Reality Check Update: The Wikileaks Collateral Murder Video

[Revised 13 Apr 2011; original posting 3 Mar 2011]

An earlier posting on this website examined Wikileaks' unedited Collateral Murder video a few days after it appeared online in April 2010. The analysis found no significant discrepancies between what is seen in the classified video and what was reported in the US Army's official investigation of the July 12, 2007 massacre that resulted in the deaths of two Reuters employees. In fact, the Army's report cleared up many issues unaddressed by Wikileaks and put the helicopter attack in the perspective of an ongoing military operation.

A lot has happened since the publication of Collateral Murder.

  • Wikileaks published secret Iraq War logs and Afghan War logs. These two massive data bases contain the secret records of military actions and incidents, as recorded by soldiers on the ground, over a six year period ending in 2010.
  • Wikileaks began publishing US diplomatic cables containing private messages sent among hundreds of embassies and consulates worldwide. There are 262,000 cables in the database and individual cables are now being published at a rate of a couple of hundred per day.
  • Bradley Manning, a noncommissioned army intelligence specialist, has been accused of leaking the Collateral Murder video, the Iraq and Afghan war logs and the diplomatic cables. He is now being held in solitary confinement in a US prison. On March 3, 2011 he was formally charged with 22 crimes, including "aiding the enemy," a capital offense.
  • As a result of pressure from the US government (or maybe a desire to curry favor with the government), US companies have acted to weaken the Wikileaks organization. Specifically, Amazon has kicked Wikileaks off its servers. Mastercard, Visa and PayPal refuse to process money transfers to Wikileaks.
  • US news organizations, especially the New York Times, have been hostile to Wikileaks and its founder, Julian Assange. This hostility, however, has not stopped them from making full use of Wikileaks revelations in their reporting. Foreign outlets, such as the UK Guardian and German Der Spiegel, have been less hostile, but sometimes critical.
  • Julian Assange, an Australian, has become an international celebrity. At the same time he has been fighting extradition from England to Sweden, where he is accused of sexual misconduct with two Swedish women. The UK court has ordered that he should be extradited and his lawyers are appealing the ruling. Assange says he does not fear the rape charges. Rather, he fears that Sweden will turn him over to the US, where politicians want him charged with treason(!) and espionage.

One might ask, in all the excitement mentioned above, why should there still be interest in the Collateral Murder video, the Wikileaks' first major Iraq war leak? Well, additional information has come to light and we now have a clearer picture of the events from July 12, 2007. Some of that information came from other government leaks, some came from independent journalists and some came from witnesses who came forward after the massacre. We now know that twelve men were killed and two children were wounded in the Apache attack on the New Baghdad courtyard. Of the twelve men killed, ten had no weapons and no means for threatening US troops in the area. Nevertheless, the Army's official record says that only seven men were killed and they were all "anti-Iraqi" forces," i.e. enemies. The Army's reporting of this incident reveals the murderous logic of the rules of engagement: any adult male killed by an Apache helicopter in Iraq is an insurgent. If he weren't an insurgent, the gunner's superior wouldn't have authorized killing him.

Still, reality-seekers want to know, what really happened?

The paragraphs below survey available online resourses that shed light on the Collateral Murder incident.

Wikileaks Sites. Because of furor over release of secret US files, Wikileaks lost its old domain at www.wikileaks.org. If you try to go there, you will be redirected to

http://wikileaks.info

which displays a list of mirror sites that now host Wikileaks. A fairly reliable one is in Switzerland.

http://www.wikileaks.ch

Currently their main page has links to the Cablegate files, the Afghan War files, the Iraq War files and the Collateral Murder videos. The latter are at

http://www.collateralmurder.com/

Three videos are available here: (1) the 17-minute edited version of the attack on the crowd including the Reuters employees and the attack a couple of minutes later on the van; (2) the 38-minute unedited version, showing everything from of the 17-minute version plus a Hellfire missile attack on a nearby building; and (3) a heavily edited version of a speech by Ethan McCord, a soldier who witnessed the results of the massacre. There are links to: (1)  pages containing: about 64 still images from the unedited video; (2) a timeline of events during the engagement; (3) a transcript of the audio during the engagement; (4) a page containing (a) links (broken ones) to rules-of-engagement documents, (b) a short video showing the wife and children of the van driver killed in the attack, (c)  links to fourteen news stories about the incident and people killed, and (d) seventeen miscellaneous images related to the incident. Among the images are readable copies of the medical reports describing injuries to the two Iraqi children.

