Leaked video of U.S. Military killing civilians and Reuters journalists.
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afriend
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Yeah.. people should be running around naked so that americans can enjoy..!!!
I think sane americans should take up this case and bring those illiterate criminals to the book. Really frustrating man.. even a neutral guy like me gets pissed of with this.. i cant blame the people who takes up arms against these bstrds to avenge the killings..!!!
And the sad part of this is that they are creating a generation of people who are going to take up arms aganist america.. and even after 50 years they will be asking the same question.. why does people hates america..???? Unless and until the americans bring these pepole to the law till then more and more people will be joining the hatemaerica bandwagon..!!!
what the heck did i do?
Canaan
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yes and their "investigation" only supported their claim that they were killing insurgents, up until the leaking of this video. Had they done a proper objective investigation in the first place and were open about it, things would have been different. Now they even have the nerve to question its authenticity.
At least the evidence is so clear that they are pressured to conduct a new investigation.
I will look forward to the conclusion then.
afriend
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booo
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Leaked U.S. video shows deaths of Reuters' Iraqi staffers | Top News | Reuters
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Classified U.S. military video showing a 2007 attack by Apache helicopters that killed a dozen people in Baghdad, including two Reuters news staff, was released on Monday by a group that promotes leaking to fight government and corporate corruption.
The group, WikiLeaks, told a news conference in Washington that it acquired encrypted video of the July 12, 2007, attack from military whistleblowers and had been able to view and investigate it after breaking the encryption code.
A U.S. defence official, speaking on condition of anonymity, confirmed that the video and audio were authentic.
Major Shawn Turner, a spokesman for U.S. Central Command, said an investigation of the incident shortly after it occurred found that U.S. forces were not aware of the presence of the news staffers and thought they were engaging armed insurgents.
"We regret the loss of innocent life, but this incident was promptly investigated and there was never any attempt to cover up any aspect of this engagement," Turner said.
The helicopter gunsight video, with an audio track of conversation between the fliers, made public for the first time a stark view of one bloody incident in the seven-year war in Iraq.
It showed an aerial view of a group of men moving about a square in a Baghdad neighbourhood. The fliers identified some of the men as armed.
WikiLeaks said the men in the square included Reuters photographer Namir Noor-Eldeen, 22, and his assistant and driver Saeed Chmagh, 40, who were killed in the incident.
"The gathering at the corner that is fired up on has about nine people in it," Julian Assange, a WikiLeaks spokesman, told reporters at the National Press Club.
The gunsight tracks two of the men, identified by WikiLeaks as the Reuters news staff, as the fliers identify their cameras as weapons. Military spokesman Turner said that during the engagement, the helicopter mistook a camera for a rocket-propelled grenade launcher.
The helicopter opened fire on the small group, killing several people and wounding others. Minutes later, when a van approached and began trying to assist the wounded, the fliers became concerned the vehicle was occupied by militants trying to collect weapons and help wounded comrades escape.
The Apache helicopters requested permission to attack the van and waited impatiently.
"Come on, let us shoot," said one voice.
The fliers were granted permission to engage the van and opened fire, apparently killing several people in and around the vehicle.
Two children wounded in the van were evacuated by U.S. ground forces arriving at the scene as the Apache helicopters continued to circle overhead.
"Well it's their fault for bringing their kids into a battle," one of the U.S. fliers said.
David Schlesinger, Reuters' editor-in-chief, said the video released by WikiLeaks showed the deaths of Noor-Eldeen and Chmagh were "tragic and emblematic of the extreme dangers that exist in covering war zones."
"The video released today via WikiLeaks is graphic evidence of the dangers involved in war journalism and the tragedies that can result," he said.
Reuters has pressed the U.S. military to conduct a full and objective investigation into the killing of the two staff.
Video of the incident from two U.S. Apache helicopters and photographs taken of the scene were shown to Reuters editors in an off-the-record briefing in Baghdad on July 25, 2007.
