This is Bushmaster Seven, go ahead.
Roger. We have a black SUV-uh Bongo truck
picking up the bodies. Request permission to engage.
Fuck.
This is Bushmaster Seven, roger.
This is Bushmaster Seven, roger. Engage.
One-eight, engage.
Clear, come on!
Clear. Clear.
[Julian Assange]: Why do it?
Well there's two reasons. One, because it's fun to kill people
if you've been in that environment
removed from all the effects of killing people for a long time
It's a video game, you want to get a highscore.
The other is, they brag after a kill streak about how many people they killed.
They go back to base and go "Hey, killed thirteen today".
[Oh yeah, look at that right through the windshield. Ha!]
[Oh yeah look at those dead bastards]
[Nice]
[Narrator]: When the ground troops arrive they see that there are children in the car
[Well it's there fault for bringing kids to a battle - That's right]
After viewing the video hundreds of times, it became almost an obsession
to get the identity of the people there
We knew the identity of Namir Noor Elden and Samir Chmagh the Reuters employees
but for me it was important to establish the identity of the other people there
especially the children in the mini-van, we decided it was worthwhile to go there and interview them
[Narrator]: It turns out that the children survived the attack
Hrafnsson flies to Baghdad in search of more facts.
(on this corner in the Alamir district of Baghdad on July 12, 2007...)
[Narrator]: He traces the whereabouts of the children and
shows the helicopter film to the victim's family.
(He had children in the car, not weapons)
(He got out to help a wounded man. You could see that from the helicopter.)
I think we could fairly establish fairly well from the journalists point of view
that the reason why the mini-van was there was basically a coincidence
that the driver pulled up on the scene because he was driving his kids to tutorial
(My husband did nothing wrong when he tried to help an injured man.)
(He had the kids with him in the car!)
(For what crime did they shoot him and our innocent children?)
[Narrator]: On the fifth of April 2010, Wikileaks publishes the collateral murder film
the impact is no less that extraordinary.
Disturbing footage apparently showing civilians being killed by the US military in Iraq.
It was leaked from within the defence community to a website.
(The controversial video was published on WikiLeaks).
(WikiLeaks has been called a power factor in the new media landscape).
[Narrator]: By putting all their resources into the helicopter video,
WikiLeaks have managed to attract the attention of some of the biggest players in the news business
This is precisely what Assange needs to help him handle the rest of the leaked US material
[Julian Assange]: I had been looking at this release and studying it and understand how to
come up with a way to deal with such a tremendously large volume of material
that would actually not simply drown any one organisation
[Narrator]: Assange precedes to contact the New York Times, the Guardian and Der Spiegel
he manages to persuade the chief-editors of these globally respected papers to publish
his material in a coordinated fashion, with Assange pulling the strings.
[Julian Assange]: What is new is us enforcing cooperation between
competitive organisations which would otherwise be rivals.
To do the best by the story as opposed to simply
just doing the best by their own organisation.
[Narrator]: In late July 2010 the Afghanistan reports are published at the same time and day.
(One of the biggest leaks in military history has triggered outrage).
One of the biggest leaks in US military history has exposed several coverups
over the war in Afghanistan.
The real story of this material is that it's war.
It's one damn thing after another.
[Narrator]: The publication material is met with praise, as well as strong criticism.
The defence department demands that WikiLeaks returns immediately
all to the US government all versions of documents obtained
directly or indirectly from the Department of Defence databases or records
[Narrator]: For the first time WikiLeaks are now facing criticism that they're
finding hard to respond to. The material includes names of civilian Afghanis, putting
them at risk of being targetted by the Taliban.
The battlefield consequences of the release of these documents are
potentially severe, and dangerous.
Mr. Assange can say whatever he likes about the greater good
he thinks he and his source are doing, but the truth is they
might already have on their hands the blood of some young soldiers
or that of an Afghan family.