The 17-minute edited video gives some background information on the two Reuters journalists killed and identifies them in the crowd of Iraqis. Unfortunately, it gives the misleading impression that the sole reason the massacre occurred was that the helicopter crew misidentified cameras as weapons. In fact, it's clear from closely examining the unedited video that one of the Iraqis killed in the initial cannon burst is holding an RPG and another has an AK-47.

Still image two minutes before the attack:

Two minutes before attack

Two seconds before the attack:

Just before attack

The Army Report. Its title is "Investigation  Into Civilian Casualties Resulting From an Engagement of 12 July 2007 in the New Baghdad District of Baghdad, Iraq." It was released by the Army as a result of an FOIA request.

The 43-page document contains (1) a memo directing an officer (all names are redacted) to investigate the engagement that resulted in the deaths of the two civilian employees of Reuters and injuries sustained by two children in the van that came under attack, (2) a five-page memo, dated July 17, 2007, giving the background of the incident and the conclusions of the investigation, and (3) a collection of exhibits A through S. The exhibits include nine annotated Apache gun camera stills, sworn statements by five soldiers who arrived on the scene immediately after the engagement, and some digital images recovered from a camera belonging to Namir Eldeen, the Reuters photographer.

It explains the military mission underway at the time of the helicopter attack.
Bravo Company 2-16 Infantry had been under sporadic small-arms and rocket-propelled grenade fire since Operation ILAAJ began at dawn on the morning of 12th of July 2007. The Company had the mission of clearing the sector and looking for weapons caches. Two Apache helicopters from the First Cavalry Division's Aviation Brigade (call signs "Crazy Horse 18" and "Crazy Horse 19") were in direct support to the ground maneuver force and were monitoring the Bravo Company radio frequency.
The report goes on to examine the gun-camera video and concludes the helicopter crew mistakenly identified cameras as weapons. However, the report points out that one individual targeted by the Apache had an AK-47, another had an RPG and a third may have been carrying two extra RPG rounds.

Among the report's exhibits are three photos from the Reuters reporter's camera that show a US Army HMMWV (Hummer) less than 100 meters away. The photo time stamps indicate they were taken immediately before the helicopter attack. Obviously, this HMMWV might have been a target for the RPG.

The report's recommendations are redacted, but it's clear no one in the Army is going to be censured for killing civilians. Apparently every action taken by the Army in this massacre complied with the rules of engagement.

The Army report (6.5 MB pdf) can be downloaded from an official FOIA site.

A zipped version (also 6.5 MB) is on the Cryptome site.

A faster loading version is here.

The Wikileaks Iraq War Log Entry for the Collateral Murder Incident. The UK Guardian got hands-on access to the Wikileaks Iraq/Afghanistan logs and built a nice search engine for selecting individual logs.[1] One of the log entries they published online was the July 12, 2007 log summarizing the Collateral Murder incident.

Key B9817BE2-FDDC-102D-60B34786952A5C90
Date 2007-07-12 09:50:00
Type Enemy Action
Category Direct Fire
Tracking no. 20070712095038SMB5410086220
Title DIRECT FIRE(Small Arms) ON 2/E/1-8 CAV IVO (ZONE 30): 2 CIV WIA 13 AIF KIA 2 AIF WIA
Summary UNIT: 2/2ID

WHO: 2/E/1-8 CAV

WHAT: SAF

WHERE: MB 5410 8622

WHEN: 120950 JUL07

COMP OF PATROL:

4 X M2A2
16 X US PAX

TIMELINE:

0950: 2/E/1-8 CAV REPORTS WHILE ASSISTING 2/16 IN WITH A RAID IN MUHALLA 733 BY CORDONING OFF AREA, THEY RECEIVED SAF FROM THE MUHALLAS TO THE NORTH. PATROL COULD NOT PID THE SHOOTER

1025: CRAXYHORSE ENGAGED AIF AT GRID MB 532 845 7X AIF KIA 2XWIA LN CHILDEREN 1 GSW TO STOMACH AND 1 UKN EVAC TO LOYALTY.

1030: H/2-16 RECIEVING RPG W/SAF.

1100: SENDING AMBULANCE AND FIRE DEPT TO GRID MB 545 862

1109: CRAZYHORSE ENGAGED 4XAIF 2X WIA ON A ROOFTOP AT GRID MB 5514 8626.

1125: CRAZYHORSE ENGAGED WITH 3XMISSLE 6XAIF WITH WEPONS THAT RAN INTO A BUILDINGAT GRID MB 5514 8626. BUILDING DESTROYED 6X AIF KIA.

