'Wikileaks reveals video showing US air crew shooting down Iraqi civilians'

perseus

perseus

Active member
Surprised there is no mention of this on these forums, perhaps I have missed it. It is all over the news here. Note the US military say the video is genuine and the correct rules of engagement were followed.

Guardian Story
Quote:
A secret video showing US air crew falsely claiming to have encountered a firefight in Baghdad and then laughing at the dead after launching an air strike that killed a dozen people, including two Iraqis working for Reuters news agency, was revealed by Wikileaks today
Video here at WikiLeaks

Before going off the rails here, perhaps I better get a few facts right. I'm not making any judgements yet.

What are the current rules of engagement in Iraq for US forces, to fire at any unauthorised person who appears to be carrying a weapon? What about those attempting to carry away the injured?

Where any weapons found on any of the dead & injured?

What sort of range would this helicopter be at in this case, surely it was audible to the crowd, so why were people standing around if they were carrying weapons.

Just a final comment, surely it should be technically possible to take an enlarged still photograph before engaging rather than a grainy video image so this may have resolved the problem.
 
Apparently the pilots of the AH-64 mistook the cameraman camera as a weapon, not a inconceivable error when you are at 500FT and are watching things through a close circuit TV.

I don't think the military will get in too much trouble for accident, not to sound unsympathetic to those that died but these things happen in war. There fact they tried to cover it up however...could get them into a big sticky mess.
 
perseus said:
Surprised there is no mention of this on these forums, perhaps I have missed it. It is all over the news here. Note the US military say the video is genuine and the correct rules of engagement were followed.
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Looks like authentic footage. And the sound recording indicates they were shooting at authorized targets. So, what's the problem?

It is all over the news where?


perseus said:
Guardian Story
Quote:
A secret video showing US air crew falsely claiming to have encountered a firefight in Baghdad and then laughing at the dead after launching an air strike that killed a dozen people, including two Iraqis working for Reuters news agency, was revealed by Wikileaks today
Video here at WikiLeaks
Click to expand...
In your "secret" video I see no indication of air crew members falsely claiming to have encountered a firefight. Also, do not see any verification of the two Iraqis working for Reuters. Names an arrows superimposed on the video do not supply proof of identity.

perseus said:
Before going off the rails here, perhaps I better get a few facts right. I'm not making any judgements yet.

What are the current rules of engagement in Iraq for US forces, to fire at any unauthorized person who appears to be carrying a weapon?

What about those attempting to carry away the injured?

Where any weapons found on any of the dead & injured?

What sort of range would this helicopter be at in this case, surely it was audible to the crowd, so why were people standing around if they were carrying weapons.

Just a final comment, surely it should be technically possible to take an enlarged still photograph before engaging rather than a grainy video image so this may have resolved the problem.
Click to expand...

Actually, if you or Reuters are going to claim any wrong doing on the part of the US Military. You should all ready have the information and not be asking on this forum. Our responses would not be considered "official".:D

Just a final comment. Surely the people on the ground could have paused and posed for pictures. As you pointed out, it was a "secret video" and was not intended for Academy Award consideration. If Hollywood had shot the video the quality would have been much better.

P. S. I forgot to donate.
 
Apparently it was a bad part of Baghdad during a bloody month.
If you see a fuzzy image of a bunch of guys congregating near a van with a long object, in a part of town where your troops have been getting f*ed up for the better part of the month, what conclusion would you draw?
I probably would have come to the same conclusion, that these men were hostile.
 
mmarsh said:
Apparently the pilots of the AH-64 mistook the cameraman camera as a weapon, not a inconceivable error when you are at 500FT and are watching things through a close circuit TV.

I don't think the military will get in too much trouble for accident, not to sound unsympathetic to those that died but these things happen in war. There fact they tried to cover it up however...could get them into a big sticky mess.
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10/10 IMO

Unfortunately accidents do sometimes occur, which is a great pity, but it does appear that all possible efforts were taken to avoid that possibility in this case

Had there have been an attempted whitewash, that would have been the first sign of probable guilt.
 
What are the current rules of engagement in Iraq for US forces, to fire at any unauthorised person who appears to be carrying a weapon? What about those attempting to carry away the injured?

Where any weapons found on any of the dead & injured?

What sort of range would this helicopter be at in this case, surely it was audible to the crowd, so why were people standing around if they were carrying weapons.
Click to expand...

Around 500ft for the range? seems quite incredulous that someone would stand around chatting carrying RPGs within 500ft of an Apache helicopter hovering nearby. The video looks grainy and there were a few seconds time lag between firing and impact, which suggests to me the range could be a mile or more.

Any idea on the other two questions? surely somone can provide a link to the ROE for this area, I have had a quick search.
 