U.S. military officers who presented the materials said Reuters had to make a request under the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) to get copies. This request was made the same day.
Turner said the military had released documents to Reuters last year in response to the FOIA request showing the presence of weapons on the scene, including AK-47 rifles and an RPG 7 grenade launcher.
Assange said he disagreed with a U.S. military assessment that the attack was justified.
"I believe that if those killings were lawful under the rules of engagement, then the rules of engagement are wrong, deeply wrong," he said. The fliers in the video act "like they are playing a computer game and their desire is they want to get high scores" by killing opponents, he said.
WikiLeaks posted the video at Collateral Murder.
(Reporting by David Alexander and Phillip Stewart, Editing by Frances Kerry)
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Classified U.S. military video showing a 2007 attack by Apache helicopters that killed a dozen people in Baghdad, including two Reuters news staff, was released on Monday by a group that promotes leaking to fight government and corporate corruption.
The group, WikiLeaks, told a news conference in Washington that it acquired encrypted video of the July 12, 2007, attack from military whistleblowers and had been able to view and investigate it after breaking the encryption code.
A U.S. defence official, speaking on condition of anonymity, confirmed that the video and audio were authentic.
Major Shawn Turner, a spokesman for U.S. Central Command, said an investigation of the incident shortly after it occurred found that U.S. forces were not aware of the presence of the news staffers and thought they were engaging armed insurgents.
"We regret the loss of innocent life, but this incident was promptly investigated and there was never any attempt to cover up any aspect of this engagement," Turner said.
The helicopter gunsight video, with an audio track of conversation between the fliers, made public for the first time a stark view of one bloody incident in the seven-year war in Iraq.
It showed an aerial view of a group of men moving about a square in a Baghdad neighbourhood. The fliers identified some of the men as armed.
WikiLeaks said the men in the square included Reuters photographer Namir Noor-Eldeen, 22, and his assistant and driver Saeed Chmagh, 40, who were killed in the incident.
"The gathering at the corner that is fired up on has about nine people in it," Julian Assange, a WikiLeaks spokesman, told reporters at the National Press Club.
The gunsight tracks two of the men, identified by WikiLeaks as the Reuters news staff, as the fliers identify their cameras as weapons. Military spokesman Turner said that during the engagement, the helicopter mistook a camera for a rocket-propelled grenade launcher.
The helicopter opened fire on the small group, killing several people and wounding others. Minutes later, when a van approached and began trying to assist the wounded, the fliers became concerned the vehicle was occupied by militants trying to collect weapons and help wounded comrades escape.
The Apache helicopters requested permission to attack the van and waited impatiently.
"Come on, let us shoot," said one voice.
The fliers were granted permission to engage the van and opened fire, apparently killing several people in and around the vehicle.
Two children wounded in the van were evacuated by U.S. ground forces arriving at the scene as the Apache helicopters continued to circle overhead.
"Well it's their fault for bringing their kids into a battle," one of the U.S. fliers said.
David Schlesinger, Reuters' editor-in-chief, said the video released by WikiLeaks showed the deaths of Noor-Eldeen and Chmagh were "tragic and emblematic of the extreme dangers that exist in covering war zones."
"The video released today via WikiLeaks is graphic evidence of the dangers involved in war journalism and the tragedies that can result," he said.
Reuters has pressed the U.S. military to conduct a full and objective investigation into the killing of the two staff.
Video of the incident from two U.S. Apache helicopters and photographs taken of the scene were shown to Reuters editors in an off-the-record briefing in Baghdad on July 25, 2007.
U.S. military officers who presented the materials said Reuters had to make a request under the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) to get copies. This request was made the same day.
Turner said the military had released documents to Reuters last year in response to the FOIA request showing the presence of weapons on the scene, including AK-47 rifles and an RPG 7 grenade launcher.
Assange said he disagreed with a U.S. military assessment that the attack was justified.
