Wired's Kim Zetter reached McCord at his home in Kansas. It's very disturbing. 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're like, oh yeah, we're the "collateral murder" company. This is why we called it Collateral Murder. I don't think that [the] big picture is whether or not [the Iraqis who were killed] had weapons. Ukraine Suffered More Wiper Malware in 2022 Than Anywhere, Ever. Ethan Mccord and Josh Stieber deployed to Baghdad with Bravo Company 2-16 in 2007. [29], A crew member requests authorization to engage after seeing five or six of the men moving in the direction of U.S. This is his account of what he saw. Smoked is basically like you're doing pushups a lot, you're doing sit-ups crunches and flutter kicks. When the cameraman on the ground aimed his camera in the direction of Bravo Company 216, a pilot remarked "He's getting ready to fire". We've been there for so long now and it seems like nothing is being accomplished whatsoever, except for we're making more people hate us. [21][79], The New Yorker praised its release, calling it "a striking artifactan unmediated representation of the ambiguities and cruelties of modern warfare".[3]. [103], On August 21, 2013, Manning was sentenced to 35 years' imprisonment, reduction in rank from private first class to private, forfeiture of all pay and allowances, and a dishonorable discharge. McCord is the father of three children. When the crew were informed that a child had been injured by their attack, one initially responded, "Ah damn. The Wikileaks videos also do not reveal the hundreds upon hundreds of cases in which American forces refrain from attacking targets precisely because civilians are in harm's way.[80]. To revist this article, visit My Profile, then View saved stories. 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. [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. It claimed reporters' "furtive attempts to photograph the Coalition Ground Forces made them appear as hostile combatants". 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. Ethan McCord, a former US soldier, has shown great courage and integrity by exposing and condemning US war crimes in Iraq. [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 was pretty distraught over the whole situation with the children. Ethan McCord pulled your daughter and son from the van, and when doing so, saw the faces of his own children back home. We heard the gunships open up. We're sorry for the system that we were involved in that took their father's life and injured them. "[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. [110], Mark Taylor, an international law expert and a director at the Fafo Institute for International Studies in Norway, told Al Jazeera "there's a case to be made that a war crime may have been committed." [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". He was shot and killed. The crew for Crazyhorse 1/9 could not engage due to target obfuscation from buildings and dust. On June 7, 2010, The New Yorker reported that Kristinn Hrafnsson, an investigative reporter who worked on the Collateral Murder video and later became a spokesman for WikiLeaks,[54] said he had found the owner of the building involved in the incident. [18][19] The crew estimates the group is twenty men. 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. Some of them [say] I don't care what anybody says they're not there. I was trying to wash it off in my room. Our secretary of defense may say the U.S. won't lose its reputation over this, but we stand and say that our reputation's importance pales in comparison to our common humanity. She concluded that command structures need to be in place to identify "combatants with serious psychological problems". I just kept telling him, "Don't die; don't die." It was nominated as a Documentary Short Subject for the 84th Academy Awards. In the video, you can clearly see that they did have weapons to the trained eye." There had been a lot of RPG, grenade fire and so on, and they were doing what journalists do. She said that she was "aghast" at Finkel's portrayal of the incident. 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 . McCord: When it was first released I don't think it was done in the best manner that it could have been. All rights reserved. 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). We did unto you what we would not want done to us.". Vehicle; "When I saw those kids, all I could picture was my kids back home". For about 5 to 10 minutes the team diverted its attention to this vehicle. They arrived on station in New Baghdad at 9:53a.m., where sporadic attacks on coalition forces continued. 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. Please accept our apology, our sorrow, our care, and our dedication to change from the inside out. Nearly every Iraqi household has a rifle or an AK. Just from watching that video, people cannot understand the complex battles that occurred. Since then, McCord has been receiving threats to him and his family on a regular basis. 