iraq in 2007", "Massacre Caught on Tape: US Military Confirms Authenticity of Their Own Chilling Video Showing Killing of Journalists", "Military Raises Questions About Credibility of Leaked Iraq Shooting Video", 'Let Us Shoot': US Troops Fire On Journalists, Legal Glance on the Baghdad Helicopter Shooting | Peanik, "U.S. [18][19] The crew estimates the group is twenty men. 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. 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. However, personally I don't feel that the attack on the van was warranted. 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. [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. That's a violation of the laws of war and of course what the mainstream media have omitted from their stories is this context. McCord was captured in a video shot from one helicopter as he ran frantically to a military vehicle with Sajad in his arms seeking medical care. [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". Hanzlik said images gathered during a military investigation of the incident show multiple weapons around the dead bodies in the courtyard, including at least three RPGs. Major Brent Cummings claimed they took great pains to prevent the loss of innocent civilian lives. New details reveal that Beijing-backed hackers targeted the Association of Southeast Asian Nations, adding to a string of attacks in the region. [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. [61] The longer video shows the third attack, in which Hellfire missiles were fired into a building.[43]. I did see a video on YouTube after the Wikileaks [ video ] came out, of the children being interviewed. [19] This account of first bringing the wounded children to the Combat Support Hospital appears to be contradicted by orders by radio that form part of the video record, which forbids it and orders that the children be handed over to local police. In July 2007, McCord, a 33-year-old Army specialist, was engaged in a firefight with insurgents in an Iraqi suburb when his platoon, part of Bravo Company, 2-16 Infantry, got orders to investigate a nearby street. 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. An Apache maneuvered around a building to get a clear field of fire and shot all nine men, killing eight. It is the essential source of information and ideas that make sense of a world in constant transformation. We have asked our fellow veterans and service-members, as well as civilians both in the United States and abroad, to sign in support of this letter, and to offer their names as a testimony to our common humanity, to distance ourselves from the destructive policies of our nation's leaders, and to extend our hands to you. [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. He added, "I think what this video shows is really a case that challenges whether the laws of war are strict enough. I think it is good that they're putting this stuff out there. Wired.com: How much sniper fire were you getting? I've had nightmares. The Push to Ban TikTok in the US Isnt About Privacy. 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 missile hits the building, and the man is caught in the explosion. [2][22] Pentagon officials told the Reuters news agency that U.S. military lawyers were reviewing the video and could reopen an investigation into the incident,[67] but a spokesperson later said that there were no plans to reopen the investigation. Smoked is basically like you're doing pushups a lot, you're doing sit-ups crunches and flutter kicks. "The helicopters were approximately a mile and a half away and they were zooming in on these guys . I've spoken with other soldiers who were there. [But] I was actually starting to get kind of better. That classified video created its own firestorm. [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. There's no before and there's no after". When we were on that roof, we were still taking 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. The crew then reposition the helicopter and fire two more missiles into the upper floors of the building[44], WikiLeaks said in the preface to one of their videos of the incident 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. [96] Her trial on the remaining charges began on June 3, 2013. When I saw their faces, I was relieved, but I was just heartbroken. WIRED is where tomorrow is realized. [60] The Pentagon eventually blocked the FOIA request[25] despite several follow-up requests by Reuters. The breakthroughs and innovations that we uncover lead to new ways of thinking, new connections, and new industries. 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. [97] On July 30, Manning was acquitted of the most serious charge, that of aiding the enemy, for giving secrets to WikiLeaks. They're smoking you, they're making you tired. "[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. But you guys did have a firefight a couple of blocks away. The video doesn't show the broader picture of the firing that was going on at American troops. I always questioned it in the back of my mind. 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. And where the soldier said [in the video], "Well, you shouldn't take your kids to battle." Ethan McCord: Right. After the video was released, one of the soldiers involved in the incident, Ethan McCord, stated the following: "If you feel threatened in any way, you're able to engage that person. [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." The material on this site may not be reproduced, distributed, transmitted, cached or otherwise used, except with the prior written permission of Cond Nast. You can make out in the video [someone] carrying an AK-47, swinging it down by his legs. And as far as the way that the soldiers are speaking in the video, which is pretty callous and joking about what's happened that's a coping mechanism. There is no bringing back all that was lost. 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. Their overall mission that day was to protect us, to provide support for us, so I can see where the initial attack on the group of men was warranted. McCord added, "I don't say that Wikileaks did a bad thing, because they didn't. WikiLeaks stated that the footage shows the "murder of Iraqi civilians and two Reuters journalists". [28] Noor-Eldeen has a camera and Chmagh is talking on his mobile phone. [16] The military reported that it could not find its copy of the video. 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. He is seen swinging the weapon below his waist while standing next to the man holding the RPG. She said that she was "aghast" at Finkel's portrayal of the incident. We believe this constitutes a fair use of any such copyrighted material as provided for in 17 U.S.C 107. [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]. [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]. "[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. In the video, you can clearly see that they did have weapons to the trained eye." It's painful to see, especially when you learn after the fact what was going on. The film received an Oscar nomination in January. He's no longer in the Army. Nearly every Iraqi household has a rifle or an AK. China Is Relentlessly Hacking Its Neighbors. 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. This is urban combat and we're taking the war to children and women and innocents. There's houses behind where the van was. They also found two Canon EOS digital cameras with telephoto lenses. Among the group were two Iraqi war correspondents working for Reuters, Saeed Chmagh and Namir Noor-Eldeen. There's no front lines here. "[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. 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