"I believe that if those killings were lawful under the rules of engagement, then the rules of engagement are wrong, deeply wrong," he said. The fliers in the video act "like they are playing a computer game and their desire is they want to get high scores" by killing opponents, he said.
WikiLeaks posted the video at Collateral Murder.
(Reporting by David Alexander and Phillip Stewart, Editing by Frances Kerry)
Forrest Griffin
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U.S. Iraq Command: No Current Plans to Reopen Attack Probe
By Adam Entous
April 7, 2010
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The U.S. military's Central Command said on Wednesday it has no current plans to reopen an investigation into a 2007 helicopter attack that killed a dozen people in Baghdad, including two Reuters news staff, amid rights groups' appeals after graphic video footage was leaked.
Some international law and human rights experts who have watched the video of the incident say the Apache helicopter crew in the footage may have acted illegally.
Lawyers at Central Command have been reviewing the classified video, made public on Monday by a group that promotes leaking to fight government and corporate corruption, two U.S. military officials said on condition of anonymity.
"We're looking at a reinvestigation because of a question of the rules of engagement. Were all the actions that are depicted on that video in parallel with the rules of engagement in effect at the time?" one of the officials said.
But Rear Admiral Hal Pittman, director of communications at Central Command, which oversees the war in Iraq, said in a statement to Reuters: "Central Command has no current plans to reinvestigate or review this combat action."
Other officials said Central Command was seeking to play down its role in determining whether to reopen the case because the unit involved was no longer based in Iraq, shifting the onus to Army and Pentagon leaders to make the decision.
Detailed rules of engagement are generally kept classified to avoid tipping off adversaries about U.S. tactics on the battlefield, Pentagon officials said.
The stark helicopter gunsight video of the July 12, 2007, attack has been widely viewed around the world on the Internet since its release by the group WikiLeaks. The video includes an audio track of the conversation between the helicopter crew and many who have seen it have been shocked at the images and at some of the fliers' comments.
The two Reuters staff killed in the attack were photographer Namir Noor-Eldeen, 22, and his assistant and driver Saeed Chmagh, 40.
David Schlesinger, Reuters' editor-in-chief, said: "I would welcome a thorough new investigation. Reuters from the start has called for transparency and an objective inquiry so that all can learn lessons from this tragedy."
The U.S. military has said an investigation of the incident shortly after it occurred found that U.S. forces were not aware of the presence of the news staffers and thought they were engaging armed insurgents, mistaking a camera for a rocket-propelled grenade launcher.
WikiLeaks said it obtained the video from military whistleblowers and posted it at Collateral Murder.
The video shows an aerial view of a group of men moving about a square in a Baghdad neighborhood. The fliers identified some of the men as armed. The gunsight tracks two of the men, identified by WikiLeaks as the Reuters news staff, as the fliers identify their cameras as weapons.
SHOOTING ON A VAN
Human rights lawyers and other experts who have viewed the footage say they are concerned about how the helicopter fliers operated, particularly in opening fire on a van that arrived on the scene after the initial attack and whose occupants began trying to help the wounded.
Chris Cobb-Smith, a former British army officer who has conducted war zone investigations, said knowing what rules of engagement the pilots were operating under was critical to understanding whether they had acted appropriately.
But he said firing on those who came to help the wounded appeared to be a breach of the laws governing military conduct in war. "That is the element that is blatant. That is against all humanitarian law and the rules of conflict -- most definitely and without a doubt," he told Reuters.
Bibi van Ginkel, an international lawyer and senior fellow at the Clingendael Netherlands Institute of International Relations, said the video was only a fragment of evidence and more investigation was required. But she added:
"My first guess would be that a war crime was committed. Very simply speaking, if people are helping the wounded, they are non-combatants. If force is used against them, then that is a war crime," she said.
Other lawyers and human rights experts pointed out that it would be very difficult to build a case on the video alone.
Anthony Dworkin, the director of the Crimes of War Project, which studies humanitarian law in conflict, said it did not appear that the pilots had intentionally targeted civilians.
