— Updated: 6:21 pm -->Remembering Namir Noor-Eldeen
By MICHAEL KAMBERThe writer, Michael Kamber, feels that some of his meaning may have been lost in the editing process. There is an addendum by him at the end of this blog post.Namir Noor-Eldeen stood out among a gifted group of young Iraqi photojournalists who emerged from the war. His well-composed photographs showed his natural sense of color, and his gift for capturing the dramatic moment.His death, in 2007, is now at the center of a public controversy over whether the American helicopter pilots who shot him acted properly — or callously. On Monday, WikiLeaks.org, released a classified military video documenting the shooting of Namir, his driver, Saeed Chmagh, and 10 others in Baghdad.
I knew them both, though not well. Namir was not a friend, but I covered Iraq in 2007 and occasionally saw him at the scenes of bombings around Baghdad.
At the time, The New York Times shared a compound with several news organizations, including Reuters, where I had many friends. There were only a handful of photographers in Iraq by then, and Namir had a friendly smile and a wave whenever we crossed paths.
Namir made his name with harrowing photos of the insurgency in the northern city of Mosul in 2006, when it was among the most dangerous places in Iraq. His photo of a masked insurgent carrying a looted bulletproof vest marked “Police” in large letters, was one of the seminal images of the war — a single photo that captured Iraq’s descent into chaos and the inability of the Iraqi and American governments to protect resources, or pretty much anything else at that point.
Namir repeatedly got to the scene of attacks while vehicles and buildings still billowed flames and bodies lay in the street. The danger in such coverage is hard to express in words: firefights broke out spontaneously, unseen snipers fired on civilians at will, insurgents killed journalists who they accused of working for the “Western invaders.” And the American forces — sometimes invisible a mile or more away — fired through thermal sights at individuals they believed to be insurgents as they gathered around damaged coalition vehicles in the midst of a combat zone.
Namir Noor-EldeenKhalid Mohammed/Associated PressNamir was 21 years old when he did his groundbreaking work in Mosul. By the age of 22, he had seen as much death as many hardened combat veterans. As threats against his life mounted — from Iraqi insurgents unhappy with the truths his photos revealed — Reuters moved him to Baghdad for his own security. There, he quickly became one of the most beloved members of the Reuters staff, a cheerful, funny, smart young man who loved motorcycles, staff members recall.
On July 12, 2007, Namir set out with Saeed, his driver, to do a story on weightlifting. Hearing of nearby violence, he changed routes and went to the neighborhood of New Baghdad, where fighting was taking place.
I don’t know what the rules of engagement were that day. The military says that the soldiers acted properly. In reality, the rule in Iraq and in most wars is to kill the enemy (usually at extremely long distance, by remote control) before he kills you.
I have been in situations where soldiers are making quick decision in chaos. I was in the back of a Bradley fighting vehicle at 2 a.m. one night in Baghdad in 2004. The gunner was looking through a thermal sight at two men carrying a small box — they were 10 football fields away and they neither saw nor heard the Bradley. The men set the box down in the street. Was there a wire coming out of the box? Was it an I.E.D.? The gunner thought he saw one. He received permission to fire, adjusted a joystick and riddled the two men with canon fire. Then he went back to his room and played video games in which he shot small figures on a screen.
If the two men had successfully planted an I.E.D. in the road that night, they might have blown to pieces a Humvee full of Americans.
So in the 2007 video, did the pilots set out to willfully kill journalists and innocent civilians? Based on years of working closely with American troops, I have to say, of course not.
Many times I’ve seen American troops go to great lengths to avoid civilian casualties. No doubt the pilots would have held fire had they realized they were killing journalists. Still, the video shows the wanton killing of a group of at least a dozen Iraqis. Two children were shot as well.
There is a certain amount of chaos in war. I photographed insurgents a few times in Baghdad and in Karbala in 2003, 2004 and 2007. (My colleague Joao Silva photographed many more). Some days, gunfire and explosions echoed off the buildings, the buzz of drones and the thud thud of choppers came to us through the distance. We glanced around corners and glimpsed hazy figures, four or five football fields away, rush across an alleyway.
