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Sgrena's 'truth' doesn't ring true
Toledo Blade ^ | 12MAR05 | Jack Kelly

Posted on 03/12/2005 8:55:44 PM PST by familyop

Ms. Sgrena left her hotel the morning of Feb. 4 to interview refugees from Fallujah, the resistance stronghold captured by Marines in November. The interviews didn't go well. "The refugees . . . would not listen to me," she said. . . . The Italian government did pay a ransom estimated by various sources at between $1 million and $10 million, and Ms. Sgrena was released to Italian intelligence officers. . . . And Mr. Calipari had rented a nondescript sedan to pick up Ms. Sgrena, rather than one of the Italian embassy's armored SUVs, which the soldiers might have recognized.

(Excerpt) Read more at toledoblade.com ...


TOPICS: Foreign Affairs; News/Current Events; War on Terror
KEYWORDS: calipari; hostage; italian; ransom; sgrena

1 posted on 03/12/2005 8:55:44 PM PST by familyop
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To: Berosus; blam; Do not dub me shapka broham; Ernest_at_the_Beach; FairOpinion; ValerieUSA
Ping!

2 posted on 03/12/2005 9:08:14 PM PST by SunkenCiv (last updated my FreeRepublic profile on Friday, March 11, 2005.)
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To: familyop

Her story seems fishy to me as well. Seems like the Italian gov't paid commision for a Communist reporter to get an exclusive interview with her terrorist allies.

imo.


3 posted on 03/12/2005 9:10:08 PM PST by Mr.Atos (http://mysandmen.blogspot.com)
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To: familyop

She's a Communist journalist...she lies for a living.


4 posted on 03/12/2005 9:11:55 PM PST by Sting 11
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To: SunkenCiv

Ya know, I wonder what it takes before this little p*ss-ant realizes she's taken with no more seriousness than a piece of mud on a combat boot.


5 posted on 03/12/2005 9:13:58 PM PST by seadevil (...because you're a blithering idiot, that's why. Next question?)
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To: Sting 11

that sounds like a line right out of "Clear and Present Danger"......


6 posted on 03/12/2005 9:15:16 PM PST by NorCalRepub
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To: familyop
The truth has been clear from the begining. Calipari had x million dollars with him and negotiated Sgrena release for a lower figure. While driving back, she grabbed HIS gun and blew out his brains and then fired more shots to draw fire from the US troopers.

She got a bundle of cash and a great opportunty to give the US a black eye. It cost her NOTHING. It cost the Italian government a lot of cash and one capitalist pig of a security guy.

A good forensic investigation will prove this. Sgrena cover as a "journalist" is still in tact and she can continue to sell the CIA, Mossad and IDF information that she picks up and no one would know the wiser. Does all the cash (including the ransom money that wasn't paid) go to what's left of the commies are does she divert most of it to her personal benefit? Who knows? But, a good examination of her financial affairs should answer these questions!

7 posted on 03/12/2005 9:15:35 PM PST by Tacis ("John ("What SF-180?") Kerry - Still Shilling For Those Who Would Harm America!")
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To: familyop

She is a damn lier. I bet you. So many people felt so bad for her when they first showed photos of her being captured. Helpless, cowing, and pleading for her release. Bitch. She is nothing but a Commie American hater. It is that simple. That auto would have been torn to bits if a coaxil 50 caliber machine gun on an Abrams open up on it. Obviously that car hardly had any holes in it. But no, the L/MSM would never bring out the facts on this issue would they. I cannot see how our brave and 99% honorable military folks can stand it. They put their hides on the line and get nothing but evil in return.


8 posted on 03/12/2005 9:19:08 PM PST by Marine_Uncle
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To: familyop

The Americans wanted her dead. So she must be dead.


9 posted on 03/12/2005 9:20:57 PM PST by etcetera (No man is entitled to the blessings of freedom, unless he be vigilant in its preservation.)
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To: Mr.Atos
"Two Italian newspapers now say that the general in charge of the Sgrena operation did not inform the US that Calipari's mission was to free Sgrena, and one of them reports that General Mario Maroli didn't even know it himself:

U.S. forces in Iraq were only partially informed about last week's Italian intelligence mission to release a hostage, which ended with a shooting on the road to Baghdad airport and the death of secret service agent Nicola Calipari, Italian newspapers said Friday. ... Both newspapers cited a report by Gen. Mario Marioli, an Italian who is the coalition forces' second-in-command. The report has been given to Rome prosecutors investigating the killing.

According to the newspapers, Marioli informed U.S. officials that Calipari and the other Italian officer were there, but not that the mission was aimed at releasing Sgrena.

The papers had conflicting versions over how much Marioli knew: Corriere said he knew the Calipari was working to have the hostage released, La Repubblica said he didn't.

Either way, the Italians clearly did not want the US to know that they had ongoing negotiations aimed at releasing Sgrena. Why? Perhaps the reports of a multi-million dollar ransom answers that question rather effectively. The US clearly would have objected to the negotiations, especially since putting that much money in the hands of Islamofascist terrorists would likely get more of our soldiers killed, as well as the Iraqis. (Could the rash of bombings this week have any connection to a sudden influx of cash to the terrorist network? Maybe, maybe not.) If the US went public with its complaint, the deal would have fallen apart and the Italians humiliated, and it looks like they decided to keep us in the dark instead.

