I grabbed the medic and we went into the back. On the video, it is then seen that Army soldiers establish a perimeter around the site and extract the children from the burning van. [21], The Air Weapons Team (AWT) of two Apache AH-64s from the 1st Cavalry Division had been requested by the 2nd Battalion, 16th Infantry Regiment (216), 4th Brigade Combat Team, 1st Infantry Division under the command of Lieutenant Colonel Ralph Kauzlarich, before July 12 to support Operation Ilaaj. That's the hard part to swallow. So I just sucked it up and tried to move on with everything. 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. [86], Ethan McCord, the soldier seen in the video carrying the injured boy, recalled in an interview on The Marc Steiner Show that on arrival at the scene, "The first thing I did was run up to the van". [18][25][31] As the U.S. soldiers moved towards the site of the attack, a van stopped near Chmagh. In the video, you can clearly see that they did have weapons to the trained eye. McCord states he was yelled at for not "pulling security". As the gunner fires the first missile, another man is seen walking along the street in front of the building. Their request was denied at the briefing and they were told to seek access under the U.S. Freedom of Information Act. An Apache maneuvered around a building to get a clear field of fire and shot all nine men, killing eight. [18][19][25] Once the group is eliminated, the Apache pilots direct the ground troops to move up to the position of the attack to clear the area. One second later he screams, "He's got an RPG!" [85] But for Army veteran Ethan McCord, it was just another day on duty. 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. He's no longer in the Army. But this particular eventthis is clearly murder. In the video, you can clearly see that they did have weapons to the trained eye." 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. 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. 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 helicopters were approximately a mile and a half away and they were zooming in on these guys . 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. [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". Iraq war veteran Ethan McCord was one of three US soldiers who were on the ground during the Apache helicopter assault on twelve civilians in Baghdad in 2007 that was captured in a video. [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. 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 . 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. They're like, oh yeah, we're the "collateral murder" company. I just kept telling him, "Don't die; don't die." [91], In May 2010, a 22-year-old American Army intelligence analyst, Chelsea Manning, was arrested after telling hacker Adrian Lamo she had leaked the airstrike video, along with a video of another airstrike and around 260,000 diplomatic cables, to WikiLeaks. [56], The Washington Post reported it was unclear whether the journalists were killed by U.S. fire or by shooting from the targeted Iraqis. The ground controller responds, "If you've [positively identified] the individuals in the building with weapons, go ahead and engage the building". [92], On February 28, 2013, Manning pleaded guilty to 10 of 22 specified charges. 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. In an interview on NPR on April 6, the day after the Collateral Murder video release, David Finkel said that the Reuters reporters were not embedded with anyone, but working independently. 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. In an Al Jazeera English interview on April 19, 2010, WikiLeaks' Julian Assange explained why WikiLeaks titled the video Collateral Murder: And you can see that they also deliberately target Saaed, a wounded man there on the ground, despite their earlier belief that they didn't have the rules of engagementthat the rules of engagement did not permit them to kill Saeed when he was wounded. 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. That classified video created its own firestorm when the whistleblower site Wikileaks posted it April 5 on a website titled "Collateral Murder" and asserted that the attack was unprovoked. I always questioned it in the back of my mind. They were destroyed. 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. [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". [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. I think it is good that they're putting this stuff out there. But you guys did have a firefight a couple of blocks away. McCord: I have never seen anybody being shot by a 30-millimeter round before. The crew for Crazyhorse 1/8 then located multiple individuals with weapons about 400 meters east of coalition forces and was given clearance to engage the targets. [32], U.S. Defense Secretary Robert Gates criticized WikiLeaks for releasing the video without providing any context. We took her in there and we're checking to see if there were any other wounds. 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. Oh well", and a minute later continued, "Well, it's their fault for bringing kids into a battle". The report concludes that the Reuters employees were in the company of armed insurgents. And then the father, who I'm assuming was the father, in the driver's seat slumped over on his side. He was kind of sitting on the floorboard of the van, but with his head laying on the bench seat in the front. He condemned and reported the massacre as soon as it happened. [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). [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. 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. I've lived with seeing the children that way since the incident happened. Colbert asked "So 'Collateral Murder' is to get political impact?" [42] According to the internal legal review, the helicopters engaged a group of armed insurgents, and that some were seen entering a nearby building. 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. [65][66] It claimed reporters' "furtive attempts to photograph the Coalition Ground Forces made them appear as hostile combatants". Ahlam Abdelhussein Tuman, the widow of the man who had been driving the van, and the mother of the children McCord had carried out, responded to the open letter in 2010:[75]. The Push to Ban TikTok in the US Isnt About Privacy. McCord: I've spoken with one of the medics who was there. They also found 10-year-old Sajad Mutashar and his five-year-old sister Doaha covered in blood in a van. Wired.com: Did you try to get information about the two children after the shooting? "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. Our heavy hearts still hold hope that we can restore inside our country the acknowledgment of your humanity, that we were taught to deny. Their 43-year-old father, Saleh, had been driving them to a class when he spotted one of the wounded men moving in the street and drove over to help him, only to become a victim of the Apache guns. The WikiLeaks edited video did not add arrows pointing to these men, or label them, as it did with the men carrying cameras. Day on duty any context and his five-year-old sister Doaha covered in blood in a.... 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