NBC waited 48 hours before broadcasting Sites' report from the mosque. Instead of broadcasting a story about a Marine shooting an apparently unarmed insurgent inside a mosque, NBC and Sites constructed a story about the dangers Marines faced in fighting an enemy that used mosques as cover and was not afraid to booby-trap bodies.

"We backed into it," says Sites, with considerable disbelief. "We didn't get to the shooting until a third into the story." He mimics a pompous TV announcer's voice: "'There was a terrifying new technique being used by insurgents: booby-trapping bodies blah blah blah.' We highlighted all the mitigating circumstances to set this up. We made it seem that there was no question that this guy was probably justified."

But, as Sites knew at the time, some of the mitigating circumstances did not apply. The Marine who shot the insurgent had himself been shot in the face the day before, a fact reported in Sites' original story. What he did not say was that the shooting was probably an accident by U.S. forces. Similarly, although Marines were aware of the dangers of booby traps in general, the only specific instance of a booby-trapped body in Fallujah came at the same time as the mosque shooting.

"If he felt so strongly that this guy was a threat," says Sites, "he knew there were two other guys by me still alive; he never checked them after he shot him; he just spun on his heels. I don't know what was on his mind: The fog of war does strange things to people."

Sites also points out that as the Marine left, a fifth Iraqi inside the mosque, who had been hiding under a blanket, popped his head up. The Marine ignored him too.

The reaction to the video was immediate. Sites began to get 500 "hate mails" a day, including a dozen or so death threats -- every day. The networks outdid themselves: Rupert Murdoch's Fox News, with cheerleaders such as Oliver North and Bill O'Reilly, took it upon itself to attack Sites, while his employer, NBC, tried to have its scoop while denying any responsibility, choosing to describe Sites as a "freelance cameraman."

So Sites wrote his open letter to the Marines, explaining what he had filmed and why he had decided to broadcast it.

"If the truth is known, then people will be able to make the responsible decisions that they need to make in a democracy," he says. "And if you're burying it you're not trusting them with that responsibility; you're saying that democracy doesn't work. And to me that was a betrayal of everything I'd spent my whole adult life doing, as well as a betrayal of those very principles of democracy that those soldiers and those Marines believe that they're fighting for."

With the appearance of his letter to the Devil Dogs, the hate mail eased off. Sites returned to the United States and decided to take a holiday. He went scuba diving in Southeast Asia, eventually ending up in Cambodia. He even sent his video camera home, vowing to take a rest from journalism. Then the tsunami hit and Sites was back at work, blogging and filming.

The experience, he says, helped him gain a fresh perspective on the events that had buffeted him in Iraq. He was persuaded again of the usefulness of the media in informing and involving the public. He was also inspired again to use his talents to make a difference.

Does he think that he will always be identified with the video? "In a way that's going to be my burden to bear," he says. "I've seen a lot of death, especially in the last five years. And I have to live with those consequences. They come out, I have nightmares, and I've experienced a lot of personal attrition in my life, failed relationships. But you want your life to have purpose, and you want it to have meaning."

The decision to broadcast the video, he says, "was the hardest decision I'd made in my life. I know passionately now that it was the right thing to do, that I couldn't have lived with myself if I had buried that tape."

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