Coordinates	28°36′36″N77°13′48″N
conflict	July 12, 2007 Baghdad airstrike
video	Collateral Murder
partof	Post-invasion Iraq
date	July 12, 2007
place	New Baghdad, Baghdad, Iraq
casualties3	Press reports of number killed vary from 12 to "over 18". 2 children were wounded. }}

The July 12, 2007 Baghdad airstrikes were a series of air-to-ground attacks conducted by a team of two United States Army AH-64 Apache helicopters in Al-Amin al-Thaniyah, in the district of New Baghdad in Baghdad, during the Iraq War.

In the first strike "Crazyhorse 1/8" directed 30mm cannon fire at a group of nine to eleven men, one had an AK-47 and another an RPG-7; most were unarmed; two were war correspondents for Reuters; Saeed Chmagh and Namir Noor-Eldeen, whose cameras were mistaken for weapons. Eight men were killed, including Noor-Eldeen. Chmagh was wounded.

The second airstrike using 30 mm fire was directed at Chmagh and two other unarmed men and their unmarked van as they were attempting to help Chamgh into the van. Two children inside the van were wounded, three more men were killed, including Chmagh.

In a third airstrike the "Bush" helicopter team fired three AGM-114 Hellfire missiles to destroy a building after they had observed men enter, some of whom appeared to be armed.

The attacks received worldwide coverage following the release of 39 minutes of classified cockpit gunsight footage in 2010. Reuters had unsuccessfully requested the footage under the Freedom of Information Act in 2007. The footage was acquired from an undisclosed source in 2009 by the Internet leak website WikiLeaks, which released a shorter, edited version on April 5, 2010, under the name ''Collateral Murder''. Recorded from the gunsight Target Acquisition and Designation System of one of the attacking helicopters, the video shows the three incidents and the radio chatter between the aircrews and ground units involved. An anonymous US military official confirmed the authenticity of the footage.

The Air Weapons Team (AWT) of two Apache AH-64s (part of the 1st Cavalry Division) had been requested by the Army's 2–16 Infantry Battalion, under the command of Lieutenant Colonel Ralph Kauzlarich, before July 12 to support Operation Ilaaj. Tasked to conduct escort, armed reconnaissance patrols, counter-IED and counter-mortar operations, the two helicopters left Camp Taji at 9.24am. They arrived on station in New Baghdad at 9.53am, where, according to the official report, sporadic attacks on coalition forces continued.

Incidents

Attack on personnel

On the morning of July 12, 2007, the crews of two United States Army AH-64 Apache helicopters observed a gathering of men near an open air section of Baghdad from a distance up to 800 meters away. The crews estimated that group was made up of twenty men. This group included two members of staff from the Reuters news service, Namir Noor-Eldeen and Saeed Chmagh who were not identified as journalists. The helicopter crews mistook the photographic equipment carried by Chmagh and Noor-eldeen for weapons.

A crew member reported seeing "five to six individuals with AK-47s" and requested authorization to engage. The men then became obscured behind a building. Once some men became visible again, both helicopters strafed a group of around ten men with 30 mm rounds. and upon receiving permission opened fire on the van and its occupants. Two children sitting in the front seat were wounded but survived. Chmagh was killed along with the father of the children.

Attack on a building

There is a period of 20 minutes not included on the leaked tape. According to the internal legal review, the helicopters engaged a group of armed insurgents, and that some were seen entering a nearby building.

As the tape resumes, two men holding objects are seen walking. They split up and the footage focuses on one who appears to be armed. He walks into a building, after which the helicopter crew reports that "there's at least six individuals in that building with weapons". They request permission to fire a missile at the building, describing it at first as "abandoned" and then as "under construction". The ground controller responds, "If you've PIDed the individuals in the building with weapons, go ahead and engage the building". The gunner then takes a few moments to ready a Hellfire missile, during which two more seemingly unarmed men are seen entering the building. One member notices this saying, "Got more individuals in there". As the gunner prepares to fire the first missile, a man is seen walking along the street in front of the building. The missile is fired and hits the building in a large explosion through which the man can no longer be seen. Afterwards, Crazyhorse 1/8 asks for permission to fire another Hellfire a few times. Once granted, they take a few moments to ready another missile, during which several people are seen walking around the debris from the first missile.

Commentary

WikiLeaks said in the preface to one of their videos of the incident that "some of the men appear to have been armed [although] the behavior of nearly everyone was relaxed" in the introductory text of the shorter video. Julian Assange said “permission to engage was given before the word ‘RPG’ was ever used”. Politifact states: "When Assange points out in the context of justifying the title "Collateral Murder" that the word "RPG" was not used until after the permission to engage was given, he leaves the impression that the soldiers were given the okay to open fire on a group of unarmed men, or men believed to be unarmed. But the video and accompanying audio make clear that the soldiers in the helicopter said they spotted "weapons" among those in the group. -- later identified by an army investigator as an AK-47, RPG rounds and 2 RPG launchers, one of which was loaded. Assange later acknowledged "Based upon visual evidence I suspect there probably were AKs and an RPG, but I'm not sure that means anything," Assange stated that initial attempts to evacuate the wounded children to a nearby US military hospital were blocked by US military command. The legal review carried out by the US Army states that the two children were evacuated to the 28th Combat Support Hospital via Forward Operating Base Loyalty, then transferred to an Iraqi medical facility the next day.

