The logs of
Chelsea Manning's IM chats with
Adrian Lamo state that David Finkel was given the
Collateral Murder video but did not release it.[6] David Finkel has never publicly disclosed whether he had the video or not. In a washingtonpost.com webchat, he said, "I based the account in my book The Good Soldiers on multiple sources, all unclassified. Without going into details, I'll say the best source of information was being there [in Iraq]."[7] At a February 2013 pretrial hearing, Manning stated that Finkel "was quoting, I feel in verbatim, the audio communications of the aerial weapons team crew." She said, however, that she was "aghast" at Finkel's portrayal of the incident. "Reading his account," she explained, "one would believe the engagement was somehow justified as 'payback' for an earlier attack that led to the death of a soldier."[8]
^"Book Discussion on The Good Soldiers".
C-SPAN. 5 October 2009. Retrieved 26 April 2015. David Finkel talked about his book The Good Soldiers (Farrar, Straus and Giroux; September 15, 2009). In his book he recounts the fifteen months he spent with Army Battalion 2-16, part of the U.S. forces that carried out
the surge in 2007-2008. Battalion 2-16 was charged with securing part of Baghdad. Mr. Finkel read passages from his book and talked about his experiences with the soldiers in Iraq. He talked about how their tour of duty changed the soldiers and their evaluations of the success of the surge. He also responded to questions from members of the audience.