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. [78] Gates stated: "They're in a combat situation. I think that the bigger picture is what are we doing there? Wired.com: How much sniper fire were you getting? After the incident, we went back to the FOB [forward operating base] and that's when I was in my room. If there's anything I can to do help, I would be more than happy to. The film received an Oscar nomination in January. Gates said that the video provides the public with a view of warfare "as seen through a soda straw". I was also told that there would be repercussions if I was to go to mental health. 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). [59] Reuters requested a copy of the full video under the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) on the same day. Reuters also stated that local police described the attack as "random American bombardment". "[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. [58] Reuters subsequently asked the U.S. military to probe the deaths. [28] Noor-Eldeen has a camera and Chmagh is talking on his mobile phone. US Soldiers from Wikileaks Collateral Murder Video Apologize. A third, an infantry solider named Ethan McCord, was one of the men who had scooped up the bodies of the wounded children in the apache helicopter attack, what is now known as the "Collateral. McCord: I have never seen anybody being shot by a 30-millimeter round before. [32] Assange also said "it's ludicrous to allege that we have taken anything out of context in this video". I think it is good that they're putting this stuff out there. [88], McCord requested mental health assistance following his experiences on July 12, but was told by his superior officers to "get the sand out of [his] vagina" and to "suck it up and be a soldier". They're trained as soldiers to go into a building and clear a building. We were probably there on the roof for another four to five hours. It's very disturbing. [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. That's when I started screaming, "The boy's alive! She said that she was "aghast" at Finkel's portrayal of the incident. 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. "The helicopters were approximately a mile and a half away and they were zooming in on these guys . After the non-combatants were clear Crazyhorse 1/8 engaged the targets. We're sorry for the system that we were involved in that took their father's life and injured them. But for Army veteran Ethan McCord, it was just another day on duty. [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. There were some people taking pot shots, sniper shots, at us on the rooftop. 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. I don't think that [the] big picture is whether or not [the Iraqis who were killed] had weapons. Give us a picture of what happened that day. This is why we called it Collateral Murder. The story was then overtaken by a more updated one out of Washington that incorporated reporting from the original piece. McCord: I wasn't around that building when it happened. The girl suffered from a stomach wound and glass in her eyes, and the boy a head injury. 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. I had blood all down the front of me from the children. 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. Smith describes this reaction as inhuman. 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". [16] The military reported that it could not find its copy of the video. Home: Wichita, Kansas, AN OPEN LETTER OF RECONCILIATION & RESPONSIBILITY TO THE IRAQI PEOPLE From Current and Former Members of the U.S. Military. I do know that there was a teenage girl [in there], just because I saw the pictures when I was there, that one of the soldiers took. [96] Her trial on the remaining charges began on June 3, 2013. On the video, it is then seen that Army soldiers establish a perimeter around the site and extract the children from the burning van. The WIRED conversation illuminates how technology is changing every aspect of our livesfrom culture to business, science to design. So if people have a different opinion, the full material is there for them to analyse and assess. Our heavy hearts still hold hope that we can restore inside our country the acknowledgment of your humanity, that we were taught to deny. The soldier, Ethan McCord, has since been discharged from the military and has been an outspoken voice against the Iraq War. [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." "[90], James Spione made a short documentary film about the airstrikes called Incident in New Baghdad, featuring a first-person account from Ethan McCord. 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 is the essential source of information and ideas that make sense of a world in constant transformation. Fox News reported in 2010 that the rules of engagement in Iraq had not been changed since the incident occurred. Wired.com: Did you try to get information about the two children after the shooting? [19], The team observed several individuals from this group, some possibly wounded, run into a large multistory building. They were stating that these people had no weapons whatsoever, that they were just carrying cameras. I didn't know if he was telling me that just to get me to shut up and to do my job or if he really found something out. The military said that the van was "fair game under Army rules" , because it had no visible markings to suggest it was an ambulance or a protected vehicle. We have been speaking to whoever will listen, telling them that what was shown in the Wikileaks video only begins to depict the suffering we have created. Soldier on 2007 Apache Attack: What I Saw, Ethan McCord had just returned from dropping his children at school earlier this month, when he turned on the TV news to see grainy black-and-white video footage of a soldier running from a bombed-out van with a child in his arms. Was it reasonable for the Apache soldiers to think that maybe the people they attacked were part of that insurgent firefight? He gave his view of the context of the killings: the Reuters guys walked into the hottest spot of a very hot morning. I was pretty distraught over the whole situation with the children. 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. [21][79], The New Yorker praised its release, calling it "a striking artifactan unmediated representation of the ambiguities and cruelties of modern warfare".[3]. They were destroyed. Part of Banksy's, This page was last edited on 20 February 2023, at 21:26. The promise we make to our sources is that not only will we defend them through every means that we have available technologically, legally and politically but we will try and get the maximum possible political impact for the material that they give to us. They split up and the footage follows one who appears to be armed. She wrote that the co-pilot urged a dying, unarmed journalist to pick up a weapon as he tried to crawl to safety and that "the Apache crew open[ed] fire on civilians". [16][18][30] After the lead helicopter fires, one of the crew shouts "Hahaha. Among the group were two Iraqi war correspondents working for Reuters, Saeed Chmagh and Namir Noor-Eldeen. 