Fox News said that of the attack “WikiLeaks appears to have done selective editing that tells only half the story. For instance, the Web site takes special care to slow down the video and identify the two photographers and the cameras they are carrying.... The Web site does not slow down the video to show that at least one man in that group was carrying a rocket-propelled grenade launcher, a clearly visible weapon that runs nearly two-thirds the length of his body. WikiLeaks also does not point out that at least one man was carrying an AK-47 assault rifle. He is seen swinging the weapon below his waist while standing next to the man holding the RPG."

'The Guardian stated “It is unclear if some of the men are armed but Noor-Eldeen can be seen with a camera”. Glenn Greenwald of Salon.com said that “the vast majority of the men were clearly unarmed”. Greenwald called the second airstrike a "plainly unjustified killing of a group of unarmed men carrying away an unarmed, seriously wounded man to safety". The Australian newspaper said the group was displaying “no obvious hostile action”.

In ''The Independent'' on April 8, 2010, human rights activist Joan Smith asserts that the engagements were as a game to the helicopter crew. She writes that the co-pilot urged a dying, unarmed journalist to pick up a weapon as he tried to crawl to safety; and claims that the footage shows "...the Apache crew opening fire on civilians...". When the crew were informed that a child had been injured by their attack, one commented "Well, it's their fault for bringing kids into a battle". Smith describes this reaction as inhuman. She draws parallels with soldiers who suffered post-traumatic stress disorder in earlier wars. She continues "...the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan are inflicting huge psychological damage on combatants". In refusing to recognise this, the US military fails both its own soldiers and their "victims". Command structures need to be in place to identify "combatants with serious psychological problems", she concludes.

On Democracy Now!, Josh Stieber, a conscientious objector who was at the time assigned to Bravo Company 2–16, said that although it's natural to "judge or criticize the soldiers", in fact "this is how [they] were trained to act". He said that the debate should be re-framed, that it is more appropriate to ask "questions of the larger system" that teaches "doing these things is in the best interests of my own country".

Ethan McCord, A soldier who arrived on the scene after the attack stated on an interview for the Australian Broadcasting Corporation:

}}

On June 7, 2010, ''The New Yorker'' reported that Kristinn Hrafnsson, an investigative reporter who worked on the Collateral Murder video and has since become a spokesman for WikiLeaks, claimed to have found the owner of the building who said that three families had been living in the there and seven residents had died, including his wife and daughter. The report stated that the helicopter crew did not know how many people were in the building when they destroyed it with missiles, and that "there is evidence that unarmed people have both entered and are nearby". It concludes that an investigating officer would want to know how the armed men were identified as combatants from the earlier engagement; would question the nature of the collateral-damage estimate carried out by the crew before the missiles were launched; and would wish to determine whether a missile attack was a proportionate response to the threat.

A Pentagon spokesman insisted the video did not contradict the official finding that the helicopters' crew acted within the rules of engagement and said that the inquiry backed the assessment that the group of men was carrying a rocket-propelled grenade (RPG).

2007–2009 coverage

On the day of the attack the US military reported that the two journalists were killed along with "nine insurgents", and that the helicopter engagement was related to a US troop raid force that had been attacked by small-arms fire and RPGs. US forces spokesman Lieutenant Colonel Scott Bleichwehl later stated: "There is no question that coalition forces were clearly engaged in combat operations against a hostile force".

''The Washington Post'' reported it was unclear whether the journalists were killed by U.S. fire or by shooting from the targeted Iraqis. Captain James Hall stated they couldn't drive in Bradleys in fear of running over bodies. Major Brent Cummings claimed they took great pains to prevent the loss of innocent civilian lives.

Reuters reported that it could locate no witnesses who had seen gunmen in the immediate area. Reuters also stated that local police described the attack as "random American bombardment". Reuters subsequently asked the US military to probe the deaths. They asked for an explanation of the confiscation of the journalists' two cameras, access to the on-board footage and voice communications from the helicopters involved, and access to the reports of the units involved in the incident, particularly logs of weapons taken from the scene.

The Pentagon blocked an attempt by Reuters to obtain the gunsight footage of the incident through the Freedom of Information Act.

An internal legal review by staff at Forward Operating Base Loyalty in Iraq during July 2007 stated that the helicopters had attacked a number of armed insurgents within the rules of engagement, and that in an apparent case of collateral damage two reporters working for Reuters had also been killed. The review would not be released in full until 2010, after the video of the incident had been released by WikiLeaks.

''Washington Post'' reporter David Finkel, who at the time was embedded with Bravo Company 2–16 Infantry, later reported the day in his book, ''The Good Soldiers''.

2010 coverage

Leaked video footage

Early in 2010, the internet leak site WikiLeaks made a public request for assistance in decrypting a video it described as "US bomb strikes on civilians", specifically requesting access to supercomputer time. The site stated on its Twitter account on January 8, 2010, that it had a copy of gunsight footage of the incidents, and announced that it would release it by March 21. The footage was released during an April 5 press conference at the National Press Club, and subsequently under a designated website titled "Collateral Murder". WikiLeaks stated that the footage shows the "murder of Iraqi civilians and two Reuters journalists". WikiLeaks identified the leak's source as "a number of military whistleblowers". Speaking to Reuters on condition of anonymity, a U.S. Defense official confirmed the authenticity of the leaked audio and video.}}

Regarding the title Toby Harnden in the ''London Telegraph'' wrote: "Oddly enough, it was Stephen Colbert, ostensibly a comedian, who skewered him":

According to Harden "Assange admitted that he was seeking to manipulate and create "maximum political impact." Dan Kennedy wrote in The Guardian "Even the comedian Stephen Colbert, in an interview with Assange, dropped his rightwing-blowhard persona momentarily to make a serious point, calling the edited version "emotional manipulation".

