Collateral Murder

 "Light em all up!"

"We got one guy crawling around down there, but uh, you know, we got, definitely got something. We are shooting some more."

"Oh yeah, look at those dead bastards. Nice shoot'n"

On the morning of July 12, 2007, two Apache helicopters using 30mm cannon fire shot and killed about a dozen people in the Iraqi suburb of New Baghdad. Two children were wounded. 

The United States military initially claimed that all the dead were "anti-Iraqi forces" or "insurgents". Further, they claimed that the victims died in a battle that took place between U.S. forces and insurgents. A direct quote from the Lieutenant and spokesman for the U.S. Forces in Baghdad claimed this to be true. 

Reuters demanded an investigation into the murders. U.S. military authorities concluded that the actions of the soldiers and pilots involved were in accordance with the Law of Armed Conflict and their rules of engagement. 

In August of 2007, Reuters used the Freedom of Information Act to request a copy of the video evidence taken from the primary helicopter involved in the attack. The video had never been released until April of 2010. 

WikiLeaks Reveal

WikiLeaks has obtained and decrypted this previously unreleased video footage from a U.S. Apache helicopter in 2007. 

The haunting video revealed Reuters journalist Namir Noor-Eldeen, driver Saeed Chmagh, and several other innocent men as the Apache shoots to kill in a public square in Eastern Baghdad, claimed to be "insurgents". After the initial engagement, an unarmed group of adults and children arrive in a minivan and attempt to transport and save the wounded. They are, then, fired upon as well. The official statement on this incident initially claimed that the U.S. military did not know how the deaths occurred. 

WikiLeaks released this video with transcripts and a package of supporting documents on April 5, 2010 on www.collateralmurder.com.

WikiLeaks released this video with the pure intention of continuing their mission, existing purely to help viewers reveal vital information to the world safely. 

The Innocents

The stories of most of the killed were unknown, and will never be now. Two Reuters news employees, however, Saeed Chamagh and Namir Noor-Eldeen were known, and like the others, will never be forgotten.

Saeed Chamagh was a respected Reuters driver and assistant. He was 40 years old when he died, leaving his wife and their four children to grieve.

Namir Noor-Eldeen was only 22 years old when he was murdered. He came from a family of journalists and had his whole life ahead of him. At such a young age, he was already considered one of the best war photographers in Iraq. 

"I can still see Namir walking out of the Reuters compound with his cameras slung over his shoulders laughing with Saeed on his way to his last assignment" said Steve Crisp, the Reuters Middle East Photo Editor. His work, his life, his cameras slung over his shoulders, incredibly mistaken from weapons took his life. 

Haunting Words

Eight minutes after the attack, ground troops arrived on the scene. They pulled up in their tanks, but couldn't drive any further onto the scene because there were too many bodies and therefore "would be driving over bodies". 

One is heard saying "I think I just drove over a body", where another laughs. 

The soldiers found two wounded children in the minivan they begged their commanders to engage fire at. The treating solider eventually decided to evacuate the children to a medical center at the nearby U.S. base of Rustamiyah, until higher commanders ordered that the children be handed over to Iraqi police and taken to a Iraqi hospital. 

This decision was made knowing there was no time to waste, and knowing there were poorer standards of medical treatment at stake for the lives of two innocent children.