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. Bradley Manning acquitted of aiding the enemy, convicted of six counts of espionage", "Bradley Manning acquitted of aiding the enemy for giving secrets to WikiLeaks", "BBC News Bradley Manning guilty of espionage in Wikileaks case", "Manning Gets 35 years for wikileaks disclosures", "Bradley Manning Sentenced To 35 Years In Prison For WikiLeaks Disclosures", "Bradley Manning sentenced to 35 years in prison live updates", "Judge sentences Bradley Manning to 35 years", "Obama commutes Chelsea Manning's prison sentence", "Obama's final press conference: Chelsea Manning commutation is 'appropriate', "The WikiLeaks Video and the Rules of Engagement", "Exclusive: Reuters Chief Spikes Story on Killing of His Own Staffers In Baghdad", "US 'reviewing' Iraq killing video posted on WikiLeaks", "Ingi Ingason Ragnar and Kristinn Hrafnsson awarded International Journalism and Human Rights Award at Barcelona Human Rights Film Festival", "Verleihung des Whistleblower-Preises 2011", Whistleblower-Preis 2011 geht an Kernforscher, Collateral Murder: U.S. It's painful to see, especially when you learn after the fact what was going on. "[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. So I just sucked it up and tried to move on with everything. Wired.com: Was anyone moving when you got there other than the two children? [43] It concluded that an investigating officer would want to know how the armed men were identified as combatants from the earlier engagement; would question the nature of the collateral-damage estimate carried out by the crew before the missiles were launched; and would wish to determine whether a missile attack was a proportionate response to the threat. I grabbed the medic and we went into the back. He condemned and reported the massacre as soon as it happened. Our government may ignore you, concerned more with its public image. Towards the end of the show, the star actor became an active member of the Screen Actors Guild and after he left "Adam-12." 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. [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]. [8] The video, which WikiLeaks titled Collateral Murder, showed the crew firing on a group of men and killing several of them, then laughing at some of the casualties, all of whom were civilians, including two Reuters journalists. He said that the debate should be re-framed, that it is more appropriate to ask "questions of the larger system" that teaches "doing these things is in the best interests of my own country". [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. I know the scene by heart; it's burned into my head. They're trained as soldiers to go into a building and clear a building. As Russia has accelerated its cyberattacks on its neighbor, it's barraged the country with an unprecedented volume of different data-destroying programs. The men become obscured behind a building as the Apache moves around the group. Plus: Irans secret torture black sites, hacking a bank account with AI-generated voice, and Lance Bass unhinged encounter in Russia. 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 missile hits the building, and the man is caught in the explosion. If there's anything I can to do help, I would be more than happy to. 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. 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. McCord: I have never seen anybody being shot by a 30-millimeter round before. But the time is long overdue that we say that the value of our nation's leaders no longer represent us. 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. Give us a picture of what happened that day. [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. The review was not released in full until 2010, after the video of the incident had been released by WikiLeaks. The WIRED conversation illuminates how technology is changing every aspect of our livesfrom culture to business, science to design. Hanzlik said images gathered during a military investigation of the incident show multiple weapons around the dead bodies in the courtyard, including at least three RPGs. I had blood all down the front of me from the children. 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. There were some people taking pot shots, sniper shots, at us on the rooftop. [19], The events between the attack on the van and the attack on the building (approximately 30 minutes) were not captured on the leaked video footage. Part of Banksy's, This page was last edited on 20 February 2023, at 21:26. 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. Wired.com: Wikileaks presented the incident as though there was no engagement from insurgents. 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. McCord, together with another former member of the company, Josh Stieber, have addressed an open "Letter of Reconciliation" to the Iraqi people taking responsibility for their role in this. [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". Though we have acted with cold hearts far too many times, we have not forgotten our actions towards you. Forces Clash With Militias", "Reuters seeks U.S. probe into killing of Iraqi staff", "Return to Ward 17: Making peace with lost comrades", "Bradley Manning's statements during his trial", "U.S. gunfire kills two Reuters employees in Baghdad", "WikiLeaks silent on how it broke encryption", "Twitter / WikiLeaks: Have encrypted videos of U", "WikiLeaks posts video of 'US military killings' in Iraq", "Collateral Murder? Seven men were killed, including Noor-Eldeen and Chmagh, with three others being wounded. [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. Assange responded:[69][70]. [87], McCord discussed his experience in the battle in an interview with the World Socialist Web Site on April 28, 2010, stating, "What happened then was not an isolated 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. 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