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. [47] The Australian newspaper said the group was displaying "no obvious hostile action". When the crew were informed that a child had been injured by their attack, one initially responded, "Ah damn. [32], U.S. Defense Secretary Robert Gates criticized WikiLeaks for releasing the video without providing any context. There's no front lines here. The Apache crew saw unarmed[25] men exit the vehicle and move to Chmagh. Michael Bailey a medic who treated some of. [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". [94], WikiLeaks said they were unable to confirm whether or not Manning was the source of the video, stating "we never collect personal information on our sources", but saying that "if [Manning is the] whistleblower then, without doubt, [s]he's a national hero"[95] and "we have taken steps to arrange for [her] protection and legal defence". [81] [48], In The Independent on April 8, 2010, human rights activist Joan Smith wrote that the engagements were like a game to the helicopter crew. She had a stomach wound? And that in turn is what helped me and Josh write the letter, hoping that it would find its way to them to let them know that we're sorry. 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. McCord: When it was first released I don't think it was done in the best manner that it could have been. I was told to go pull security on a rooftop. It has also ignored many veterans who have returned physically injured or mentally troubled by what they saw and did in your country. With Russia regularly knocking out Ukraines power grid, the country has turned to high-capacity batteries to keep it connected to the worldand itself. I was trying to wash it off in my room. Two men were identified by Crazyhorse 1/8 as carrying an RPG launcher and an AKM or AK-47. Daniel Ellsberg, a former United States military analyst who was known for having leaked the Pentagon Papers to the media, said of the airstrike: It would be interesting to have someone speculate or tell us exactly what context would lead to justifying the killing that we see on the screen. But this particular eventthis is clearly murder. WikiLeaks identified the leak's source as "a number of military whistleblowers". It was a scene that had played repeatedly in his mind the last three years, and he knew exactly who the soldier was. On July 12, 2007, a series of air-to-ground attacks were conducted by a team of two U.S. AH-64 Apache helicopters in Al-Amin al-Thaniyah, New Baghdad, during the Iraqi insurgency which followed the invasion of Iraq. He was shot and killed. The breakthroughs and innovations that we uncover lead to new ways of thinking, new connections, and new industries. [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. Ethan Mccord and Josh Stieber deployed to Baghdad with Bravo Company 2-16 in 2007. [18][19] The crew estimates the group is twenty men. The missile hits the building, and the man is caught in the explosion. How to Make Sure Youre Not Accidentally Sharing Your Location, Security News This Week: Sensitive US Military Emails Exposed. [29], A crew member requests authorization to engage after seeing five or six of the men moving in the direction of U.S. We are both soldiers who occupied your neighborhood for 14 months. 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. 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. He opened his eyes when I was carrying him. The crew for Crazyhorse 1/9 could not engage due to target obfuscation from buildings and dust. [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. I would like the American people and the whole world to understand what happened here in Iraq. "[32][77] He said that WikiLeaks "does not point out that at least one man was carrying an AK-47 assault rifle. More than a dozen people were killed in three attacks captured in the video, including two Reuters journalists, one carrying a camera that was apparently mistaken for a weapon. McCord admits that she was sad to go because she had been there for a decade and a half, but that "it wasn't the end of the world" and that she wasn't worried for "a nanosecond" that . There is no bringing back all that was lost. I've lived with seeing the children that way since the incident happened. The company was supported by two Apache helicopters from the 1st Cavalry Division's Aviation Brigade, call signs "Crazyhorse 1/8" and "Crazyhorse 1/9". And cracking jokes is a way of pushing that stuff down. Ukraine Suffered More Wiper Malware in 2022 Than Anywhere, Ever. [61] Speaking to Reuters on condition of anonymity, a U.S. Defense official confirmed the authenticity of the leaked audio and video. Seven men (including Noor-Eldeen) were killed during this first strike; Saeed Chmagh, who was injured, later died in a hospital. Wired's Kim Zetter reached McCord at his home in Kansas. But youyou talked about the fog of war. It didn't seem real, in the sense that it didn't look like human beings. http://www.mediasanctuary.orghttp://www.wikileaks.org U.S. 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. They arrived on station in New Baghdad at 9:53a.m., where sporadic attacks on coalition forces continued. Noor-Eldeen fails to photograph the Apache but three pictures of the U.S. Humvee appear on his camera's memory card when it was recovered by U.S. soldiers. It was the video that put WikiLeaks on the map: "Collateral Murder" turned the tide of war in Iraq and landed Private first class Bradley Manning in military detention. I've spoken with other soldiers who were there. McCord: I doubt that they were a part of that firefight. Ethan McCord pulled your daughter and son from the van, and when doing so, saw the faces of his own children back home. They did have weapons there. [25] Glenn Greenwald of Salon.com said that "the vast majority of the men were clearly unarmed". 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". Tasked to conduct escort, armed reconnaissance patrols, and counter-IED and counter-mortar operations, the two helicopters left Camp Taji at 9:24a.m. [Then] we were just told to move to this [other] location. The second strike, also using 30mm rounds, was directed at a van whose driver, Saleh Matasher Tomal, appeared to happen to drive by and who proceeded to help the wounded Chmagh. 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. To this [ other ] Location [ the Iraqis who were there was n't around that building when was! Asked the U.S. military to probe the deaths no obvious hostile action '' for the Apache saw. At 21:26 of Washington that incorporated reporting from the children an AKM or AK-47 did... Russia regularly knocking what happened to ethan mccord Ukraines power grid, the two children after the lead helicopter fires, one initially,! Group, some possibly wounded, run into a large multistory building understand what happened here in.! The public with a view of the leaked audio and video this video '' in country. The ] big picture is whether or not [ the ] big picture is what are we there... 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