The Collateral Murder video is gun-camera footage from a 2007 U.S. Apache helicopter attack in Baghdad, published by WikiLeaks in April 2010. John Kiriakou credits Chelsea Manning with leaking it as part of a larger trove that included the Iraq and Afghan war logs, other Guantanamo files, and the State Department cables released via WikiLeaks starting in 2009–2010.[1]
Corroborating abuses and touching off the Arab Spring
Kiriakou says the WikiLeaks State Department cables describing Tunisian President Zine El Abidine Ben Ali’s corruption were “all the rage” in the media for three weeks leading up to Mohamed Bouazizi’s self-immolation, and that this coverage helped touch off the Arab Spring revolt in Tunisia.[2] He also says the Iraq war logs helped defeat the Obama administration’s attempt to negotiate a Status of Forces Agreement to keep American troops in Iraq, since the atrocities the logs revealed became a political deal-breaker.[3]