[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". That classified video created its own firestorm. [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. Give us a picture of what happened that day. The soldier, Ethan McCord, has since been discharged from the military and has been an outspoken voice against the Iraq War. 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. 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. When the crew were informed that a child had been injured by their attack, one initially responded, "Ah damn. 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. [97] On July 30, Manning was acquitted of the most serious charge, that of aiding the enemy, for giving secrets to WikiLeaks. [64] The footage was released during an April 5 press conference at the US National Press Club, and subsequently on a designated website titled Collateral Murder. A unit from Bravo Company 216 was within 100 meters of the individuals that were fired upon with 30mm AH-64 Apache cannons. [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] 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 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". "[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." Ethan McCord, a former US soldier, has shown great courage and integrity by exposing and condemning US war crimes in Iraq. [43] He walks into a building which has been identified as the source of fire at U.S. ground troops. The company was charged with clearing their sector of any small armed forces, and had been under fire from small arms and rocket-propelled grenades (RPGs). McCord's courage and integrity has nothing to do with his US army training. He was kind of sitting on the floorboard of the van, but with his head laying on the bench seat in the front. 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. [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. It is the essential source of information and ideas that make sense of a world in constant transformation. [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]. 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. The review was not released in full until 2010, after the video of the incident had been released by WikiLeaks. 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". Wired's Kim Zetter reached McCord at his home in Kansas. He was shot and killed. I think it is good that they're putting this stuff out there. 2023 Cond Nast. Ethan and Josh are available for interviews. [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]. Soldier on 2007 Apache Attack: What I Saw", "Redacted internal US Army report: "Investigation into Civilian Casualties Resulting from an Engagement on 12 July 2007 in the New Baghdad District of Baghdad", "WikiLeaks releases video of slaughter in Iraq", "Military shooting of Reuters men online", "Joan Smith: Now we see what war does to those who wage it", "US soldier on Baghdad airstrike: "Not out of the ordinary in Iraq", "2 soldiers in 'Collateral Murder' video apologize. They were destroyed. Minutes after the first engagement ended, the van returned traveling in an opposite direction (north) once again on this same road. "The first thing I thought of was my children at home". Wired.com: Do you support Wikileaks in releasing this video? Josh states that these casualties demonstrate the impact of U.S. military policy on both the civilians and the soldiers on the ground. Our heavy hearts still hold hope that we can restore inside our country the acknowledgment of your humanity, that we were taught to deny. He responded, "I hadn't heard of WikiLeaks before yesterday. [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. Ethan McCord pulled your daughter and son from the van, and when doing so, saw the faces of his own children back home. Seven men (including Noor-Eldeen) were killed during this first strike; Saeed Chmagh, who was injured, later died in a hospital. 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], U.S. Defense Secretary Robert Gates criticized WikiLeaks for releasing the video without providing any context. 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. You Cant Trust App Developers Privacy Claims on Google Play, Mozilla researchers found that apps often provide inaccurate data use disclosures, giving people a false sense of security., Batteries Are Ukraines Secret Weapon Against Russia. 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. But you guys did have a firefight a couple of blocks away. WikiLeaks also does not point out that at least one man was carrying an AK-47 assault rifle. In the first example maybe it's collateral exaggeration or incompetence when they strafe the initial gathering, this is recklessness bordering on murder, but you couldn't say for sure that was murder. 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. It was pretty much a shock when we got there to see what had happened, the carnage and everything else. [43], Assange responded to the investigation report released by the Army in an interview with Democracy Now!, stating that "the tone and language is all about trying to find an excuse for the activity. There were plenty of times in the past where other insurgents would come by and pick up the bodies, and then we'd have no evidence or anything to what happened, so in looking at it from the Apache's point of view, they were thinking that [someone was] picking up the weapons and bodies; when, in hindsight, clearly they were picking up the wounded man. [21][79], The New Yorker praised its release, calling it "a striking artifactan unmediated representation of the ambiguities and cruelties of modern warfare".[3]. 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. 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. It's obviously a hard thing to see. [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'. But youyou talked about the fog of war. After getting permission to fire, the Apache crew fired on the van. [81], Publicity of the incident ballooned following the release of the footage. The ground troops that secured the site of the first two strikes then receive small arms fire from nearby buildings. They're smoking you, they're making you tired. He is seen swinging the weapon below his waist while standing next to the man holding the RPG. But the time is long overdue that we say that the value of our nation's leaders no longer represent us. Smith describes this reaction as inhuman. The film received an Oscar nomination in January. So, the first thing I did was grab the girl. Both of these men, Chmagh and Tomal, were killed in the second strike, and two of Tomal's children were badly wounded. [61] The longer video shows the third attack, in which Hellfire missiles were fired into a building.[43]. However, I do know some soldiers went in to clear that building afterwards and there were some people with weapons in there, but there was also a family of four that was killed. Responsibility for civilian deaths in such encounters rests with those who violate the rules of war. In a third strike, Apache pilots watched people, including some armed men, run into a building and engaged that building with several AGM-114 Hellfire missiles. There's no easy way to kill somebody. "Our forces were engaged in combat all that day with individuals that fit the description of the men in that video. [43] The report stated that the helicopter crew did not know how many people were in the building when they destroyed it with missiles, and that "there is evidence that unarmed people have both entered and are nearby". I was trying to wash it off in my room. Nearly every Iraqi household has a rifle or an AK. "[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. One of the first soldiers on the scene after the air attack, Ethan McCord, is now the subject of a short documentary, Incident in New Baghdad, which will premiere at the Tribeca Film Festival in New York next week. Fox News reported in 2010 that the rules of engagement in Iraq had not been changed since the incident occurred. 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. , after the video without providing any context deaths in such encounters rests with those who violate rules... 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