There was no parry; therefore there cannot be a riposte...
Posted on 05/01/2005 12:06:25 PM PDT by billorites
ROME, May 1 (Reuters) - Italy, stung by a U.S. report it felt put much of the blame on Rome for a "friendly fire" killing in Iraq, will publish its own version of events on Monday that is likely to question the testimony of American troops.
Relations were strained when U.S. troops at a roadblock shot an Italian agent who had just rescued a hostage in Baghdad on March 4; they soured further this weekend when Washington blamed the Italians for poor communications and not heeding warnings.
The United States said it would not discipline the U.S. soldiers although it called the roadblock set-up "less than optimal" and made a string of recommendations for improving warnings to drivers.
"The latest slap in the face by the United States," was the verdict of the authoritative Corriere della Sera newspaper, which quoted an Italian official rejecting the testimony of the soldiers on which the U.S. military report was largely based.
"The soldiers' evidence was contradictory and in some cases totally untrustworthy," the investigator told the paper.
The U.S. military report, released late on Saturday, said forensic evidence was patchy, in part because troops had moved vehicles and disposed of spent cartridges after the incident.
Italian Foreign Minister Gianfranco Fini said on Saturday there were several areas of dispute and "national dignity" had prevented Italy from endorsing the U.S. version of events.
Italian intelligence agent Nicola Calipari was killed as he shielded Italian journalist Giuliana Sgrena, whom he had just freed from her kidnappers, when their car came under fire from a U.S. roadblock on the public highway to Baghdad airport.
It was one of many such incidents in Iraq that have cost the lives of civilians caught unawares by U.S. military activity.
But the identity of the victim, who has become a national hero since his death, has focused great attention on it.
TROOP WITHDRAWAL
Until last week Washington and Rome, which sent 3,000 troops to Iraq despite public opposition at home, had maintained a front of working to reach a joint report on the incident.
Conservative Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi had already said he would start bringing them home by September, but anger at the U.S. exoneration of its soldiers has prompted calls for the Italian withdrawal to be speeded up.
"Given the disagreements ... it would be opportune for the government to think long and hard about when we bring home our troops," said Roberto Calderoli, a cabinet minister.
Berlusconi has said Italy's traditionally warm relationship with the United States would remain intact.
The 42-page report by U.S. Brigadier General Peter Vangjel said Italian agents had kept their mission to free Sgrena secret from their U.S. allies, considering it a "national issue."
But Italian newspapers, quoting secret services on Sunday, said the head of the CIA in Baghdad had been kept informed.
Security sources quoted by the Corriere said the Italian report on Monday would accuse the U.S. military of "tampering with the incident scene" and removing forensic evidence.
Italy's own investigators believed at least three soldiers, not one, opened fire on Calipari's car, the sources said.
The U.S. report said the car ignored warning bursts and did not slow down until bullets began hitting the vehicle. Italians contend that the three-second warning was not enough for the driver to stop before the car was struck by lethal rounds.
Amid the outrage in Italy on Sunday, there was some glee in the media at the fact that apparently censored portions of the U.S. report published on the Internet appeared in their entirety to anyone who chose to read the text with different software.
The initially blacked-out sections contained mostly technical details -- notably the identities of the troops involved.
Among sections censored was also the revelation that the roadblock should have been lifted long before the incident; a failure in U.S. communications meant that the blockade remained in position more than half an hour after the U.S. ambassador, whose convoy it was protecting, had already reached the airport.
It should have been the other way around.
Given that the satellite imagery shows that the vehicle was traveling at 60 mph, the Italian government can say whatever it wants. A vehicle traveling that fast in that area and ignoring warnings was a Darwin Award waiting to happen, no matter what claims some Communist journalist may make.
Reuters truly is loathsome.
Memo to Italy: You've been a good ally but don't push it. Your lowlife communist slut wasn't important enough for us to waste our credibility on snuffing her butt.
Failure to honor a checkpoint, which suicide bombers could attack at any moment, seems far more likely to anybody with two brain cells in a row.
Bet they won't explain why the car tried to run the checkpoint...
I don't think any amount of evidence would convince them that the soldiers weren't at fault. At least half the Italian citizenry (as with the rest of Europe) is already so blindly, stubbornly anti-American, that the minute they heard the story they knew it HAD to be America's fault. It just reinforced preconceptions that were already cemented in their minds. Even if we had a dozen eye-witnesses boxes of photographic evidence showing that the soldiers did nothing wrong, plenty of Italians still would not waver in their absolute conviction that big, bad America must somehow be to blame.
No more aid to Italy! (and get us out of the UN)
And here in Florida yesterday a policeman killed a driver, after a speeding stop, because the police said he was trying to run over the policeman. Now tell me how a check point in a war zone should deal with a speeding car that could contain a bomb?
You shoot to stop the car. It is called self defense.
I love the part about their "national dignity" being hurt by this---puhlllllleeeeeeeze--
If the driver had been waving a white flag, but driving that fast, I would have expected the same response from the US guards....
These terrorists do not play by Marquis of Queensbury(sp) rules...these guys would strap a suicide belt to their mothers if they thought they would kill 1 soldier from the US!
I am really getting fed up with those commies.
Sgrena was right, they were traveling slowly --- in Italy, 60 mph is real close to the posted speed limit for a School Crossing zone. (/sarc on Commie Reporter
If the Italians did a decent autopsy, they'll see the close range wound. Also, they can check her bank accounts. Sgrena actually murdered Calipari.
You are exactly right. There is no refuting this. The Italians have physical evidence on hand, but cannot accept it because of political pressures. They desperately want us to be guilty, and evidence to the contrary would make them look like fools.
Now there's a plot twist. Do you have a source?
Now THAT'S the more believable story.
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