"I would be surprised to see, on the basis of this, any sort of military prosecution," he said. "I think, if anything, it's more likely to raise issues about the rules of engagement and how clear they are."
Amnesty International called on Wednesday for an independent, thorough and impartial investigation into the incident shown in the video.
(Additional reporting by Luke Baker in Brussels, Alastair Macdonald in Jerusalem; Editing by Frances Kerry)
U.S. Iraq Command: No Current Plans to Reopen Attack Probe - ABC News
By Adam Entous
April 7, 2010
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The U.S. military's Central Command said on Wednesday it has no current plans to reopen an investigation into a 2007 helicopter attack that killed a dozen people in Baghdad, including two Reuters news staff, amid rights groups' appeals after graphic video footage was leaked.
Some international law and human rights experts who have watched the video of the incident say the Apache helicopter crew in the footage may have acted illegally.
Lawyers at Central Command have been reviewing the classified video, made public on Monday by a group that promotes leaking to fight government and corporate corruption, two U.S. military officials said on condition of anonymity.
"We're looking at a reinvestigation because of a question of the rules of engagement. Were all the actions that are depicted on that video in parallel with the rules of engagement in effect at the time?" one of the officials said.
But Rear Admiral Hal Pittman, director of communications at Central Command, which oversees the war in Iraq, said in a statement to Reuters: "Central Command has no current plans to reinvestigate or review this combat action."
Other officials said Central Command was seeking to play down its role in determining whether to reopen the case because the unit involved was no longer based in Iraq, shifting the onus to Army and Pentagon leaders to make the decision.
Detailed rules of engagement are generally kept classified to avoid tipping off adversaries about U.S. tactics on the battlefield, Pentagon officials said.
The stark helicopter gunsight video of the July 12, 2007, attack has been widely viewed around the world on the Internet since its release by the group WikiLeaks. The video includes an audio track of the conversation between the helicopter crew and many who have seen it have been shocked at the images and at some of the fliers' comments.
The two Reuters staff killed in the attack were photographer Namir Noor-Eldeen, 22, and his assistant and driver Saeed Chmagh, 40.
David Schlesinger, Reuters' editor-in-chief, said: "I would welcome a thorough new investigation. Reuters from the start has called for transparency and an objective inquiry so that all can learn lessons from this tragedy."
The U.S. military has said an investigation of the incident shortly after it occurred found that U.S. forces were not aware of the presence of the news staffers and thought they were engaging armed insurgents, mistaking a camera for a rocket-propelled grenade launcher.
WikiLeaks said it obtained the video from military whistleblowers and posted it at Collateral Murder.
The video shows an aerial view of a group of men moving about a square in a Baghdad neighborhood. The fliers identified some of the men as armed. The gunsight tracks two of the men, identified by WikiLeaks as the Reuters news staff, as the fliers identify their cameras as weapons.
SHOOTING ON A VAN
Human rights lawyers and other experts who have viewed the footage say they are concerned about how the helicopter fliers operated, particularly in opening fire on a van that arrived on the scene after the initial attack and whose occupants began trying to help the wounded.
Chris Cobb-Smith, a former British army officer who has conducted war zone investigations, said knowing what rules of engagement the pilots were operating under was critical to understanding whether they had acted appropriately.
But he said firing on those who came to help the wounded appeared to be a breach of the laws governing military conduct in war. "That is the element that is blatant. That is against all humanitarian law and the rules of conflict -- most definitely and without a doubt," he told Reuters.
Bibi van Ginkel, an international lawyer and senior fellow at the Clingendael Netherlands Institute of International Relations, said the video was only a fragment of evidence and more investigation was required. But she added:
"My first guess would be that a war crime was committed. Very simply speaking, if people are helping the wounded, they are non-combatants. If force is used against them, then that is a war crime," she said.
Other lawyers and human rights experts pointed out that it would be very difficult to build a case on the video alone.
Anthony Dworkin, the director of the Crimes of War Project, which studies humanitarian law in conflict, said it did not appear that the pilots had intentionally targeted civilians.