Who were they, who was firing at whom, where was the gunfire coming from? Sometimes there were many gunman around us, sometimes a group of onlookers, sometimes even kids. Were they all insurgents? Sympathizers? I never knew. Was it Sunni vs. Shia? Shia vs. Shia? Iraqi vs. American?
It is unclear why, despite Freedom of Information Act requests from Reuters, the United States military refused to release this footage previously, or why it has not released footage in other incidents of accidental killings of journalists by American troops. The Pentagon has repeatedly said the footage was classified, but there appears to be nothing secret about this video — it differs little from numerous videos one can find on YouTube.
If these videos were released, a bipartisan committee could study them and possibly recommend steps to prevent these killings in the future. Based on this incident, helicopter pilots should, at a minimum, be briefed on the presence of photojournalists with zoom lenses in their field of fire.
To the apparent amusement of the pilots, shortly after the killings, a United States armored vehicle runs over a body lying in the middle of a trash heap, a body that is probably Namir’s. I interviewed Mohammed Ameen recently, another Reuters photographer and one of Namir’s closest friends. “We would lie awake at night in this room,” he told me. “We talked about photography and what we would do after the war. Namir was good, he was a kind man, he was brave.”
Mohammed told me of searching the hospitals of Baghdad for Namir, of finding his body in a dilapidated morgue with no electricity, of packing Namir’s body with ice to preserve it until the coming funeral. This is some small decency, some small tribute to the bravery of Namir, a photojournalist who routinely risked his life to bring the reality of the Iraq war home to readers. If the leaked video of Namir’s death shocks some, it is partly because there were not enough photographers as brave as Namir showing us the real war in Iraq.
• • •n Addendum |Watching the gunner track Namir and Saeed is extremely disturbing. Listening to the helicopter pilots revel in the deaths of what turned out to be brave journalists is blood curdling.
The United States military initially explained that the killing happened during a firefight. The video shows that in the minutes before the pilots opened fire on the Reuters journalists, there is no fighting going on in the immediate area (though there had been earlier firefights nearby). The men walk through the streets in a relaxed manner — none are rushing for cover as we did during firefights in Baghdad. The pilot apparently mistook Namir’s camera (approximately 14 inches long with a 70-200 zoom lens) with a rocket-propelled grenade, which is nearly four feet long when loaded. These may be honest mistakes, but they have grave consequences.
Perhaps most controversial is the killing of the wounded Reuters driver Saeed Chmagh minutes after the initial round of killing. A van arrives at the scene and unarmed men try to load the wounded Saeed into the vehicle. Despite the absence of guns or any offensive threat, the helicopter pilots riddle the van with canon fire, killing Saeed and the good Samaritans, and wounding children who turned out to be in the van’s front seat.
26 Readers' Comments
of 2Next
It's sickening to see you defend the actions of the troops in this case.If you watch the video, they fired twice: once on a group of suspicious, but not threatening men, and a second time on a van (with children!) trying to tend to the wounded and dying.
You can hear the gunner's eagerness to kill as he watches a dying man slowly reach for help, the soldier vocalizing his hopes that the man will reach for a weapon, or anything, so that he can pull the trigger once more.
And then they light up a van full of kids.
Regardless of your defense of firing on "suspicious" individuals (innocent until proven guilty? Apparently the US military instead operates by "shoot first ask questions later"), firing on the van of medical workers is unconscionable.
