Posted on 04/27/2005 6:26:57 AM PDT by OESY
ROME, April 26 - Tensions between the United States and Italy surged Tuesday, as Italian politicians and citizens reacted furiously to leaked reports in the Italian news media that a joint investigation into the shooting death of an Italian agent in Baghdad would absolve American soldiers of guilt in the incident.
The United States ambassador to Rome, Mel Sembler, met twice with Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi and his top aide at the government's headquarters to try to avert a crisis that could cost the United States one of its staunchest European allies in the Iraq conflict.
Mr. Berlusconi has kept 3,000 Italian troops in Iraq, even though Italy's involvement is wildly unpopular here. The news that the inquiry might absolve the American soldiers of all guilt comes at an extremely vulnerable moment for the beleaguered Mr. Berlusconi, who was forced to resign temporarily last week; he has since formed a new and tenuous coalition government.
On Tuesday, in a speech before Parliament, Mr. Berlusconi insisted that the investigation into the death of the intelligence agent, Nicola Calipari, was not finished, and criticized the news reports as "unfortunate indiscretion." The speech had been intended to highlight Mr. Berlusconi's economic plans for Italy.
"The government will talk only at the opportune moment, when the investigation is finished," he said. "The committee was formed to find out the truth, to give justice to the hero Calipari, to whom we bow. Our representatives are working well."
The findings of the investigating team, which includes an Italian general and an Italian ambassador, have not yet been released. But on Sunday and Monday, unidentified Army officials in the United States described some of its conclusions to reporters, setting off the imbroglio.
According to these accounts, the investigators found that the American soldiers who shot at a car carrying Mr. Calipari and an Italian journalist, Giuliana Sgrena, on the road to Baghdad's airport had generally followed standard procedures and instructions.
The two Italian members of the team returned to Rome from Baghdad on Saturday night, although it was not clear if they had come back in protest or for routine consultations.
United States officials here in Rome sought to play down the leaks about the investigation, also saying the two sides were still working on the report. "We have not abandoned hope for a combined report," said an official with the American Embassy here. "But there's some more work that needs to be done before that's going to happen,"
Mr. Calipari was returning to Baghdad in a car on March 4 after securing the release of Ms. Sgrena, who had been kidnapped by insurgents. The car was peppered with bullets as it approached a temporary American military checkpoint, killing Mr. Calipari and wounding Ms. Sgrena and two other intelligence agents.
After the killing, the United States and Italian governments agreed to conduct a joint investigation, because accounts of witnesses - including the journalist and the American soldiers - varied greatly as to whether the car had been warned to slow down and how fast it had been traveling.
The bullet-riddled car in which Mr. Calipari and Ms. Sgrena were riding was returned to Italy on Tuesday, now that the evidence-gathering phase of the investigation is over.
In the last two days, the Italian news media has been filled with unattributed reports that the two Italian members of the team have refused to sign the investigation's report, because they disagree with its conclusions. On Tuesday, Ms. Sgrena, who is now recovered, called the investigation's conclusions "a slap" for the Berlusconi government.
Likewise, in Parliament, the many politicians who are antiwar and anti-Berlusconi, wasted no time in condemning the investigation, even as they confessed they had no formal knowledge of its findings.
Laura Cima, a member of Parliament with the Green Party, called the findings, "a big slap in the face for the Italian government," and said the government should demand the truth "if it can find any pride at all."
Antonio Falomi, a leftist senator, criticized the report that he said he had not yet seen, saying: "The conclusions made by the report are not satisfactory. There are too many shadowy points."
As if the rain of political criticism was not enough for Mr. Berlusconi, Italian prosecutors in Milan were once again planning to indict him, a former media magnate, for financial crimes, Reuters reported Tuesday.
Oh, really? Maybe the Times hasn't been following this story? Could we see those pictures of the car again? As I recall there was one bullet hole in the windshield.
Aren't we celebrating the first anniversary of the Abugrave prison tortures?
Where the Hell did you put those panties I gave you, AliBaba? What do you mean you ate them?!
Democrats are the same all around the world, the only difference is the media's willingness to tell its readers about them. ;)
I saw the pictures, hardly "bullet riddled"...Sgrena is flapping her gums as well.
http://exposingtheleft.blogspot.com/2005/04/guiliana-sgrena-outraged.html
BTW, HERE's what a "bullet-riddled car" looks like:
this one belonged to Clyde Barrow...
We all saw the photos - this is false.
Main Entry: riddle Function: transitive verb Inflected Form(s): rid·dled; rid·dling /'rid-li[ng], 'ri-d&l-i[ng]/ 1 : to separate (as grain from chaff) with a riddle : SCREEN 2 : to pierce with many holes
This is irresponsibile journalism. And why are the Italians mad? This is a joint investigation and the results can be found in the "non-fiction" section. Perhaps, we can interest them in something from the "fantasy land/conspiracy theory" section?
The Italians are a fun loving people who under Mussolini invaded selected African countries that could not defend themselves. Where was the outrage then?
Their press goes to Iraq, interfers with the U.S. and allied troops, pays a huge ransom for a Commie reporter and tries to run a U.S. Army raodblock. Suprise, suprise, it didn't work.
The New York Times conveniently leaves out the crucial information that Italy is already scheduled to remove their troops in September, 2005. Without this information, the rest of the article makes no sense, because the implication is that Berlusconi might be forced to remove troops over this matter. That decision has already been made, long ago.
Reason 4,312 why you can never trust the New York Times.
I do not accept at face value that Ms. Sgrena was kidnapped by terrorists.
She made no secret of the fact that she opposed the US military operation in Iraq and supported the terrorists. Her supposed kidnapping served to fracture the coalition and was very useful to the terrorists. Her release proved to be a propaganda coup for the terrorists, and several million dollars was provided for the arming of additional terrorists and the purchase of explosives.
Cui Bono?
Who benefits by the kidnapping? Sgrena herself, and the terrorists.
Who benefits by the shooting? The terrorists.
I would not be surprised at all if this was a set up from the git-go, as with Muhammad al Dura, the Palestinian child who was shown on TV being killed by a Palestinian sniper during a firefight with the IDF. His death was blamed on the Israelis, and his supposed "martyrdom" remains a powerful terrorist rallying point, even many years later, in spite of incontrovertable evidence that it was a put-up job by the PA.
Interesting theory....and not beyond what she is capable of.
The terrorists may not have intended Sgrena to survive the shooting at the roadblock...
I'm no fan of conspiracy theories, but I think you're right.
I don't get it with this crap about "wildly unpopular here" comment about putting Italian troops in Iraq? If Silvio Berlusconi is in power, and he has a center-right coalition in the goverment; somewhere and somehow, he managed to get approval to put Italian troops into Iraq! If it was sooo unpopular, he wouldn't have been able to do it, wouldn't he? I get a kick out of the supposedly "free press" in some of these countries! Just like here, most of the press, and the tv news just assumes they speak for most, if not all the American people.
I guess they just assume the people that agree with them are in the majority, and the rest of the people that don't must not be Americans! They assume these people are the radical right fringe; and they don't count, nobody cares what they think!
Oh my gosh! Where did you get that ugly scary thing! (nervous giggle!)
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