"I would be surprised to see, on the basis of this, any sort of military prosecution," he said. "I think, if anything, it's more likely to raise issues about the rules of engagement and how clear they are."
Amnesty International called on Wednesday for an independent, thorough and impartial investigation into the incident shown in the video.
(Additional reporting by Luke Baker in Brussels, Alastair Macdonald in Jerusalem; Editing by Frances Kerry)
U.S. Iraq Command: No Current Plans to Reopen Attack Probe - ABC News
Forrest Griffin
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Retired U.S. 4 Star General Jack Keane On The Shooting Of The Van
Starts at 2:43 on video.
"Based on what I saw, I probably would not have pulled the trigger."
Starts at 2:43 on video.
"Based on what I saw, I probably would not have pulled the trigger."
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Thomas
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Not surprising since most human rights people view war itself to be a human rights violation.
if they had known before hand there were kids in the Van. or that there were reporters mixed with the insurgents. Then they might have a case.
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Thomas
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I have seen other retired officers say they would have acted no differently "knowing the circumstances leading up to the engagement."
That being said I think this thread is going in circles now. Time to move on ..........
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forcetrip
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You are right .. It is time to move on. I know for a fact that not all americans see this case as you do and thats all that matters. You and your opinion will not change what those animals did. When the house comes falling down I just hope that people like you see what they did and defended.
AZADPAKISTAN2009
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I have to admit after watching the video I had bad sleeping nights ...
its quite inhumane
Worse of all Pentagon thinks this was completely fine what the soliders did ...
What sucks the most is just plan barbarism by the soliders who killed 10-20 people just for sake of launching missiles and shooting people and the degrading comments for victims and driving over the bodies of dead people etc
Its no wonder so many US soliders are coming back with mental psychalogical problems who witness this abuse and who are genuinely good people but there are these idiots as well in US armed froces .. and worse of all they get all the immunity from anything they do
Very scary ...
its quite inhumane
Worse of all Pentagon thinks this was completely fine what the soliders did ...
What sucks the most is just plan barbarism by the soliders who killed 10-20 people just for sake of launching missiles and shooting people and the degrading comments for victims and driving over the bodies of dead people etc
Its no wonder so many US soliders are coming back with mental psychalogical problems who witness this abuse and who are genuinely good people but there are these idiots as well in US armed froces .. and worse of all they get all the immunity from anything they do
Very scary ...
---RequieM
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This is disgusting, I spent 22 years as a Royal Marine, and a hazy approximation of what might be a weapon of some description is no reason to fire, furthermore WHY are they firing on UNARMED people collecting wounded/bodies?
I am absolutely appaled, the RoE must've been incredibly relaxed for this to be "OK" to the Americans, if that was a British Apache I'd have been ashamed to have served in a force so unprofessional and gung-ho
Cameras as guns that's almost as poor as ANG A-10 pilots mistaking British IFVs as Iraqi flatbeds and even more stupidly mistaking Orange combat idenfitcation panels as "Orange rockets"...
I am absolutely appaled, the RoE must've been incredibly relaxed for this to be "OK" to the Americans, if that was a British Apache I'd have been ashamed to have served in a force so unprofessional and gung-ho
Cameras as guns that's almost as poor as ANG A-10 pilots mistaking British IFVs as Iraqi flatbeds and even more stupidly mistaking Orange combat idenfitcation panels as "Orange rockets"...
AZADPAKISTAN2009
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There you go at least you know right and wrong its common sense 101, which we don't see in video
gubbi
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There's much more to the video than just the images. You all might want to read the account of the soldier who was there on that day, the one seen in the video carrying the small girl.
Read up and decide before jumping to conclusions.
U.S. 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. It was a scene that had played repeatedly in his mind the last three years, and he knew exactly who the soldier was.
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. 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. They also found 10-year-old Sajad Mutashar and his five-year-old sister Doaha covered in blood in a van. 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.