SUMMARY:

1 X SAF ATTACK
0 X US CAS
0 X US BDA
13 X AIF KIA
2 X AIF WIA
2 X LN CHILDREN WIA
2 X ENEMY BDA (1X BUILDING, 1X VEHICLE)

//CLOSED//
Region MND-BAGHDAD
Attack on ENEMY
Complex attack FALSE
Reporting unit MND-B LNO(HAWKINS)
$Unit name 2/E/1-8 CAV
Type of unit Coalition Forces
Friendly WIA 0
Friendly KIA 0
Host nation WIA 0
Host nation KIA 0
Civilian WIA 2
Civilian KIA 0
Enemy WIA 2
Enemy KIA 13
Enemy detained 0
MGRS 38SMB5410086220
Latitude 33.31412125
Longitude 44.50689697
Originator group MND-B OPS LNO
Updated by group MNC-I SIGACTSMGR
CCIR 5 - EVENTS THAT MAY ELICIT POLITICAL, MEDIA, OR INTERNATIONAL REACTION.
Sig Act MNC-I SIGACTSMGR
Affiliation ENEMY
D Colour RED

Check out the Summary section above. Note that only the actions at 1025 and 1125 are covered in the Collateral Murder video.

Ethan McCord  was among the infantry soldiers who swarmed the scene a couple of minutes after the helicopter attack. He can be seen on the Collateral Murder video carrying the wounded boy.

By the time of the Wikileaks revelations he was out of the Army. He came forward to express his revulsion at the indiscriminate human destruction in the 2007 Apache attack. Here's a Youtube video of him giving a short speech about his experience.

Here's some background on McCord and the transcript of an interview he did with wired.com in April 2010.

Media Reports on the Incident.

New York Times report on the Apache assault shortly after it happened (July 13, 2007).

Democracy Now! video/transcript of Amy Goodman interview with Julian Assange and Glenn Greenwald (April 6, 2010).

Aljazeera report on the response of the family of the two wounded children (April 7, 2010).

New Yorker comment on the Hellfire missile attack (April 7, 2010).

UK Guardian report on the family of the slain van driver. (October 25, 2010).

Wikipedia entry entitled "July 27, 2007 Baghdad airstrike."

Satellite View of the Attack Area.

Coordinates of the "courtyard" are 33.313785, 44.511853. This spot is about seven miles east of the fortified Green Zone of Baghdad. If you put these numbers into Google Maps or Google Earth, you'll see:

Massacre Site

Below is an annotated map of the scene of the massacre.

attack map


What Really Happened.

From the video, the army report, stories from journalists and the recollections of eyewitnesses we can credibly reconstruct the events of July 12, 2007.

At dawn Bravo Company 2-16 Infantry begins its mission of "clearing the sector and looking for weapons caches" in the New Baghdad District. Ethan McCord explains what this means. "We would cordon off a section of New Baghdad and perform 'knock-and-searches,' which basically consists of us knocking on doors of homes and asking to search the home for militia-related materials, weapons or bomb-making materials. Although it was more of a demand.  And if they refused, they gave us proper cause to destroy their homes by searching more vigorously."

McCord's platoon continues this for a few hours in 110-degree heat and they find nothing. Then, some locals on rooftops begin firing at the American soldiers. They hear over their audio net that another platoon is taking small arms fire and RPG fire as well. Then McCord hears "the very distinct fire of an Apache 30-mm cannon. Again and again. Over and over. It was very close."

While the Bravo Company mission is underway, Saeed Chamagh and Namir Noor Eldeen, looking for photo opportunities, arrive in the neighborhood by car. Another photographer, Ahmad Sahib, of Agence France-Presse, remains a few blocks away, and Saeed stays in touch with him by cell phone. It's unknown whether the journalists were aware of the Bravo Company operation. Saeed and Namir leave their vehicle four blocks south of the intersection where they will meet their fate. They fall in with a crowd of about twelve Iraqis and walk northward until one of the Iraqis directs Namir to the corner of a building. On the gun-camera video Namir is seen peeking around the corner with his camera. He snaps three pictures of a US HMMWV blocking an intersection a hundred meters away. (The Army report calls attention to his "furtive" manner.) He then pulls back to take a look at the pictures he's taken. Saeed, meanwhile, steps away from the group while talking by cell phone to Ahmad Sahib. At this point, the group is struck by the first burst of Apache cannon fire.

When the dust clears, the video shows Saeed crawling away from the dead bodies near the street corner. A couple of minutes later a van drives up and stops near Saeed. Two previously unseen rescuers appear and attempt to load Saeed into the side door of the van. The helicopter gunner asks for and gets permission to fire on the van. The burst of cannon fire kills Saeed, the two rescuers and the van driver and wounds two children in the van.

