Leaked video shows US military killing of two Iraqi journalists

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Leaked video shows US military killing of two Iraqi journalists
By Patrick O’Connor
7 April 2010

Leaked US military helicopter video footage, published on the
Wikileaks website on Monday, has shed light on the circumstances of
the killing of two Iraqi journalists in July 2007. Reuters’
photographer Namir Noor-Eldeen and his assistant Saeed Chmagh were
shot dead while on assignment in eastern Baghdad. They were among
10–15 Iraqis killed and badly wounded in the incident, including two
young children and other civilians targeted as they attempted to
provide assistance to those first attacked. The video footage, with
accompanying radio messages among the US troops involved, is further
evidence of the criminal character of the US-led invasion and
occupation of Iraq.

The US military previously attempted to cover up the incident,
challenging Freedom of Information requests made by Reuters. The news
agency’s demand for an independent investigation was also rejected. An
internal military investigation conducted in 2007 exonerated the
troops involved in the incident, concluding that the force used was
justified and within the rules of engagement.

The leaked video footage was recorded by at least one Apache
helicopter. Media outlets have reported that US military officials
have acknowledged that the material is genuine. According to
Wikileaks, several military whistleblowers provided the website with
encrypted video, which its staff was subsequently able to decrypt. The
leak will no doubt further fuel military hostility toward Wikileaks. A
March 2008 classified Pentagon report (which was itself leaked to the
website) declared that Wikileaks posed a security threat due to
published information potentially being of use to “foreign
intelligence and security services, foreign military forces, foreign
insurgents, and foreign terrorist groups”.

On July 12, 2007, US troops and resistance fighters clashed in
Baghdad. Reuters’ employees Noor-Eldeen and Chmagh were investigating
when they were seen by US helicopter gunships among a group of about a
dozen men, one or two of whom appeared to be carrying rifles. The
occupying forces made no attempt to verify whether the men were
civilians carrying legally-owned weapons—Iraqi households are allowed
to have one registered AK-47 rifle—or establish the identities of the
other unarmed men. After radioing a report to their superiors, US
gunners received permission to kill everyone in the group.

The incident appeared to be one of several indiscriminate attacks.
Ahmad Sahib, an Agence France-Presse photographer who was a few blocks
away, has reported: “It looked like the American helicopters were
firing against any gathering in the area, because when I got out of my
car and started taking pictures, people gathered and an American
helicopter fired a few rounds, but they hit the houses nearby and we
ran for cover.”

Just before the Reuters’ journalists and the men they were speaking
with were shot, the Apache gunners apparently mistook Namir
Noor-Eldeen’s camera, which was slung over his shoulder, for a rocket
propelled grenade launcher (RPG). After the first burst of gunfire,
involving about 300 rounds, the troops congratulate each other: “Oh,
yeah, look at those dead bastards... Nice... Good shoot... Thank you.”

The video footage then zooms in on Saeed Chmagh, who was badly wounded
and slowly crawling to seek assistance. One soldier in the Apache
says, “Come on, buddy... All you gotta do is pick up a weapon,” hoping
to be able to kill him under military rules of engagement.

Shortly after this, a van stops in the area and unarmed Iraqis get out
to help Chmagh and the other wounded, picking them up and trying to
move them into their vehicle. It was later reported that the Iraqi
driver of the van was a local man who had been taking his children to
a tutoring session. After reporting that people were “picking up the
bodies,” the Apache gunners received permission to “engage”. Another
sustained burst of gunfire followed, killing Chmagh, a man trying to
help him, and seriously wounding a boy and girl sitting in the front
seat of the vehicle.

When US troops on the ground discover the children, the helicopter
gunners respond with indifference. “Well it’s their fault for bringing
their kids into a battle,” one says. Another replies: “That’s right.”

After initially ordering the children to be evacuated to a US military
hospital for emergency treatment, the troops on the ground were told
to hand them over to Iraqi police who were then to take them to a
Baghdad hospital. Despite suffering chest and arm bullet wounds, both
children survived. Their mother, however, has reportedly received no
compensation for the death of her husband or ongoing medical expenses
for her children.

After the evacuation of the wounded at the scene of the massacre, one
of the troops laughs as he sees a US tank drive over one of the bodies
of those initially killed: “I think they just drove over a body... Hey
hey! Yeah! ... Maybe it was just a visual illusion, but it looked like
it... Well, they’re dead, so...”

Towards the end of the unabridged video footage, the Apaches fire
three Hellfire missiles into an apartment complex after reporting that
gunfire had been fired from there. Julian Assange, Wikileaks
co-founder, told Democracy Now!: “We have fresh evidence from Baghdad
that there were three families living in that apartment complex, many
of whom were killed, including women. And we sent a team down there to
collect that evidence... Innocent bystanders walking down the street
are also killed in that attack.”

The footage provides a rare first hand glimpse of the military’s
recurring war crimes committed in the aftermath of the 2003 invasion.
Consistent with all colonial-style wars of occupation, US troops are
brutalised, desensitised to violence, and encouraged to regard the
local population with racist indifference and hostility.

The US ruling elite regarded the invasion as a means of utilising its
military might to take control over a large part of the Middle East’s
critical energy resources, thereby gaining an advantage over rival
powers in Europe and Asia. From this decision to wage a war of
aggression—what was defined by the Nuremberg tribunals as “the supreme
international crime”—has followed innumerable atrocities leading to
the deaths of an estimated one million Iraqis. The images depicted in
the video footage are typical of what was carried out on a daily basis
in Iraq and what is now being inflicted on the people of Afghanistan
and in the border regions of Pakistan under President Barack Obama’s
offensive.

The Iraqi Journalists Union yesterday demanded a criminal
investigation into the killing of the Reuters’ employees. “This is
another crime added to the crimes of the US forces against Iraqi
journalists and civilians,” union leader Mouyyad al-Lami said. “I call
upon the government to take a firm stance against the criminals who
killed the journalists.”

According to Reporters Without Borders, 221 journalists and media
assistants have been killed in Iraq since the 2003 invasion. In many
cases there is overwhelming evidence of the US forces deliberately
targeting journalists. It does not appear that this was the case in
the 2007 killings of the two Reuters’ reporters.

However, senior US military figures subsequently used the incident to
warn journalists against attempting to cover the Iraq war
independently of the occupying forces’ authority. Responding to
questions about Noor-Eldeen and Chmagh’s deaths, Pentagon spokesman
Bryan Whitman last year declared: “We think the safest way to cover
these operations is to be embedded with US forces.”

http://www.youtube.com/v/5rXPrfnU3G0

http://wsws.org/articles/2010/apr2010/iraq-a07.shtml

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