Earlier today, on ABC's This Week, Defense Secretary Robert Gates defended the troops shown killing Iraqis in a video aired by leaks site Wikileaks. They responded to his rebuttal simply, in a tweet: "Robert Gates is a liar."

Gates was responding to this video, released last Monday, which shows American helicopter pilots in an Apache gunship firing a 30mm cannon into into a seemingly non-threatening group of men in Baghdad in 2007. They killed or wounded about a dozen people, including two children and Reuters photojournalist Namir Noor-Eldeen and driver Saeed Chmagh.

On ABC Gates defended the pilots, while admitting that the video, and its bloodthirsty chatter was a "hard thing to see," and "unfortunate." He explained, according to the Washington Post, that "they're in a combat situation. The video doesn't show the broader picture of the firing that was going on at American troops." He added, to host Jake Tapper, that "you talked about the fog of war. These people were operating in split-second situations."

Wikileaks disagree with his version of events and argue there was no split-second situation. At around 4.30pm they tweeted, after stating plainly that they think Gates is lying, that "records show "firing on troops" hit no-one, was 28 mins before, location and person UNIDENTIFIED."