Bill Keller of the ''New York Times'' wrote "But in its zeal to make the video a work of antiwar propaganda, WikiLeaks also released a version that didn’t call attention to an Iraqi who was toting a rocket-propelled grenade and packaged the manipulated version under the tendentious rubric ''Collateral Murder''. The New York Times reported that "Critics contend that the shorter video was misleading because it did not make clear that the attacks took place amid clashes in the neighborhood and that one of the men was carrying a rocket-propelled grenade."

Reactions to the video footage

Capt. Jack Hanzlik, a spokesman for U.S. Central Command stated that the airstrike video "gives you a limited perspective, [it] only tells you a portion of the activity that was happening that day. Just from watching that video, people cannot understand the complex battles that occurred. You are seeing only a very narrow picture of the events." Hanzlik said images gathered during a military investigation of the incident show multiple weapons around the dead bodies in the courtyard, including at least three RPGs. "Our forces were engaged in combat all that day with individuals that fit the description of the men in that video. Their age, their weapons, and the fact that they were within the distance of the forces that had been engaged made it apparent these guys were potentially a threat." Also, WikiLeaks "does not point out that at least one man was carrying an AK-47 assault rifle. He is seen swinging the weapon below his waist while standing next to the man holding the RPG". The Wikileaks edited video did not add arrows pointing to these men, nor did they label them, as was done with the men carrying cameras. WikiLeaks did, in fact, state "some of the men appear to have been armed [although] the behavior of nearly everyone was relaxed" in the introductory text of the shorter video. In an interview with Fox News Assange acknowledged that "it's likely some of the individuals seen in the video were carrying weapons". He explained, "based upon visual evidence I suspect there probably were AKs and an RPG, but I'm not sure that means anything ... Nearly every Iraqi household has a rifle or an AK. Those guys could have just been protecting their area". Fox News later stated that "although it could be argued AK-47 rifles are common household items, RPGs are not". A draft version of the video WikiLeaks produced made reference to the AK-47s and RPGs, but WikiLeaks said that ultimately they became unsure about the RPG, believing the long object could have been a camera tripod, so they decided not to point it out in the released version.

US Defense Secretary Robert Gates criticised WikiLeaks for releasing the video without providing any context. "These people can put out anything they want, and they're never held accountable for it. There's no before and there's no after". Gates remarked that the video provides the public a view of warfare "as seen through a soda straw." Gates stated: "They're in a combat situation. The video doesn't show the broader picture of the firing that was going on at American troops. It's obviously a hard thing to see. It's painful to see, especially when you learn after the fact what was going on. But you -- you talked about the fog of war. These people were operating in split second situations." }}

Subsequent mainstream media coverage

Publicity of the incident ballooned following the release of the footage. The event was covered by Al Jazeera English, RT and Reuters, WikiLeaks co-founder Julian Assange said that Finkel had seen the video and that at least one individual at the offices of the ''Washington Post'' had a copy of the video for at least a year, prior to its release by WikiLeaks. The ''Washington Post'' has denied having any copy of the unedited video prior to WikiLeaks release of their edited version, and Finkel (who was on book leave from the Washington Post at the time) has said that he has never made any statement about his sources for the story, except that it was "sourced [...] from unclassified information and my presence in the area that day".

Interviews with Ethan McCord

Ethan McCord, the soldier seen in the video carrying the injured boy, recalled in an interview on ''The Marc Steiner Show'' that on arrival at the scene, "The first thing I did was run up to the van...". After attending the girl's wounds and handing her to a medic, he was ordered to take position on roof but he returned to the van to find the boy moved his hand. "I grabbed him and ran to the Bradley myself". He claims he "got yelled at" for not "pulling security". "The first thing I thought of ... was my children at home". He later sought help for psychological trauma, but was then ridiculed by his NCO and told that if he were to go to the mental health officer, "there would be repercussions".

McCord further discussed his experience in the battle in an interview with the World Socialist Web Site on April 28th, 2010. In this interview, he reports the above "repercussions" could include being labeled as a "malingerer," or one who exaggerates incapacity to avoid work or duty. As malingering is a crime under U.S. military law, McCord infers that refusing to "get the sand out of [his] vagina" or to "suck it up and be a soldier" could result in criminal prosecution. McCord recounts the airstrike as an "everyday" military proceeding in Iraq.

When interviewed by Wired, McCord was asked if he supported Wikileaks in releasing the video. McCord said: "When it was first released I don’t think it was done in the best manner that it could have been. They were stating that these people had no weapons whatsoever, that they were just carrying cameras. In the video, you can clearly see that they did have weapons … to the trained eye." And: “I don’t say that Wikileaks did a bad thing, because they didn’t…. I think it is good that they’re putting this stuff out there. I don’t think that people really want to see this, though, because this is war…. It’s very disturbing."

Arrest of Bradley Manning

In May 2010, a 22-year-old American Army intelligence analyst named Bradley Manning was arrested after telling Adrian Lamo he had leaked the airstrike video, along with a video of another airstrike and around 260 000 diplomatic cables, to WikiLeaks. As of June 7, Manning had not yet been formally charged. Manning said that the diplomatic documents expose "almost criminal political back dealings" and that they explain "how the first world exploits the third, in detail". WikiLeaks said "allegations in Wired that we have been sent 260,000 classified US embassy cables are, as far as we can tell, incorrect". WikiLeaks have said that they are unable as yet to confirm whether or not Manning was actually the source of the video, stating "we never collect personal information on our sources", but saying also that "if Brad Manning [is the] whistleblower then, without doubt, he's a national hero" and "we have taken steps to arrange for his protection and legal defence".

