Subscribe
The Daily Grind Video
CLOSE

The case of ‘collateral murder,’ the WikiLeaks Web site today released harrowing until-now secret video of a U.S. Army Apache helicopter in Baghdad in 2007 repeatedly opening fire on a group of men that included a Reuter’s photographer and his driver. This is the most shocking footage to come out of Iraq. None of the members of the group were taking hostile action, contrary to the Pentagon’s initial cover story; they were milling about on a street corner. One man was evidently carrying a gun, though that was and is hardly an uncommon occurrence in Baghdad.  In the video, which Reuters has been asking to see since 2007, crew members can be heard celebrating their kills.

 ‘Oh yeah, look at those dead bastards,’ says one crewman after multiple rounds of 30mm cannon fire left nearly a dozen bodies littering the street.

A crewman begs for permission to open fire on the van and its occupants, even though it has done nothing but stop to help the wounded: ‘Come on, let us shoot!’