Recommend Recommended by 38 ReadersGreat piece. My only wonder is why it wasn't published when he actually died. Reuters has been fighting the military for more info about his death for years now...-Charles
www.charlesmostoller.comRecommend Recommended by 12 ReadersHis pictures are amazing. His loss is sickening. Can nothing be done to bring the pilots to justice? Call your senators and demand action.Recommend Recommended by 20 ReadersAbsolutely unnerving to watch. The conversation of the shooters was unbelievable as though it was some kind of video game.I totally agree with Tony in Atlanta that you shouldn't defend these shooters. It is unconscionable that this war is happening. How would you feel if people were here in the u.s. doing the same thing to us. I met a group of Iraqi visitors in Syracuse on the day that a nephew of one of the men had been killed in a school bombing. He actually had the strength to remain at the meeting. I told him that many if not most Americans did not want the war and how sorry I was for his loss. Absolutely incredible to carry on the meeting given the circumstances.
This war must end - now.
Recommend Recommended by 25 ReadersI teach decision making to law enforcement officers and hope to use this footage in my class. That said, what is most revealing to me about the video is how it just reinforces the views already held by each commentator/viewer. Those angry at the war and the tone of the pilots insist that no guns are visible in the crowd shots (despite two clear AKs and the fact that they are clearly there to shoot photos of the US-insurgent gunfight).; meanwhile those who have been in the shoes of these pilots insist that shooting a van picking up a wounded and unarmed man is unquestionable. Bottom line, you cannot fight a civil war in the middle of a city of several million and not mostly kill civilians. Not sure why both the US miliary and the emotional commentators on these boards share the same naive view that there is an alternative.Recommend Recommended by 6 ReadersThe video is only unusual in that is has revealed, with ample supporting proof, the cold brutality of war to a largely insulated public. The military is a tool, that uses various tools and operators to achieve its stated goal. It doesn’t take much understand this, and to predict the result of applying a tool whose principle use is to apply force in order to destroy a designated “enemy”. We have invested much of our national wealth and brainpower in honing the efficiencies and destructive capabilities of our tools. We worship weapons and war on a national level, it has poisoned our culture, for the long term. From top to bottom we are enmeshed in the wholesale application of violence.So yes, these soldiers were doing what they are trained to do (as the Pentagon has stated). They used a $12 million dollar flying weapons platform to kill/murder/slaughter people or “suspected insurgents” with anti-tank ammunition and high explosives. It’s pretty horrible isn’t it.
As others have stated, the reason this one got more attention than the others was that journalists were killed.
That so many are now so repulsed by having witnessed what soldiers are trained to do explains why the military goes to great lengths to avoid having that reality become part of the national conversation. It explains why so many want to believe in aberrations, instead of consequences. It explains the broken soldiers from these wars. It explains the piles of dead innocents. It explains the misery, anger and hopelessness of those on the receiving end.
It takes hard work hard to keep yourself from getting too close to these uncomfortable realities.
Recommend Recommended by 18 ReadersAnd we still debate the efficacy of war. How little civilization has progressed. What ever happened to Peace. Was it that much of a threat to simply believe that we should treat each other with respect and dignity. I hope not or humanity will be left to its Hobbesian state. The only ones not complaining about war are those lying in its wake.Recommend Recommended by 2 ReadersWar is by it's very nature full of ambiguities, confusion, and inevitably, mistakes. For those who think it's pristine, read Grant's description of the Battle of the Wilderness in his memoir or watch HBO's magnificent "The Pacific" series on WW II. The only way to avoid the horrors of war is to not go to war. Even so, the problem of violence will continue, as war lords and despots wage war upon their own populations or neighboring populations.Recommend Recommended by 1 ReadersI grieve for Namir Noor-Eldeen.This video is only unusual in that is has revealed, with ample supporting proof, the cold brutality of war to a largely insulated public.
That so many are now so repulsed by having witnessed what soldiers are trained to do explains why the military goes to great lengths to avoid having that reality become part of the national conversation. It explains why so many want to believe in aberrations, instead of consequences. It explains the broken soldiers from these wars. It explains the piles of dead innocents. It explains the misery, anger and hopelessness of those on the receiving end.
It takes work to keep oneself from getting too close to these uncomfortable and disheartening realities.