As of April 2011 he has been charged with 34 separate counts, including 4 counts that directly mention a "2007 July 12 Baghdad video". The counts that mention the video include violation of (the McCarran Internal Security Act of 1950 modification of the Espionage Act of 1917), as well as (the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act of 1986), and Army Regulation 25-2 Paragraph 4-6(k).

Legality of the attacks

In an June 7 article in ''The New Yorker'', Raffi Khatchadourian addressed several issues involved in determining the legality of the attacks, including "proportionality", "positive identification" ("reasonable certainty" that the target has hostile intent), and "the treatment of casualties during an ongoing military operation". Mark Taylor, an expert on international law and a director at the Fafo Institute for International Studies in Norway, has stated that there is "a case to be made that a war crime may have been committed". An article in Gawker stated that Reuters reporter Luke Baker had written an article claiming that the airstrikes may have been war crimes, but the editor in chief of Reuters declined to run the story.

Military legal review

On April 5, 2010, the same day as the release of the video footage by WikiLeaks, the United States Central Command, which oversees the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, released a collection of documents including two investigative reports. Pentagon officials told the Reuters news agency that US military lawyers were reviewing the video and could reopen an investigation into the incident, but said more recently that there are no plans to reopen the investigation.

The report states that at least two members of the group which were first fired on were armed, that two RPGs and one AKM or AK-47 rifle could be seen in the helicopter video, and that these weapons were picked up by the follow-up U.S. ground troops. The report concludes that the Reuters employees were in the company of armed insurgents. It also states that "The cameras could easily be mistaken for slung AK-47 or AKM rifles, especially since neither cameraman is wearing anything that identifies him as media or press". The report recommends encouraging journalists in Iraq to wear special vests to identify themselves, and to keep the U.S. military updated about their whereabouts. Reporters "furtive attempts to photograph the Coalition Ground Forces made them appear as hostile combatants"

Incident according to the report

Attack on personnel and a van per US army report account

According to the U.S. Army investigation report released by the United States Central Command, the engagement started at 10:20 Iraqi local time and ended at 10:41. A unit from Bravo Company 2–16 was within 100 meters of the individuals that were fired upon with 30mm AH-64 Apache cannons. The company was charged with clearing their sector of any small armed forces, and had been under fire from small arms and rocket-propelled grenades (RPGs). The company was supported by two Apache helicopters from the 1st Cavalry Division's Aviation Brigade, callsigns "Crazyhorse 1/8" and "Crazyhorse 1/9". Two men were identified by Crazyhorse 1/8 as carrying an RPG launcher and an AKM or AK-47. When the cameraman on the ground aimed his camera in the direction of Bravo Company 2–16, a pilot remarked "He's getting ready to fire". An Apache maneuvered around a building to get a clear field of fire and shot all nine men, killing eight. A van then arrived and attempted to load a wounded man. After getting permission to fire, the Apache crew fired on the van. When Bravo Company arrived at the scene, they reported finding two RPGs and an AK-47 or AKM. They also found two Canon EOS digital cameras with telephoto lenses. Two children were found in the van, a four year old girl with gunshot wounds and embedded windscreen glass wounds and an eight year old boy with multiple wounds, including brain damage arising from shrapnel damage to his right temporal lobe. Both children were evacuated to the 28th Combat Support Hospital via Forward Operating Base Loyalty, then transferred to an Iraqi medical facility the next day. This account of first bringing the wounded children to the Combat Support Hospital appears to be contradicted by orders by radio that form part of the video record, which forbids it and orders that the children be handed over to local police.

While the Air Weapons Team was providing support at the first engagement area they were informed by ground troops that they were receiving small arms fire from the south/southwest. The crew for Crazyhorse 1/8 then located multiple individuals with weapons about 400 meters east of coalition forces and was given clearance to engage the targets. However, the co-pilot/gunner then observed a child and some other non-combatants in the vicinity of the individuals and decided to hold off on the engagement until the non-combatants were clear. After the non-combatants were clear Crazyhorse 1/8 engaged the targets. The crew for Crazyhorse 1/9 could not engage due to target obfuscation from buildings and dust.

The team observed several individuals from this group, some possibly wounded, run into a large multistory building. The co-pilot/gunner for Crazyhorse 1/9 spotted three individuals near this building get into a red SUV and drive away to the west. For about 5 to 10 minutes the team diverted its attention to this vehicle. However, according to the co-pilot for Crazyhorse 1/8 they failed to positively identify the occupants as combatants and returned to the previous engagement area.

Attack on building per US army report account

The events between the attack on the van and the attack on the building (approximately 30 minutes) were not captured on the leaked video footage. The military did not include the attack on the building in their report.

Assange responded to the investigation report released by the Army in an interview with Democracy Now!, stating that "the tone and language is all about trying to find an excuse for the activity... It’s very clear that that is the approach, to try and find any mechanism to excuse the behavior, and that is what ended up happening". Assange also stated that the building attacked by missiles was not abandoned, and that WikiLeaks had evidence that "there were three families living in that apartment complex, many of whom were killed, including women".

Awards

In June 2011 the Federation of German Scientists (VDW) awarded the "Whistleblower Award" to the person who made the video "Collateral Murder" public via Wikileaks.

References

External links

Collateral Murder – WikiLeaks-owned alternate site, includes full footage of the video as originally released

USA Collateral Murder in Iraq (39m 13s) (616 MB), ''The Pirate Bay''

Russia Today via You tube">WikiLeaks editor on Apache combat video: No excuse for US killing civilians - April 2010. Russia Today via You tube

Families of Victims of 2007 US Helicopter Killing React to Leaked Video – video report by ''Democracy Now!''

