[2][3][4][5][6] The United States admitted significant errors were made in carrying out the airstrike, stating "the inability to discern the presence of civilians and avoid and/or minimize accompanying collateral damage resulted in the unintended consequence of civilian casualties".

[3] A partially released American inquiry stated "no one will ever be able conclusively to determine the number of civilian casualties that occurred".

[7] The Australian had said that the airstrike resulted in "one of the highest civilian death tolls from Western military action since foreign forces invaded Afghanistan in 2001".

[7][12] By May 2010, WikiLeaks had an encrypted copy of the video it had received from then U.S. Army Specialist Chelsea Manning and was attempting to decrypt it.

[13][14][15] In a March 2013 statement, Julian Assange disputed prior news reports claiming WikiLeaks had been unable to decrypt the file and alleged that the video "documented a massacre, a war crime.