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I realize this is war, but I fail to see the RPG, I fail to see the weapons, and these guys are supposed to be well trained in ID'ing those. Well, I saw nothing of the sort. If anything they should have called in the ground pounders.
The kids are clear in one of the videos. So much for skillful observation.

I do not feel this was an intentional fluck up, but they did try to cover it up.

I'm wondering how Reuters is handling this, though. What is their view on the videos?
 
Well it's difficult to judge without knowing the ROE which may be restricted, however there was clearly no identification of combatants in the van coming to the rescue and this looks decidedly dodgy

Does WikiLeaks Iraq Video Show Murder?


WikiLeaks obtained and recently released footage shot from an American helicopter showing soldiers firing into a crowd of Iraqis—an attack that killed two Reuters employees. The video quickly went viral and Andrew Sullivan now usefully rounds up a bunch of blogger reactions. James Fallows calls the video “the most damaging documentation of abuse since the Abu Ghraib prison-torture photos,” while Juan Cole says the soldiers shooting and killing men who tried to rescue one of the Reuters employees “may have been a war crime since the van was trying to pick up the wounded and it is illegal to fire on the wounded and those hors de combat.” Raffi Khatchadourian at The New Yorker writes that “The Rules of Engagement and the Law of Armed Combat do not permit combatants to shoot at people who are surrendering or who no longer pose a threat because of their injuries,” but notes that it’s still permissible for troops to fire on “positively identified” combatants providing aid to the wounded. At The Economist, R.M. at DiA asks, “But ask yourselves, would you have been able to distinguish between the journalists' cameras and the guns some of the other men were carrying? More importantly, did you see the man with the RPG? Did you see him poke around the corner and seem to aim it at the helicopter?”
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http://www.thedailybeast.com/cheat-sheet/item/does-wikileaks-iraq-video-show-murder/shocking/

Unless I am mistaken there was no attempt to do this in the case of the van?
 
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And let them live so they can live to fight another day?
Screw that.


From the reuters blog article you posted:

"Their perception of a threat, at that point, is that several men they see are carrying weapons. (Two of the men, the Reuters staff, are in fact carrying camera bags, but two or perhaps three others appear to be carrying assault rifles or an RPG.) The pilots are granted permission to engage at 3:55. They do not begin shooting immediately, not because they are unsure they are looking at enemy combatants, but because the men on the ground move behind a building."

Open fire.

Another
"The second essential point is the moment at 15:29 of the Wikileaks video, when someone, a pilot, gunner, or controller, says, "Well, it's their fault for bringing their kids into a battle." Another voice answers, "That's right." No. Nothing could be more wrong."

BS. Open fire.
 
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"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." quote Reuters

http://www.reuters.com/article/domesticNews/idUSTRE6344FW20100406

If this was a coverup the US Military did a poor job. Reuters was briefed on the incident July 25th, 2007 and the incident took place on July 12th, 2007.

So there was no coverup.
 
Yeah, if they cannot find the tape, it is probably because there are SO many like it that they have somehow lost it.
Not a good thing at all but yeah, I doubt anyone thought twice about this enough to warrant some kind of coverup.
 
The rules of engagement are here, although not well indexed, I have conducted a few quick searches but can't find anything useful

http://file.wikileaks.org/file/rules_of_engagement.pdf

If they can't find the 'tape', this doesn't reflect well on the military in either case. Either poor record keeping or a cover up. If this sort of incident doesn't require special study for identification and training purposes then it may be so commonplace it reveals a far more appalling situation.

However, based on normal procedures and visual aids it should be possible to tell if it is possible to distinguish between civilians and combatants at safe helicopter observing ranges. This would appear to be quite basic.

That many find it is quite satisfactory to fire at vague grainy targets of public gatherings and 'potential ambulances' is quite appalling (no-one mentioned that the actual video may be clearer) and signifies the moral depths some people have descended to.
 
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perseus said:
The rules of engagement are here, although not well indexed, I have conducted a few quick searches but can't find anything useful

http://file.wikileaks.org/file/rules_of_engagement.pdf

If they can't find the 'tape', this doesn't reflect well on the military in either case. Either poor record keeping or a cover up. If this sort of incident doesn't require special study for identification and training purposes then it may be so commonplace it reveals a far more appalling situation.
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Does not much matter that they can't find the tape. As stated in my previous post," Turner said the military had released documents to Reuters last year in response to the FOIA
So Reuters had the information along time before WikiLeaks obtained the "tape".
Did the person who supplied the tape to WikiLeaks steal the original and that is why the can't find the tape now?
perseus said:
However, based on normal procedures and visual aids it should be possible to tell if it is possible to distinguish between civilians and combatants at safe helicopter observing ranges. This would appear to be quite basic.
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Could you supply where you derived this from? What are the normal procedures? What is the "safe helicopter" observation range?

perseus said:
That many find it is quite satisfactory to fire at vague grainy targets of public gatherings and 'potential ambulances' is quite appalling (no-one mentioned that the actual video may be clearer) and signifies the moral depths some people have descended to.
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Many of us have not been able to derive from the grainy pictures a clear idea of what the helicopter crew saw. They were not all staring at a video monitor of what was going on. The were operating the helicopter and the "grainy images" we are being shown are from the gun camera and not what the crew actual saw.