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. 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. 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, who served seven years in the military before leaving in the summer of 2009 due to injuries, recently posted an apologetic letter online with fellow soldier Josh Steiber supporting the release of the video and asking the familys forgiveness. McCord is the father of three children.
Wireds Kim Zetter reached McCord at his home in Kansas. This is his account of what he saw.
Wired.com: At the time you arrived on the scene, you didnt know what had happened, is that right?
Ethan McCord: Right. We were engaged in our own conflict roughly about three or four blocks away. We heard the gunships open up. [Then] we were just told to move to this [other] location. It was pretty much a shock when we got there to see what had happened, the carnage and everything else.
Wired.com: But you had been in combat before. It shouldnt have surprised you what you saw.
McCord: I have never seen anybody being shot by a 30-millimeter round before. It didnt seem real, in the sense that it didnt look like human beings. They were destroyed.
Wired.com: Was anyone moving when you got there other than the two children?
McCord: There were approximately two to three other people who were moving who were still somewhat alive, and the medics were attending to them.
Wired.com: The first thing you saw was the little girl in the van. She had a stomach wound?
McCord: She had a stomach wound and she had glass in her eyes and in her hair. She was crying. In fact, thats one of the reasons I went to the van immediately, because I could hear her crying. It wasnt like a cry of pain really. It was more of a child who was frightened out of her mind. And the next thing I saw was the boy . He was kind of sitting on the floorboard of the van, but with his head laying on the bench seat in the front. And then the father, who Im assuming was the father, in the drivers seat slumped over on his side. Just from looking into the van, and the amount of blood that was on the boy and the father, I immediately figured they were dead.
So, the first thing I did was grab the girl. I grabbed the medic and we went into the back. Theres houses behind where the van was. We took her in there and were checking to see if there were any other wounds. You can hear the medic saying on the video, Theres nothing I can do here, she needs to be evacd. He runs the girl to the Bradley. I went back outside to the van, and thats when the boy took, like, a labored, breath. Thats when I started screaming, The boys alive! The boys alive! And I picked him up and started running with him over to the Bradley. He opened his eyes when I was carrying him. I just kept telling him, Dont die; dont die. He looked at me, then his eyes rolled back into this head.
Then I got yelled at by my platoon leader that I needed to stop trying to save these mfn kids and go pull security . I was told to go pull security on a rooftop. When we were on that roof, we were still taking fire. There were some people taking pot shots, sniper shots, at us on the rooftop. We were probably there on the roof for another four to five hours.
Wired.com: How much sniper fire were you getting?
McCord: It was random sporadic spurts. I did see a guy moving from a rooftop from one position to another with an AK-47, who was firing at us. He was shot and killed.
After the incident, we went back to the FOB [forward operating base] and thats when I was in my room. I had blood all down the front of me from the children. I was trying to wash it off in my room. I was pretty distraught over the whole situation with the children. So I went to a sergeant and asked to see [the mental health person], because I was having a hard time dealing with it. I was called a pussy and that I needed to suck it up and a lot of other horrible things. I was also told that there would be repercussions if I was to go to mental health.
Wired.com: What did you understand that to mean?
McCord: I would be smoked. Smoked is basically like youre doing pushups a lot, youre doing sit-ups crunches and flutter kicks. Theyre smoking you, theyre making you tired. I was told that I needed to get the sand out of my vagina . So I just sucked it up and tried to move on with everything.
Ive lived with seeing the children that way since the incident happened. Ive had nightmares. I was diagnosed with chronic, severe PTSD. [But] I was actually starting to get kind of better. I wasnt thinking about it as much. [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 Im running across the screen with a child. The flood of emotions came back. I know the scene by heart; its burned into my head. I know the van, I know the faces of everybody that was there that day.
Wired.com: Did you try to get information about the two children after the shooting?
McCord: My platoon sergeant knew that I was having a hard time with it and that same night he came into the room and he told me, hey, just so you know, both of the children survived, so you can suck it up now. I didnt 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. I always questioned it in the back of my mind.
