Iraq and the "Collateral Murder" Video: Arresting the Whistle-Blower (McGreal)

UPDATE 1115 GMT: Another Iraq-related story out of the US....



EA correspondents alert us to a documentary, being aired tonight on Current TV, on the link amongst Iraq and Afghanistan War veterans between post-traumatic stress disorder and domestic violence. "War Crimes" is presented by former Navy SEAL turned journalist Kaj Larsen.

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This spring, EA carried the Wikileaks video of alleged "collateral murder" of civilians by US forces in a 2007 incident in Iraq. Last night The Guardian of London, in a story by Chris McGreal, brought news of the first arrest in the case:

A US army intelligence analyst [has been] charged with leaking a highly classified video of American forces killing unarmed civilians in Baghdad and secret diplomatic cables to WikiLeaks.

Private Bradley Manning, who had a top-secret security clearance, has been held in military custody in Kuwait since his arrest in Iraq in May over the video, which caused great embarrassment to the US military establishment. It showed an air strike that killed a dozen people, including two Iraqis working for Reuters news agency. The air crew is heard falsely claiming to have encountered a firefight in Baghdad and then laughing at the dead. WikiLeaks gave the video the title Collateral Murder.

Manning, 22, was arrested after boasting in instant messages and emails to a high-profile former hacker, Adrian Lamo, that he passed the material to WikiLeaks along with thousands of pages of confidential American diplomatic cables.

WikiLeaks has since said it plans to release a second US military video that shows one of the deadliest US air strikes in Afghanistan, in which scores of children were believed to have been killed. The site's founder, Julian Assange, said the organisation was still working to prepare the encrypted film of the bombing of the Afghan village of Garani in May 2009, in which the Afghan government said about 140 civilians died, including 92 children.

The Baghdad video shows one of two US Apache helicopter crews falsely claiming that there is shooting, opening fire and then laughing over the dead. The helicopters also attack a van attempting to rescue the wounded. One of them opens fire with armour-piercing shells. One of the crew laughs about the attack after the windscreen is blown out. Behind it were two children who were wounded.

Manning faces two charges under military law for allegedly illegally transferring the Iraq video and copies of documents to his computer and then for passing "national defence information to an unauthorised source". The charge sheet says Manning leaked the material to "bring discredit upon the armed forces".....

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