I find it interesting that you to make such a condescending statement:
"That many find it is quite satisfactory to fire at vague grainy targets of public gatherings and 'potential ambulances' is quite appalling and signifies the moral depths some people have descended to." quote perseus

Are you flaming?

"(no-one mentioned that the actual video may be clearer)" quote perseus
I for one did not mention the actual video might be clearer because I assumed everyone knew the video was not what the helicopter crew saw.
They do not fly around with a video monitor strapped to their faces.:shoothea:
I believe at the beginning of the video it stated this was from the gun camera.:p
 
Chukpike said:
"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." quote Reuters

http://www.reuters.com/article/domesticNews/idUSTRE6344FW20100406

If this was a coverup the US Military did a poor job. Reuters was briefed on the incident July 25th, 2007 and the incident took place on July 12th, 2007.

So there was no coverup.
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You are quite obvioulsly not aware of PAO procedures:

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.
Click to expand...

Official reactions time line:

July 12th, 2007 New York Times reports that two Iraqi journalists were killed in a militia clash with U.S. forces.

July 13th, 2007: Press statement from public affairs office in camp Victory reports on the event. "There is no question that Coalition Forces were clearly engaged in combat operations against a hostile force," said Lt. Col Scott Bleichwehl, spokesperson and public affairs officer for MND-B.

July 13th, 2007 Reuters blog posts an entry on the killings of Namir Noor-Eldeen and Saeed Chmagh. Namir was the 109th journalist to be killed in Iraq since the invasion in 2003, and Saeed the 40th member of support staff.

July 16th, 2007 Reuters seeks U.S. probe into the killings of their staff. "Our preliminary investigation raises real questions about whether there was fighting at the time the two men were killed," said David Schlesinger, editor-in-chief of Reuters. Specifically, Reuters wanted an explanation of why the two cameras were confiscated, access to any cameras onboard the Apache helicopters that were involved in the incident, access to any voice communications between the helicopter crews and U.S. ground forces and access to reports from the unit involved in the incident, in particular a log of any weapons taken from the scene.

July 16th, 2007: Counterpunch reports that "The US military says US and Iraqi forces engaged "a hostile force" and, after coming under fire, called for air support that killed nine insurgents and two civilians. The police and witnesses tell a different story. A preliminary police report from al-Rashad police station said Mr Noor-Eldeen and Mr Chmagh were killed along with nine others by a "random American bombardment." One witness, Karim Shindakh, said: "The aircraft began striking randomly and people were wounded. A Kia [mini-van] arrived to take them away. They hit the Kia and killed ... the two journalists."

March 2008 Reuters opens website "Bearing Witness" dedicated to the memory of the Reuters journalists that have been killed in Iraq during the war: Taras Protsyuk (2003); Mazen Dana (2003); Dhia Najim (2003); Waleed Khaled (2005); Saeed Chmagh (2007); Namir Noor-Eldeen (2007); and an anonymous Reuters journalist who was killed in 2007.

July 25th, 2008 Reuters posts memorial article. In it they mention that "Reuters News is seeking video footage from the U.S. military and other materials relating to the killing of Noor-Eldeen and Chmagh. The footage was taken by cameras on board the U.S. helicopters involved in the incident, in which nine other people were killed. The U.S. military said last week it is still processing the request"
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Rattler
 
rattler said:
You are quite obviously not aware of PAO procedures:
Rattler
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I supplied a statement from a article dated Monday April 5, 2010 from the Reuters web site where it states:

"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"Reporting by David Alexander and Phillip Stewart.

http://www.reuters.com/article/domesticNews/idUSTRE6344FW20100406

Your profile says you sometimes work as a photo journalist. Tell me would you use as a source, organizations that were directly involved, or do you prefer to use second hand information?

You can see www.reuters.com in the above link. You could also search Reuters site for more direct information.
Also as a journalists you know that you supplied an official time line but did not supply your source.
1. As a journalist it would seem you have plagiarized others materials, as you supplied no byline or who your official source is.

With out links to where you obtained your statements I will have to except the information from Reuters. Although there does not seem to be any conflicts between the Reuters statements I quoted and the information you supplied.
 
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