Ethan McCord Describes Emotional Toll of Witnessing Killings – video interview by ''Democracy Now!''

'Collateral Murder' in Baghdad Anything But, a Rebuttal by Bill Roggio

Australian Broadcasting Corporation">"Julian Assange Is Not Your Friend" from the Australian Broadcasting Corporation

Category:Conflicts in 2007 Category:2007 in Iraq Category:2007 in military history Category:Friendly fire incidents Category:Photojournalism controversies Category:Journalists killed while covering the Iraq War Category:WikiLeaks Category:Reuters Category:2010s in media Category:2010 in military history Category:Iraq War Category:Airstrikes Category:War correspondents

de:Luftangriffe in Bagdad vom 12. Juli 2007 et:2007. aasta 12. juuli õhurünnak Bagdadis es:Ataque aéreo en Bagdad del 12 de julio de 2007 fr:Raid aérien du 12 juillet 2007 à Bagdad nl:Collateral Murder no:Luftangrepet i Bagdad den 12. juli 2007 km:ការវាយប្រហារដែនអាកាសនៅទីក្រុងបេកដាត ថ្ងៃទី ១២ កក្តដា ២០០៧ pt:Ataque aéreo em Bagdá de 12 de julho de 2007 ru:Багдадский авиаудар 12 июля 2007 года

Coordinates	28°36′36″N77°13′48″N
Name	Daniel Ellsberg
Birth date	April 07, 1931
Known for	Pentagon Papers, Ellsberg paradox
Education	Harvard University (PhD)Cambridge University
Employer	RAND Corporation
Spouses	Carol Cummings (divorced)Patricia Marx
Children	Robert, Mary (1st marriage)Michael Ellsberg (2nd marriage)
Website	"''Daniel Ellsberg's Website''"}}

Daniel Ellsberg, PhD, (born April 7, 1931) is a former United States military analyst who, while employed by the RAND Corporation, precipitated a national political controversy in 1971 when he released the Pentagon Papers, a top-secret Pentagon study of U.S. government decision-making in relation to the Vietnam War, to ''The New York Times'' and other newspapers. He was awarded the Right Livelihood Award in 2006.

Early life and career

Ellsberg was born in Chicago, Illinois, in 1931 to ethnic Jewish parents who had converted to Christian Science, and raised in a devout Christian atmosphere. He grew up in Detroit, Michigan, and attended Cranbrook Kingswood School. His mother had wanted her son to be a concert pianist but he stopped playing in July 1946 when she was killed in a car crash, together with his sister, after his father fell asleep at the wheel of the car in which the family was traveling and crashed into a culvert wall.

Ellsberg attended Harvard University on a scholarship, graduating with B.S. in economics in 1952 (summa cum laude). He then studied at Cambridge University on a Woodrow Wilson Fellowship and one year later he returned to Harvard for graduate school. In 1954, he left Harvard for the U.S. Marine Corps. He graduated first in a class of almost 1,100 lieutenants at the Marine Corps Basic School in Quantico, Virginia. He served as a platoon leader and company commander in the Marine 2nd Infantry Division, and after satisfying his two year Reserve Officer commitment was discharged from the Corps as a first lieutenant in 1957. He resumed graduate studies at Harvard, but after two years he interrupted his academic studies again, to work at RAND, where he concentrated on nuclear strategy. He earned a PhD in Economics from Harvard in 1962. His dissertation introduced a paradox in decision theory now known as the Ellsberg paradox.

Ellsberg served in the Pentagon from August 1964 under Secretary of Defense Robert McNamara (and, in fact, was on duty on the evening of the Gulf of Tonkin incident, reporting the incident to McNamara). He then served for two years in Vietnam working for General Edward Lansdale as a civilian in the State Department.

After serving in Vietnam, Ellsberg resumed working at RAND. In 1967, he contributed to a top-secret study of classified documents regarding the conduct of the Vietnam War that had been commissioned by Defense Secretary McNamara. These documents, completed in 1968, later became known collectively as the Pentagon Papers. It was because Ellsberg held an extremely high-level security clearance and desired to create a further synthesis from this research effort that he was one of very few individuals who had access to the complete set of documents.

Disaffection with Vietnam War

By 1969 Ellsberg began attending anti-war events while still remaining in his position at RAND. He experienced an epiphany attending a War Resisters League conference at Haverford College in August 1969, listening to a speech given by a draft resister named Randy Kehler, who said he was "very excited" that he would soon be able to join his friends in prison. Ellsberg described his reaction:

Decades later, reflecting on Kehler's decision, Ellsberg said;

The Pentagon Papers

In late 1969—with the assistance of his former RAND Corporation colleague Anthony Russo and the staff of Senator Edward Kennedy—Ellsberg secretly made several sets of photocopies of the classified documents to which he had access; these later became known as the Pentagon Papers. As an editor of the ''New York Times'' was to write much later, these documents "demonstrated, among other things, that the Johnson Administration had systematically lied, not only to the public but also to Congress, about a subject of transcendent national interest and significance". They revealed that the government had knowledge, early on, that the war could most likely not be won, and that continuing the war would lead to many times more casualties than was ever admitted publicly. Further, the papers showed the government had lied to Congress and the public.

Shortly after Ellsberg copied the documents, he resolved to meet some of the people who had influenced both his change of heart on the war and his decision to act. One of them was Randy Kehler. Another was the poet Gary Snyder, whom he'd met in Kyoto in 1960, and with whom he'd argued about U.S. foreign policy; Ellsberg was finally prepared to concede that Gary Snyder had been right, about both the situation and the need for action against it.