A few more minutes elapse and a US armored vehicle and truck arrive in the courtyard. They are accompanied by several dismounted soldiers including Ethan McCord. On the recorded audio the soldiers mention weapons on the ground and the wounded children in the van. There is no mention of any weapons in the van. (Days later Ethan McCord described the smell of the massacre. It was, "unlike anything I've ever smelled before. A smell of feces, urine, blood, smoke and something else indescribable.")

The gun-camera video then takes a twenty-minute break before moving to the nearby "triangular" building, which has been reported as source of small arms fire directed at US forces. No people are visible in or on the building, but the video shows three Iraqis entering the it. Two appear to be armed and one is unarmed. A second before the first (of three) Hellfire missiles strikes the building, an unarmed Iraqi man is walking on the sidewalk in front of the building, apparently with no intention of entering. After the explosion he disappears in the smoke and is not seen again.

The official Army log reports six AIF (Anti-Iraqi Force) enemies killed at the triangular building, but it is impossible to tell for sure how many were killed in the assault. The New Yorker reported:
Kristinn Hrafnsson, an Icelandic investigative reporter who worked with WikiLeaks on the video, went to Baghdad to locate some of the local people affected by these incidents. He claims to have found the owner of the building, “an old man named Jabbar Abid Rady, born in 1941, a retired English teacher.” Abid Rady told Hrafnsson that his wife and daughter had died in the attack. He said that five other people who had been living in the building died, too. Buildings under construction often serve as housing in war-ravaged places; people live in the lower floors, which are often built first and are inhabitable before construction ends. Abid Rady told Hrafnsson that three families had been living in this particular structure.

List of the Dead and Wounded Who Were Seen in the Video.

First assault.

(1) Namir Noor Eldeen, 22, Reuters photographer, unarmed, killed.
(2) Fat guy, "military aged," carrying an AK-47, killed
(3) Skinny guy, "military aged," carrying an RPG, killed
(4) Unidentified Iraqi #1, "military aged," possibly holding two RPG rounds, killed.
(5) Unidentified Iraqi #2, "military aged," unarmed, killed.
(6) Unidentified Iraqi #3, "military aged," unarmed, killed.
(7) Unidentified Iraqi #4,  "military aged," unarmed, killed.
(8) Unidentified Iraqi #5,  "military aged," unarmed, killed.

Assault on the Van.

(9) Saeed Chamgh, 40, Reuters photographer/driver, unarmed, killed.
(10) Saeed rescuer #1,  "military aged," unarmed, killed.
(11) Saeed rescuer #2,  "military aged," unarmed, killed
(12) Salah Mustasher Toman, 43, van driver, unarmed, killed
(13) Duah Salah Toman, 4, female van passenger, unarmed, wounded
(14) Sajad Mustasher Toman, 9, male van passenger, unarmed, wounded

Hellfire assault on the Triangular Building.

(15) Unidentified Iraqi #6, adult male, walking in front of Triangular Building, unarmed, presumed killed
(16) Unidentified Iraqi #7, adult male, seen entering Triangular Building with weapon, presumed killed
(17) Unidentified Iraqi #8, adult male, seen entering Triangular Building with weapon, presumed killed
(18) Unidentified Iraqi #9, adult male, seen entering Triangular Building, unarmed, presumed killed

Comments

The Iraq War Log for July 12, 2007 includes both the Apache cannon attack on the street corner and the van (at 1035) and the Apache Hellfire missile attack on the triangular building (at 1125). The war log states that seven "AIF" (anti-Iraq Force, whatever that means) were killed and two children wounded in the 1035 assault. This is clearly inaccurate. There were twelve, not seven, people killed. Ten of the killed people had no means for threatening US troops. Of those ten, two were Reuters journalists and three were Good Samaritans trying to rescue one of the journalists. Two of the killed had weapons, but never used them. The killing was clearly indiscriminate and the official record underreports the body count.. An important principle is illustrated: Because a report is Secret doesn't mean it's true.


[1] Wikileaks Iraq War Logs search engine at http://213.251.145.96/iraq/diarydig/  is useless. Time bracketing doesn't work, so you can't select logs for range of days.The search engine returns the first page of ten logs and expects you to go through hundreds more pages to find what you're looking for. But when you go to the second or third page, the search dies, giving you a blank page or a code 504 timeout. The fact that the search engine doesn't work indicates the Wikileaks staff is so overworked they don't have time to fix their software. Or don't care..