Recommend Recommended by 2 ReadersI'm afraid this is just the first of many cans of worms about to be opened. Gen.Stanley A. McChrystal alluded to as much recently while addressing the troops in Afghanistan about check-point stops that led to unnecessary deaths.Recommend Recommended by 2 ReadersThank you for that piece. The video of the shooting is incredibly sad and the attitude of the soldiers is unnerving. I appreciate your viewpoint as someone who has seen this war firsthand. Despite the undisputable tragedy of this event, which you recognize, you present a rational account of the surrounding complexities. I feel sorry for almost everyone involved in this war, including the soldiers we sent over there to fight in this awful war.Recommend Recommended by 9 ReadersThere is a lot more context to this episode than given in either this article or the Wikileaks video. I'm not trying to justify what happened because what happened was most definitely a tragedy. All I can say is that hindsight is 20/20, and as the author of this article clearly said, US forces operate in the most dangerous of circumstances where decisions must be made, sometimes with terrible consequences. Namir's loss is a tragedy, but I don't feel like one can come out and condemn soldiers with their lives on the line from the safety of their homes in America. As Namir's photos show, American forces aren't the only ones causing collateral damage in Iraq.Recommend Recommended by 1 ReadersPut yourself in the soldier's shoes. They need to make real-time decisions and do not have the luxury of sitting in a living room, looking at a youtube video in hindsight. Some of the Iraqi's had AK47s and one had a RPG. At the time, no one knew who was in the van. It could have been people with more weapons. I'm not blaming the reporters, but they take a huge risk travelling with a group of armed insurgents. Tragically it ended up this way. You cannot blame the soliders. Listen to the entire tape, and hear the protocol they go through to get permission to engage.Recommend Recommended by 1 ReadersI am not interested in seeing the video. There hasn't been a need for me to see it to understand the basic depravity of war.What I have been wanting to see on a consistent widely published basis have been photo's like Namir used to do, not because I like them, but because we need to know the human cost of these insane struggles we all are involved in on a daily basis.
There's been such a dearth of similar images coming out of Afghanistan, that I considered going myself to do them. Because I've never been there, nor in that type of situation I finally thought better of it because doing so would clearly be a death sentence for me. And that wouldn't serve my ends.
After searching the web widely for some time it's clear that powerful human images of the war and it's effect on everyone involved are being taken daily. It's just that they aren't being given the attention they deserve, nor are they being widely published. Especially in the US.
I'll bet these will be the last set of images we see out of Iraq until the next big media event, that attempts to suggest another anomaly but is really only a day in the life of a war written larger for that brief moment in time.
Recommend Recommended by 0 ReadersInsane war, unacceptably left to the US army who managed to act like cowboys too often.
It reminds me of the beginning of this so-called 'war on terror' when the US troops caused the first British casualties.
I am proud that my country is not in Iraq.Recommend Recommended by 1 ReadersThis last photo on the slide show really effects me deeply. It is so moving and I fear the shadow of this incident will be like the shadow of the man silhouetted in the photographed - eclipsed by the shade and blending seamlessly into a blood red carpet.Recommend Recommended by 0 ReadersIt's against International Humanitarian Law to fire against people (military or civillians, as in this case) that are rescuing injured people.Of course all forces uses rules of engagement that allow to fire against enemy or terrorists but this specific case is, to me, clearly against IHL.
Recommend Recommended by 5 Readers...compelling photos showing terrible tragedy and also reflecting the failure of civilizations that have been around for centuries...it would seem after all the time of existence...cultures, countries and the societies they harbor could finally get peaceful living right.Recommend Recommended by 2 ReadersTo the Parents of Noor-Eldeen,
This morning I saw the photo of your beautiful boy. I want to say how deeply sorry I am for your loss. He looks so very intelligent and understanding. It takes great bravery to be a journalist and report the truth about world events. As a citizen of the US I want to apologize for any role that our government has played in any negative activities anywhere. Individuals don't have a lot of control over bad decisions. I have two sons in their 20's and cannot begin to imagine how you feel.
from an empathetic reader in MinnesotaRecommend Recommended by 4 ReadersA tribute to one and many at the same time. The video is hard to watch but even more unsettling to hear. The cavalier reference to life passing away, the unnecessary vulgar language and the hovering menace add to my desire to look away. I can't.I am pleased to read the candor of Michael Kamber. His reporting here and in a previous post about the "Hurt Locker" film show him to be a source of insight about the harsh reality of events. We journalists should strive to be equally insightful about our craft.