Throughout 1970, Ellsberg covertly attempted to persuade a few sympathetic U.S. Senators — among them J. William Fulbright, chair of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, and George McGovern, a leading opponent of the war — to release the papers on the Senate floor, because a Senator could not be prosecuted for anything he said on the record before the Senate. Ellsberg told U.S. Senators that they should be prepared to go to jail in order to end the Vietnam War.

Ellsberg allowed some copies of the documents to circulate privately, including among scholars at the Institute for Policy Studies (IPS). Ellsberg also shared the documents with ''New York Times'' correspondent Neil Sheehan under a pledge of confidentiality. Sheehan broke his promise to Ellsberg, and built a scoop around what he'd received both directly from Ellsberg and from contacts at IPS.

On Sunday, June 13, 1971, the ''Times'' published the first of nine excerpts and commentaries on the 7,000 page collection. For 15 days, the ''Times'' was prevented from publishing its articles by court order requested by the Nixon administration. Meanwhile, Ellsberg leaked the documents to ''The Washington Post'' and 17 other newspapers. On June 30, the Supreme Court ordered publication of the ''Times'' to resume freely (''New York Times Co. v. United States''). Although the ''Times'' did not reveal Ellsberg as their source, he went into hiding for 13 days afterwards, suspecting that the evidence would point to him as the source of the unauthorized release of the study.

On June 29, 1971, U.S. Senator Mike Gravel of Alaska entered 4,100 pages of the Papers into the record of his Subcommittee on Public Buildings and Grounds—pages which he had received from Ellsberg via Ben Bagdikian—then an editor at the Washington Post. These portions of the Papers were subsequently published by Beacon Press.

Fallout

The release of these papers was politically embarrassing not only to those involved in the Kennedy and Johnson administrations but also to the incumbent Nixon administration. Nixon's Oval Office tape from June 14, 1972, shows H. R. Haldeman describing the situation to Nixon:

:"Rumsfeld was making this point this morning... To the ordinary guy, all this is a bunch of gobbledygook. But out of the gobbledygook comes a very clear thing.... It shows that people do things the president wants to do even though it's wrong, and the president can be wrong."

John Mitchell, Nixon's Attorney General, almost immediately issued a telegram to the ''Times'' ordering that it halt publication. The ''Times'' refused, and the government brought suit against it.

Although the ''Times'' eventually won the trial before the Supreme Court, prior to that, an appellate court ordered that the ''Times'' temporarily halt further publication. This was first time the federal government was able to restrain the publication of a major newspaper since the presidency of Abraham Lincoln during the U.S. Civil War. Ellsberg released the Pentagon Papers to seventeen other newspapers in rapid succession. The right of the press to publish the papers was upheld in ''New York Times Co. v. United States''. The Supreme Court ruling has been called one of the "modern pillars" of First Amendment rights with respect to freedom of the press.

As a response to the leaks, the Nixon administration began a campaign against further leaks and against Ellsberg personally. Aides Egil Krogh and David Young, under the supervision of John Ehrlichman, created the "White House Plumbers", which would later lead to the Watergate burglaries.

Fielding break-in

In August 1971, Krogh and Young met with G. Gordon Liddy and E. Howard Hunt in a basement office in the Old Executive Office Building. Hunt and Liddy recommended a "covert operation" to get a "mother lode" of information about Ellsberg's mental state in order to discredit him. Krogh and Young sent a memo to Ehrlichman seeking his approval for a "covert operation [to] be undertaken to examine all of the medical files still held by Ellsberg’s psychiatrist." Ehrlichman approved under the condition that it be "done under your assurance that it is not traceable."

On September 3, 1971, the burglary of Lewis Fielding's office – titled "Hunt/Liddy Special Project No. 1" in Ehrlichman's notes — was carried out by Hunt, Liddy and CIA officers Eugenio Martinez, Felipe de Diego and Bernard Barker. The "Plumbers" failed to find Ellsberg's file. Hunt and Liddy subsequently planned to break into Fielding's home, but Ehrlichman did not approve the second burglary. The break-in was not known to Ellsberg or to the public until it came to light during Ellsberg and Russo's trial in April 1973.

Trial and mistrial

On June 28, 1971, two days before a Supreme Court ruling saying that a federal judge had ruled incorrectly about the right of the New York Times to publish the Pentagon Papers, Ellsberg publicly surrendered to the United States Attorney's Office for the District of Massachusetts in Boston. In admitting to giving the documents to the press, Ellsberg said: :I felt that as an American citizen, as a responsible citizen, I could no longer cooperate in concealing this information from the American public. I did this clearly at my own jeopardy and I am prepared to answer to all the consequences of this decision. He and Russo faced charges under the Espionage Act of 1917 and other charges including theft and conspiracy, carrying a total maximum sentence of 115 years. Their trial commenced in Los Angeles on January 3, 1973, presided over by U.S. District Judge William Matthew Byrne, Jr.

On April 26, the break-in of Fielding's office was revealed to the court in a memo to Judge Byrne, who then ordered it to be shared with the defense.

On May 9, further evidence of illegal wiretapping against Ellsberg was revealed in court. The FBI had recorded numerous conversations between Morton Halperin and Ellsberg without a court order, and furthermore the prosecution had failed to share this evidence with the defense. During the trial, Byrne also revealed that he personally met twice with John Ehrlichman, who offered him directorship of the FBI. Byrne said he refused to consider the offer while the Ellsberg case was pending, though he was criticized for even agreeing to meet with Ehrlichman during the case.

