There is no bringing back all that was lost. According to the U.S. Army investigation report released by the United States Central Command, the engagement started at 10:20 Iraqi local time and ended at 10:41. [38] The children, a girl and boy, suffered injuries. It's very clear that that is the approach, to try and find any mechanism to excuse the behavior, and that is what ended up happening. Vehicle; "When I saw those kids, all I could picture was my kids back home". We are doing what we can to speak out against the wars and military policies responsible for what happened to you and your loved ones. They also found 10-year-old Sajad Mutashar and his five-year-old sister Doaha covered in blood in a van. 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. [47] The Australian newspaper said the group was displaying "no obvious hostile action". 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. On this Wikipedia the language links are at the top of the page across from the article title. 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". I was called a pussy and that I needed to suck it up and a lot of other horrible things. After attending to the girl's wounds and handing her to a medic, McCord was ordered to take position on the roof but he returned to the van to find the boy moving his hand. 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. "I grabbed him and ran to the Bradley myself". classified video created its own firestorm. They're like, oh yeah, we're the "collateral murder" company. I have a huge place in my heart for children, having some of my own. A unit from Bravo Company 216 was within 100 meters of the individuals that were fired upon with 30mm AH-64 Apache cannons. [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. Ethan McCord who says he scooped up the children and at least one of his comrades say the incident revealed the bankrupt brutality of the war. It was a scene that had played repeatedly in his mind the last three years, and he knew exactly who the soldier was. New details reveal that Beijing-backed hackers targeted the Association of Southeast Asian Nations, adding to a string of attacks in the region. 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. The soldier, Ethan McCord, has since been discharged from the military and has been an outspoken voice against the Iraq War. He was shot and killed. 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. [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. 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][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. 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). Highlighted in the 17-minute version of the video are Noor-Eldeen with a camera and Chmagh talking on his mobile phone. 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. It was nominated as a Documentary Short Subject for the 84th Academy Awards. McCord: She had a stomach wound and she had glass in her eyes and in her hair. [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]. 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. With Russia regularly knocking out Ukraines power grid, the country has turned to high-capacity batteries to keep it connected to the worldand itself. Ethan McCord pulled your daughter and son from the van, and when doing so, saw the faces of his own children back home. [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. [18][19] The crew estimates the group is twenty men. 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]. On the video, it is then seen that Army soldiers establish a perimeter around the site and extract the children from the burning van. They wrote that:[71][72][73][74]. I was also told that there would be repercussions if I was to go to mental health. "[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. 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. Now, as far as rules of engagement, [Iraqis] are not supposed to pick up the wounded. Some of them [say] I don't care what anybody says they're not there. After the incident, we went back to the FOB [forward operating base] and that's when I was in my room. 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. Our government may ignore you, concerned more with its public image. 2023 Cond Nast. Smith describes this reaction as inhuman. They were stating that these people had no weapons whatsoever, that they were just carrying cameras. Part of Banksy's, This page was last edited on 20 February 2023, at 21:26. He's no longer in the Army. It could be that since he and Amelia (Sigrid Thornton) have quit. Major Brent Cummings claimed they took great pains to prevent the loss of innocent civilian lives. WIRED is where tomorrow is realized. 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. When the helicopter pilots discover that they have killed a number of Iraqi civilians and wounded two children, one of them is heard to say: "Well, its their fault for bringing their kids into a battle".[41]. A passing van then stopped and attempted to load a wounded man. 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. Home: Wichita, Kansas, AN OPEN LETTER OF RECONCILIATION & RESPONSIBILITY TO THE IRAQI PEOPLE From Current and Former Members of the U.S. Military. The story was then overtaken by a more updated one out of Washington that incorporated reporting from the original piece. "When I did come up on the scene, there was an RPG as well as AK-47s there," he said. How is this guy supposed to [decide] should I stop and pick them up, or is the military going to shoot me? Inside 'Adam-12' Star, Kent McCord caught the attention of TV lovers when he popularized the "Jim Reed" character in 1968's "Adam-12." McCord maintained the role for seven seasons till the show ended in 1975. 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. I've spoken with other soldiers who were there. 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. Advertisement. [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. [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. It didn't seem real, in the sense that it didn't look like human beings. "[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. Give us a picture of what happened that day. 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. We took her in there and we're checking to see if there were any other wounds. [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 had been a lot of RPG, grenade fire and so on, and they were doing what journalists do. Fox News reported in 2010 that the rules of engagement in Iraq had not been changed since the incident occurred. 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. [17] Julian Assange said "permission to engage was given before the word 'RPG' was ever used". I can accept their apology, because they saved my children, and if it were not for them, maybe my two little children would be dead. Lying dead on a street were inanimate objects that turned out to be. WikiLeaks stated that the footage shows the "murder of Iraqi civilians and two Reuters journalists". [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. [16][18][30] After the lead helicopter fires, one of the crew shouts "Hahaha. The editors asked to see the remaining footage so Reuters could check whether it had been edited or manipulated. 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. [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". I grabbed the medic and we went into the back. McCord added, "I don't say that Wikileaks did a bad thing, because they didn't. 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