[67], WikiLeaks released a 39-minute version, which shows all three incidents, and a 17-minute version, which shows only the first two incidents. There had been running gun battles. Their request was denied at the briefing and they were told to seek access under the U.S. Freedom of Information Act. She concluded that command structures need to be in place to identify "combatants with serious psychological problems". We believe this constitutes a fair use of any such copyrighted material as provided for in 17 U.S.C 107. [18][19] The crew estimates the group is twenty men. WikiLeaks identified the leak's source as "a number of military whistleblowers". Part of Banksy's, This page was last edited on 20 February 2023, at 21:26. But you guys did have a firefight a couple of blocks away. They also found two Canon EOS digital cameras with telephoto lenses. [42] According to the internal legal review, the helicopters engaged a group of armed insurgents, and that some were seen entering a nearby building. It could be that since he and Amelia (Sigrid Thornton) have quit. [32] The Apache crew alerted the ground troops of the van and requested permission to engage the vehicle before the ground troops arrived. [32] Assange also said "it's ludicrous to allege that we have taken anything out of context in this video". Seven men (including Noor-Eldeen) were killed during this first strike; Saeed Chmagh, who was injured, later died in a hospital. [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. You joke about the situations and what's happened to push away your true feelings of the matter. [81], Publicity of the incident ballooned following the release of the footage. But youyou talked about the fog of war. The crew for Crazyhorse 1/9 could not engage due to target obfuscation from buildings and dust. So I went to a sergeant and asked to see [the mental health person], because I was having a hard time dealing with it. It has also ignored many veterans who have returned physically injured or mentally troubled by what they saw and did in your country. Solemnly and Sincerely, Josh Stieber, former specialist, U.S. Army Ethan McCord, former specialist, U.S. Army. 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. [Then] we were just told to move to this [other] location. Our hearts are open to hearing how we can take any steps to support you through the pain that we have caused. China Is Relentlessly Hacking Its Neighbors. So, the first thing I did was grab the girl. [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." I was pretty distraught over the whole situation with the children. He was shot and killed. We did unto you what we would not want done to us. That classified video created its own firestorm. In refusing to recognize this, the US military fails both its own soldiers and their victims. [92], On February 28, 2013, Manning pleaded guilty to 10 of 22 specified charges. 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 heard about something, they came to it and they just wantedfrom everything I've learned since, they were just there to get that side of the story. [19], As the tape resumes, two men, one holding an AK-47, are seen walking. [62] At a February 2013 pretrial hearing, Manning stated that Finkel "was quoting, I feel in verbatim, the audio communications of the aerial weapons team crew". 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. Ethan was on the ground at the scene of the shooting, and is seen on the video rushing one of the injured children to a U.S. 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. I was told to go pull security on a rooftop. . A draft version of the video WikiLeaks produced made reference to the AK-47s and RPGs, but WikiLeaks said that ultimately they became unsure about the RPG, believing the long object could have been a camera tripod, so they decided not to point it out in the released version. We're sorry for the system that we were involved in that took their father's life and injured them. What we seek is to learn from our mistakes and do everything we can to tell others of our experiences and how the people of the United States need to realize we have done and are doing to you and the people of your country. And then the father, who I'm assuming was the father, in the driver's seat slumped over on his side. McCord, in New York for the festival premiere, told the story of what he experienced while saving two children wounded in the incident. They did have weapons there. 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. In fact, that's one of the reasons I went to the van immediately, because I could hear her crying. 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. And cracking jokes is a way of pushing that stuff down. The story was then overtaken by a more updated one out of Washington that incorporated reporting from the original piece. Lawmakers are increasingly hellbent on punishing the popular social network while efforts to pass a broader privacy law have dwindled. 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. In 2009, Stieber left the military as a conscientious objector and became a member of Iraq Veterans Against the War. I know the van, I know the faces of everybody that was there that day. [39][40] Just as the van was destroyed, U.S. ground troops made their final turn and arrived on the road with the van. Wired.com: Did you try to get information about the two children after the shooting? As the pilot positions the helicopter to attack the building, two unarmed men walk towards, and perhaps into, the building. 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. [19], Fox News said that of the attack "WikiLeaks appears to have done selective editing that tells only half the story. 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. ", The letter, which they hope to get to the family who lost their father and whose children were injured in the attack, states that they "are acknowledging our responsibility for bringing the battle to your neighborhood, and to your family. McCord's courage and integrity has nothing to do with his US army training. The WIRED conversation illuminates how technology is changing every aspect of our livesfrom culture to business, science to design. I think it is good that they're putting this stuff out there. Michael Bailey a medic who treated some of. 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. [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'. From our own experiences, and the experiences of other veterans we have talked to, we know that the acts depicted in this video are everyday occurrences of this war: this is the nature of how U.S.-led wars are carried out in this region. Wired.com: Was anyone moving when you got there other than the two children? They asked for an explanation of the confiscation of the journalists' two cameras, access to the on-board footage and voice communications from the helicopters involved, and access to the reports of the units involved in the incident, particularly logs of weapons taken from the scene. This is urban combat and we're taking the war to children and women and innocents. There had been a lot of RPG, grenade fire and so on, and they were doing what journalists do. Gabriel Schoenfeld, Senior Fellow at the Hudson Institute, said of the airstrike: It is precisely the presence of weapons, including RPGs, that goes a long distance toward explaining why cameramen for Reuterspointing television cameras around corners in a battle zonewere readily mistaken by our gunships for insurgents. After the non-combatants were clear Crazyhorse 1/8 engaged the targets. The promise we make to our sources is that not only will we defend them through every means that we have available technologically, legally and politically but we will try and get the maximum possible political impact for the material that they give to us. BACKGROUND ON JOSH STIEBER: Branch of service: United States Army (USA) Unit: 1st ID Rank: Spc. However, according to the co-pilot for Crazyhorse 1/8 they failed to positively identify the occupants as combatants and returned to the previous engagement area. James W. 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