Military Can't Find Its Video Showing Reuters Workers' Deaths

(April 7) -- The Defense Department can't locate its copy of the video of a July 2007 air strike that killed two Reuters employees in Iraq, a military official told The Associated Press.

WikiLeaks, an organization dedicated to facilitating official leaks, released Tuesday what it claims is an official copy of a video taken from a U.S. helicopter camera showing air strikes in Baghdad.

The video, which WikiLeaks touted as proof of a Pentagon cover-up, shows gun camera footage from an Apache helicopter firing its cannon on a group of men, some of whom were armed. Among those killed were two Iraqi employees of Reuters.

Camera and video equipment held by one of the Reuters employees were mistaken for weapons, according to the videotape's audio and a subsequent military investigation.

The military now says it can't authenticate the WikiLeaks footage because it can't find its own copy of the video, even though the WikiLeaks version has now been circulating freely on the Internet for more than 24 hours and is available on YouTube.

"We had no reason to hold the video at [U.S. Central Command], nor did the higher headquarters in Iraq," Capt. Jack Hanzlik, a Central Command spokesman, told the AP in an e-mailed statement. "We're attempting to retrieve the video from the unit who did the investigation."

Although the AP on Tuesday quoted an anonymous official as saying the leaked WikiLeaks video is authentic, and the military has not questioned its authenticity, the Defense Department hasn't officially said it is genuine.

The video, which depicts military personnel using words like "sweet" and "patoosh" to describe the airstrikes, which also injured two children, was released Tuesday at a press conference in Washington.

The video is also the subject of a Freedom of Information Act request filed by Reuters, which was shown the video in an off-the-record briefing. Central Command has now made available redacted documents relating to the investigation of the incident and the killing of the two Reuters employees.

Those documents, which were also requested under the Freedom of Information Act, provide the Defense Department's interpretation of events. The pilots, the investigative report notes, were focusing on supporting U.S. ground forces, which had called in air support after coming under attack in the area.

The report also says the group of men who were fired upon, identified by the military as insurgents, were found with weapons, including a rocket-propelled grenade launcher. The two Reuters employees did not have any visual indicators of press affiliation that could have been spotted by the helicopter pilots.

The investigator, whose name was blacked out, notes that the pilots in the middle of military operations do not have the same view as someone watching the video on a big screen. "Although useful, an analysis of the events captured on video is beyond the scope of my investigation and the subject of a collateral investigation," the final report says.