I did see a video on YouTube after the Wikileaks [video] came out, of the children being interviewed. When I saw their faces, I was relieved, but I was just heartbroken. I have a huge place in my heart for children, having some of my own. Knowing that I was part of the system that took their father away from them and made them lose their house its heartbreaking. 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 were sorry. Were sorry for the system that we were involved in that took their fathers life and injured them. If theres anything I can to do help, I would be more than happy to.
Wired.com: Wikileaks presented the incident as though there was no engagement from insurgents. But you guys did have a firefight a couple of blocks away. Was it reasonable for the Apache soldiers to think that maybe the people they attacked were part of that insurgent firefight?
McCord: I doubt that they were a part of that firefight. However, when I did come up on the scene, there was an RPG as well as AK-47s there . You just dont walk around with an RPG in Iraq, especially three blocks away from a firefight . Personally, I believe the first attack on the group standing by the wall was appropriate, was warranted by the rules of engagement. They did have weapons there. However, I dont feel that the attack on the [rescue] van was necessary.
Now, as far as rules of engagement, [Iraqis] are not supposed to pick up the wounded. But they could have been easily deterred from doing what they were doing by just firing simply a few warning shots in the direction . Instead, the Apaches decided to completely obliterate everybody in the van. Thats the hard part to swallow.
And where the soldier said [in the video], Well, you shouldnt take your kids to battle. Well in all actuality, we brought the battle to your kids. Theres no front lines here. This is urban combat and were taking the war to children and women and innocents.
There were plenty of times in the past where other insurgents would come by and pick up the bodies, and then wed have no evidence or anything to what happened, so in looking at it from the Apaches 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. But youre not supposed to do that in Iraq.
Wired.com: Civilians are supposed to know that theyre not supposed to pick up a wounded person crawling in the road?
McCord: Yeah. This is the problem that were speaking out on as far as the rules of engagement. How is this guy supposed to [decide] should I stop and pick them up, or is the military going to shoot me? If you or I saw someone wounded on the ground what is your first inkling? Im going to help that person.
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.
McCord: I wasnt around that building when it happened. I was up on a rooftop at that time. 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.
I think that a Hellfire missile is a little much to put into a building . Theyre trained as soldiers to go into a building and clear a building. 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.
Wired.com: Have you heard from any other soldiers since the video came out?
McCord: Ive spoken with one of the medics who was there. Hes no longer in the Army. 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 were not that way. The majority of us arent. And so he was pretty upset about the whole thing . He kept saying, we were there, we know the truth, theyre saying there was no weapons, there was.
Ive spoken with other soldiers who were there. Some of them [say] I dont care what anybody says theyre not there. Theres also some soldiers who joke about it [as a] coping mechanism. Theyre like, oh yeah, were the collateral murder company. I dont think that [the] big picture is whether or not [the Iraqis who were killed] had weapons. I think that the bigger picture is what are we doing there? Weve been there for so long now and it seems like nothing is being accomplished whatsoever, except for were making more people hate us.
Wired.com: Do you support Wikileaks in releasing this video?
McCord: When it was first released I dont think it was done in the best manner that it could have been. They were stating that these people had no weapons whatsoever, that they were just carrying cameras. In the video, you can clearly see that they did have weapons to the trained eye. 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 whats happened thats a coping mechanism. Im guilty of it, too, myself. You joke about the situations and whats happened to push away your true feelings of the matter.
Theres no easy way to kill somebody. You dont just take somebodys life and then go on about your business for the rest of the day. That stays with you. And cracking jokes is a way of pushing that stuff down. Thats why so many soldiers come back home and theyre no longer in the situations where they have other things to think about or other people to joke about what happened and they explode.
I dont say that Wikileaks did a bad thing, because they didnt . I think it is good that theyre putting this stuff out there. I dont think that people really want to see this, though, because this is war . Its very disturbing.
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