Sgrena also changed her story, subtly but significantly today:

In a statement released after the shooting, the U.S. Army's 3rd Infantry Division, which controls Baghdad, said the vehicle was speeding and refused to stop. The statement also said a U.S. patrol tried to warn a driver with hand and arm signals, by flashing white lights and firing shots in front of the car into the engine block. In interviews published Friday, Sgrena said that no light was flashed at the vehicle and that the shots were not fired in front of the car.

"It's not true that they shot into the engine," she told Corriere della Sera, adding that the shooting came "from the right and from behind."

That qualification changes the entire tenor of the story. Either one would have to believe that the checkpoint soldiers stopped the car and then shot it out -- from behind! -- or that the car never stopped at the checkpoint and traveled so fast that the soldiers could only catch up to it as it passed through. Think about the options for a moment. If a checkpoint successfully stops a suspicious vehicle, why would soldiers walk around behind it to open fire? They'd risk hitting their unit at the front of the car. Tactically, little gain would come from getting behind a potential VBIED in open space when one could get at least some partial protection from a potential explosion by the checkpoint barricades.

This story gets fishier and fishier on every retelling. First we have a "rain of bullets" and Sgrena scooping them up by the handful off the seats, and then we see a car with two bullet holes in it, one of which went through the right front tire. Next the Italians tell us that the US had full operational knowledge of the mission when it turns out their own military leadership was possibly kept in the dark. Now Sgrena tells us that the Americans fired from behind the vehicle when they stopped at the checkpoint, the only position where US soldiers would risk hitting their own troops.

http://www.captainsquartersblog.com/mt/archives/004041.php

Did Sgrena shoot her own bodyguard as they approached the checkpoint? ERNurse raises an interesting point!

Captainsquatersgblog.com has been following this story closely..

Then the DailyKos reported Soldiers who fired at Sgrena investigated for sex assaults

Tue Mar 8th, 2005 at 03:19:54 PST

Soldiers from the 3rd Infantry Brigade - the same military unit whose troops fired on the car carrying the freed Italian hostage Giuliana Sgrena - were under investigation last year for raping Iraqi women, US army documents reveal. And journalist Giuliana Sgrena investigated sex assaults against Iraqi women ... http://www.dailykos.com/story/2005/3/8/61954/68302

What a twisted web Sgrena does weave.

10 posted on 03/12/2005 9:41:29 PM PST by fight_truth_decay
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To: etcetera
I was actually a little sympathetic to her. She was held hostage and then one of her rescuers was killed as she escaped to freedom. That could give anyone temporary insanity and I thought the press shouldn't have reported her outlandish remarks.

But she seems to keep pressing the case, just proving that she is a loony regardless of post traumatic stress. She likes to think of herself in grand terms as well. Like Americans even care about her or her communist newspaper. It makes me giggle. Didn't they get the memo? Communism is finished. It isn't even on the threat level. China isn't even communist anymore, other than name only. They bear more resemblance to fascists.

I wish the whole incident wouldn't have happened, but it doesn't seem to me like we did anything wrong. I will give our kids the benefit of the doubt before I believe some loony.
11 posted on 03/12/2005 9:41:59 PM PST by Milton Friedman (Free The People!)
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To: Milton Friedman
Sorry I have not trusted the Sgrena since Day #1.."Some people give her credit for being "one of the first journalists to collect evidence of rape among women detainees at Abu Ghraib." It's also possible she has done further investigation regarding her charges of napalm use in Fallujah."

Ms. Sgrena went to Iraq to report on the heroic resistance to the U.S imperialists.Dutch journalist Harald Doornbos rode in the airplane to Baghdad with her. "Be careful not to get kidnapped," Mr. Doornbos warned Ms. Sgrena.

According to Mr. Doornbos' account in Nederlands Dagblad, she (Sgrena) said, "The Iraqis only kidnap American sympathizers. The enemies of the Americans have nothing to fear."

You say:" Like Americans even care about her or her communist newspaper. It makes me giggle."

Well, in many parts of the world others are not in "giggle mode". She is widely read outside of her own newspaper; and therefore, Sgrena, as per my analogy, acts as a "media arsonist" adding fuel to the fire. A burning hatred of the U.S.

12 posted on 03/12/2005 10:07:29 PM PST by fight_truth_decay
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To: Tacis

You sound a bit looney.


13 posted on 03/12/2005 11:29:39 PM PST by texasflower ("America's vital interests and our deepest beliefs are now one." President George W. Bush 01/20/05)
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To: familyop

bttt


14 posted on 03/12/2005 11:31:25 PM PST by nopardons
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To: NorCalRepub
Yup.

"He's in the intelligence business, he lies for a living!"

"You're in the intelligence business!"

LOL

15 posted on 03/13/2005 11:05:13 AM PST by Sting 11
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