"They said it might be a bandwidth issue, but they created the Internet, so I don't know what the problem is," Chief Executive Chad Hurley said in an interview. Hurley, chief technology officer Steve Chen and YouTube spokeswoman Julie Supan emphasized that the online video company is trying to work with the Pentagon in hopes the military would reverse course or at least partially repeal the ban.

Lt Col Christopher Garver, a spokesman for US forces in Iraq, told the BBC News website the project's initial motivation was simply to get the "great footage" being shot by the military's combat cameramen in Iraq out to a wider audience. However, it also serves to show another side of operations in Iraq beyond news reports of "the car bomb of the day", he says--and to counter the messages of anti-American sites.