Due to the gross governmental misconduct and illegal evidence gathering, and the defense by Leonard Boudin and Harvard Law School professor Charles Nesson, Judge Byrne dismissed all charges against Ellsberg and Russo on May 11, 1973 after the government claimed it had lost records of wiretapping against Ellsberg. Byrne ruled: "The totality of the circumstances of this case which I have only briefly sketched offend a sense of justice. The bizarre events have incurably infected the prosecution of this case."

As a result of the revelation of the Fielding break-in during the trial, John Ehrlichman, H R Haldeman, Richard Kleindienst and John Dean were forced out of office on April 30, and all would later be convicted of crimes related to the Watergate scandal. Egil Krogh later pled guilty to conspiracy, and White House counsel Charles Colson pled no contest for obstruction of justice in the burglary. "The court concluded that Nixon, Mitchell, and Haldeman had violated the Halperins' Fourth Amendment rights, but not the terms of Title III. The Halperins were awarded $1 in nominal damages in August 1977."

Ellsberg later claimed that after his trial ended, Watergate prosecutor William H. Merrill informed him of an aborted plot by Liddy and the "plumbers" to have 12 Cuban-Americans who had previously worked for the CIA to "totally incapacitate" Ellsberg as he appeared at a public rally, though it is unclear whether that meant to assassinate Ellsberg or merely to hospitalize him. In his autobiography, Liddy describes an "Ellsberg neutralization proposal" originating from Howard Hunt, which involved drugging Ellsberg with LSD, by dissolving it in his soup, at a fund-raising dinner in Washington in order to "have Ellsberg incoherent by the time he was to speak" and thus "make him appear a near burnt-out drug case" and "discredit him". The plot involved waiters from the Miami Cuban community. According to Liddy, when the plan was finally approved, "there was no longer enough lead time to get the Cuban waiters up from their Miami hotels and into place in the Washington Hotel where the dinner was to take place" and the plan was "put into abeyance pending another opportunity".

Later activism and views

Reflecting on his time in government, Ellsberg has said the following, based on his extensive access to classified material:

:The public is lied to every day by the President, by his spokespeople, by his officers. If you can't handle the thought that the President lies to the public for all kinds of reasons, you couldn’t stay in the government at that level, or you’re made aware of it, a week. ... The fact is Presidents rarely say the whole truth—essentially, never say the whole truth—of what they expect and what they’re doing and what they believe and why they’re doing it and rarely refrain from lying, actually, about these matters.

Since the end of the Vietnam War, Ellsberg has continued his political activism, giving lecture tours and speaking out about current events. During the runup to the 2003 invasion of Iraq he warned of a possible "Tonkin Gulf scenario" that could be used to justify going to war, and called on government "insiders" to go public with information to counter the Bush administration's pro-war propaganda campaign, praising Scott Ritter for his efforts in that regard. He later provoked criticism from the Bush administration for supporting British GCHQ translator Katharine Gun and calling on others to leak any papers that reveal government deception about the invasion. Ellsberg also testified at the 2004 conscientious objector hearing of Camilo Mejia at Fort Sill, Oklahoma.

He is a member of Campaign for Peace and Democracy.

Ellsberg was arrested, in November 2005, for violating a county ordinance for trespassing while protesting against George W. Bush's conduct of the Iraq War.

In September 2006, Ellsberg wrote in Harper's Magazine that he hoped someone would leak information about a potential U.S. invasion of Iran before the invasion happened, to stop the war. Subsequently, information on the acceleration of U.S.-sponsored anti-government activity in Iran was leaked to journalist Seymour Hersh. In November 2007, Ellsberg was interviewed by Brad Friedman on his Bradblog in regard to former FBI translator turned whistleblower Sibel Edmonds. "I'd say what she has is far more explosive than the Pentagon Papers", Ellsberg told Friedman.

In a speech on March 30, 2008 in San Francisco's Unitarian Universalist church, Ellsberg observed that House Speaker Nancy Pelosi doesn't really have the authority to declare impeachment "off the table". The oath of office taken by members of congress requires them to "defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic". He also argued that under the U.S. Constitution, treaties, including the United Nations Charter, become the supreme law of the land that neither the states, the president, nor the congress have the power to break. For example, if the Congress votes to authorize an unprovoked attack on a sovereign nation, that authorization wouldn't make the attack legal. A president citing the authorization as just cause could be prosecuted in the International Criminal Court for war crimes, and it is the duty of congress to impeach the offending president regardless of any agreements that may have been made.

On June 17, 2010, Ellsberg was interviewed by Amy Goodman and Juan Gonzalez on the ''Democracy Now!'' program regarding the parallels between his actions in releasing the Pentagon Papers and those of Pfc. Bradley Manning, who was arrested by the U.S. Military in Kuwait after allegedly providing to the WikiLeaks web site a classified video showing U.S. military helicopter gunships strafing and killing Iraqis alleged to be civilians, including two Reuters journalists. Manning reportedly claims to have provided WikiLeaks with secret videos of additional massacres of alleged civilians in Afghanistan, as well as 260,000 classified State Department cables. Ellsberg has said that he fears for Manning and for Julian Assange, as he feared for himself after the initial publication of the Pentagon Papers. WikiLeaks initially said it had not received the cables, but did plan to post the video of an attack that may have killed 140 Afghani civilians in the village of Garani. Ellsberg expressed hope that either Assange or President Obama would post the video, and expressed his strong support for Assange and Manning, whom he called "two new heroes of mine".

On December 9, 2010, Ellsberg appeared on the Colbert Report where he commented that the existence of WikiLeaks helps to build a better government.

On March 21, 2011, Ellsberg along with 35 other demonstrators were arrested during a demonstration outside the Marine Corps Base Quantico, in protest of Manning's current detention at Marine Corps Brig, Quantico.