As to the late Namir Noor-Eldeen, his photographs provided a poignant glimpse into his world as he saw it. Again, the quest to tell a story and make people care has resulted in the ultimate sacrifice.
Michael Keating
Recommend Recommended by 2 ReadersThe behavior of the helicopter pilots in indiscriminately killing non-combatants
who posed no threat, and yet maintaining that this threat actually did exist, in the form of weapons possibly being carried , is outrageous. The video clearly indicates that there was no attempt on the part of the pilots to actually verify any suspicion that a rocket-propelled grenade was being carried. This was, literally, a shoot-first, ask questions later situation - if indeed the pilots at any time asked themselves who they were shooting at. That their superior officers and the Pentagon so quickly and freely responded to claim that the pilots' actions were justified shows how entrenched this callous disregard is in the military.Recommend Recommended by 2 ReadersMichael, thank you as always for a thoughtful piece. It struck me as I viewed the portfolio of images, which made me check my notes, that I, too, was out photographing in Baghdad on the day that image #3, May 12 2005, was taken -- that I had gone to Yarmouk Hospital after a bombing, probably the one that Namir documented -- and there I photographed a distraught and grieving family picking up the body of their relative. And that I had to be discrete because people were so angry at us, the foreign press, for what seemed to me then like no good reason.Watching this video now, the people about to be killed must have been able to see and hear the helicopter above them. They trusted that because they were not doing anything combative, that they would be OK. Their trust should have been justified, but it was fatally not.
And after thousands of incidents like this, the vast, vast majority of which were not filmed, did not involve journalists working for an international news agency, most of the population turned against the American effort.
Here we are, seven long years later.
Recommend Recommended by 0 ReadersI love how half of the people here love to second guess the average soldier. Context is the key in situations like this, not mentioned here was the fact that the two Apaches were covering a convoy who had been getting shot at all morning. Also not mentioned was the fact that they were operating in a violent neighborhood during the Surge, and that there were armed men with the two photographers. People also don't remember that these tapes didn't come with little arrows saying camera here, photographers here, little kids here. When you get shot at almost everyday, you tend to see things differently. Also not mentioned was the fact that insurgents were using vehicles to transport men and ammunition during this time period, there was no visible sign saying that the people in the van were medics etc. So next time either read up properly or try putting yourself in someone else's shoes before judging . It shames me to see so many ignorant, uneducated comments from people who didn't truly understand the situation.Recommend Recommended by 0 ReadersAs a video photographer, it was painful to watch the footage knowing what was coming. I saw no AK's, only the victims, unmasked, shielding their cameras as they walked down the middle of the street, being involved in the local scene. Questioning the residents what's going on? Where is the action? The same thing I used to do everyday. Luckily for me, I didn't have to worry about being blown away by a helicopter, a half a mile away. I felt horrible for the journalists and the locals. They were victims of a video game mentality that needs to be excised from our military. Just before the helicopter goes behind the building, the lens is partially visible and it does look like a weapon, Would it be so hard to make SURE that it is a weapon. There were no coalition targets in range according to the audio portion of the tape. WIthin another 10 seconds after the shooting started the video would probably have revealed what the journalists were carrying. Cameras, oh yeah, they are worse than insurgents. Because they reveal what really goes down. No Rashoman syndrome. Thanks for making this mass murder visible to the world. TRAIN THE MILITARY IN DECENCY.Recommend Recommended by 0 ReadersEd Post 13, show me where is the RPG in the video, please. in the original video (04:10) its a camara with big zoom lenses.Recommend Recommended by 0 Readersof 2 Next