Awards and honors

Ellsberg is the recipient of the Inaugural Ron Ridenhour Courage Prize, a prize established by The Nation Institute and The Fertel Foundation. In 1978 he accepted the Gandhi Peace Award from Promoting Enduring Peace. On September 28, 2006 he was awarded the Right Livelihood Award.

Personal life

Ellsberg has been married twice. His first marriage, to Carol Cummings, the daughter of a Marine Corps Brigadier General, lasted 13 years before ending in divorce (at her request, as he has stated in his memoirs titled "Secrets"). Two children (Robert and Mary) were born of this marriage. In 1970, he married Patricia Marx, whom he had dated earlier.

Books

Daniel Ellsberg. 2002. "''Secrets: A Memoir of Vietnam and the Pentagon Papers.''" New York: Viking Press. ISBN 0-670-03030-9

Daniel Ellsberg. 2001. [http://www.routledge.com/books/Risk-Ambiguity-and-Decision-isbn9780815340225 "''Risk, Ambiguity

"''Dissent: Voices of Conscience''"-(publishers catalog P.1) by Ann Wright, Susan Dixon (Foreword by) Daniel Ellsberg, January 2008 – Publisher: Koa Books

"''Flirting with Disaster: Why Accidents are Rarely Accidental''" by Marc S. Gerstein, Michael Ellsberg, (Foreword by) Daniel Ellsberg, June 2008 – Publisher: Sterling Publishing

"''Made Love, Got War: Close Encounters with America's Warfare State''" By Norman Solomon, Foreword by Daniel Ellsberg, September 2007 – Publisher: Polipoint Press

"''Protest and Survive''" by E. Thompson, Dan Smith, Introduction by Daniel Ellsberg, 1981 – Publisher: Monthly Review Press

Movies

''The Pentagon Papers'' (2003) is a historical film directed by Rod Holcomb about the Pentagon Papers and Daniel Ellsberg's involvement in their publication. The movie documents Ellsberg's life, starting with his work for RAND Corp and ending with the day on which the judge declared his espionage trial a mistrial.

''The Most Dangerous Man in America: Daniel Ellsberg and the Pentagon Papers'' (2009) documentary by Judith Ehrlich and Rick Goldsmith.

See also

Jack Anderson

Thomas Andrews Drake

References

Further reading

Official name of the Pentagon Papers: "History of United States Decision-Making Process on Vietnam Policy, 1945–1967".

The New York Times version of Pentagon Papers: June 13, 14, 15 and July 1, 2, 3, 4 and 5, 1971. Late in this year this edited version was published in the book "The Pentagon Papers as published by N.Y. Times", Bantam Books, Toronto – New York – London, 1971.

"United States-Vietnam Relations 1945–67, Department of Defense Study", 12 vols., Government Printing Office, Washington, 1971. This is the official and complete edition of the Pentagon Papers, published by the Government after the release by the press.

UNGAR, Sanford, "The Papers and the Papers. An account of the legal and political battle over the Pentagon Papers", E.P. Dutton & Co, New York, 1972.

External links

The Most Dangerous Man in America: Daniel Ellsberg and the Pentagon Papers, official website of the documentary film (Nominated for Academy Award 2010 – Best Documentary Feature)

Zinn Education Project: A Teaching Guide for the Most Dangerous Man in America

Daniel Ellsberg at IMDB

The Truth-Telling Project – Project formed by Ellsberg for whistleblowers

Travels of John Interview – More Dangerous Than Julian Assange?

Reason Magazine Interview – June 1973

"Top Secret: Battle for the Pentagon Papers" a resource site that supports a currently-playing docu-drama about the Pentagon Papers. The site provides historical context, time lines, bibliographical resources, information on discussions with current journalists, and helpful links.

''Democracy Now!'' Special: "How the Pentagon Papers Came to Be Published by the Beacon Press: Mike Gravel and Daniel Ellsberg (audio/video and transcript)

2006 Right Livelihood Award Recipient Daniel Ellsberg

Interview with Daniel Ellsberg Daniel Ellsberg gives a 20 min. interview at Roskilde Universitets Center [Denmark] Fall 2004. (With links to "Related videos")

Daniel Ellsberg/William Kristol debate Iraq war in 2003 on C-Span

NNDB page on Daniel Ellsberg

Pentagon Papers Whistleblower on President Obama and the Wars in Afghanistan and Iraq

Daniel Ellsberg on Wikileaks Iraq War Docs (YouTube)

Daniel Ellsberg: "Julian Assange is Not a Terrorist" – video report by ''Democracy Now!''

Category:American anti–Iraq War activists Category:American anti–nuclear weapons activists Category:American anti–Vietnam War activists Category:American Christian Scientists Category:American economists Category:American Jews Category:American memoirists Category:American political writers Category:American whistleblowers Category:American people of the Vietnam War Category:Cranbrook Educational Community alumni Category:Harvard University alumni Category:American Jews Category:Jewish American social scientists Category:People from Detroit, Michigan Category:RAND Corporation people Category:Right Livelihood Award laureates Category:United States Marine Corps officers Category:Watergate figures Category:1931 births Category:Living people

da:Daniel Ellsberg de:Daniel Ellsberg fr:Daniel Ellsberg it:Daniel Ellsberg he:דניאל אלסברג nl:Daniel Ellsberg no:Daniel Ellsberg pl:Daniel Ellsberg pt:Daniel Ellsberg ru:Эллсберг, Даниэль fi:Daniel Ellsberg sv:Daniel Ellsberg vi:Daniel Ellsberg zh:丹尼尔·艾尔斯伯格