Posted on 03/05/2005 6:21:41 PM PST by Lessismore
Bush promises Italian leader a full investigation
The Italian journalist kidnapped in Iraq arrived back in Rome yesterday as fury and confusion grew over the circumstances in which she was shot and one of her rescuers was killed by American soldiers. The shooting in Iraq on Friday evening, which occurred as Giuliana Sgrena was being driven to freedom after being released by her captors, was fuelling anti-war activists in Italy and putting pressure on Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi.
'The hardest moment was when I saw the person who had saved me die in my arms,' she said. Her poignant words and weak, haggard appearance as she had to be helped from the jet that brought her back from Baghdad are fuelling national rage.
Berlusconi, a staunch ally of the US who defied widespread public opposition to the Iraq war and sent 3,000 troops, took the rare step of summoning US ambassador Mel Sembler to his office.
He demanded that the US 'leave no stone unturned' in investigating the incident. President George Bush called Berlusconi to promise a full investigation.
Sgrena, 56, a journalist for the Communist newspaper Il Manifesto, was hit in the shoulder when US soldiers opened fire on the car she was travelling in as it approached a checkpoint less than a mile from Baghdad airport. The Italian secret service officer who had negotiated her release was killed as he shielded her from the gunfire. Two of his colleagues were also hurt.
Berlusconi prides himself on his close personal friendship with President George Bush, but he was grim-faced when he told reporters that someone would have to take responsibility 'for such a grave incident'.
The US Army claimed the Italians' vehicle had been seen as a threat because it was travelling at speed and failed to stop at the checkpoint despite warning shots being fired by the soldiers. A State Department official in Washington said the Italians had failed to inform the military of Sgrena's release.
Italian reconstruction of the incident is significantly different. Sgrena told colleagues the vehicle was not travelling fast and had already passed several checkpoints on its way to the airport. The Americans shone a flashlight at the car and then fired between 300 and 400 bullets at if from an armoured vehicle. Rather than calling immediately for assistance for the wounded Italians, the soldiers' first move was to confiscate their weapons and mobile phones and they were prevented from resuming contact with Rome for more than an hour.
Enzo Bianco, the opposition head of the parliamentary committee that oversees Italy's secret services, described the American account as unbelievable. 'They talk of a car travelling at high speed, and that is not possible because there was heavy rain in Baghdad and you can't travel at speed on that road,' Bianco said. 'They speak of an order to stop, but we're not sure that happened.'
Pier Scolari, Sgrena's partner who flew to Baghdad to collect her, put an even more sinister construction on the events, suggesting in a television interview that Sgrena was the victim of a deliberate ambush. 'Giuliana may have received information which led to the soldiers not wanting her to leave Iraq alive,' he claimed.
Sgrena was kidnapped on 4 February as she interviewed refugees from Falluja near a Baghdad mosque. Two weeks later her captors issued a video of her weeping and pleading for help, calling on all foreigners to leave Iraq. Italian journalists were subsequently withdrawn from the city after intelligence warnings of a heightened threat to their safety.
Italian newspapers reported yesterday that Sgrena had been in the hands of former Saddam loyalists and criminals, and that a ransom of between £4 million and £5 million had been paid for her release. The military intelligence officer who lost his life, Nicola Calipari, 51, was hailed as a national hero.
While reading the articles about this release from 'insurgent' captors [as have other Italians has experienced] it occurred to me that she may well be a poser. Her paper, Il Manifesto is communist; her video appeal, pleading for the Italian people to speak out and demand the Italian Government withdraw from Iraq; her release without harm [and suggested Al-Jazera connection], when the English-Iraqi aid worker woman had been brutally mutilated.
I would think that U.S. troops are cautious on the side of error these days, but highly alert to potential car bombing situations [after all the recent occurrences] like an unidentified unresponsive vehicle speeding to the Baghdad Airport.
Is just all a little fishy to me. Smells like a set up.
I'd completely forgotton that event. Thanks for bringing it up, it does shed some light on some sentiment though I don't think the press is motivated to honor those Italians killed before. I do think this is simply an opportunity to preach anti-Americanism and harm the war effort and current government's support for the war. But that incident could well be remembered in public opinion, and color the Italian citizenry's thoughts.
There is another possiblity - maybe there were some rogue trigger happy individuals who hate Europeans, journalists, Italians, Communists and terrorist sympathizers etc ... ? Who whould not mind to see this woman dead? Just wondering.
Some nasty statements here illustrate such attitude.
The only reasonable conclusion to be drawn is that our bullets were intended to disable the car, to make it stop.
Which is what the driver should have done.
"Marine Corps 2nd Lt. Ilario Pantano could face the death penalty if convicted of charges made against him last week. The charges? Premeditated murder. The facts? He shot two suspected terrorists during a mission in Iraq. The case is frought with second-guessing, and could be a disaster for future combat operations if the charges aren't dropped. . . ."
Another case of warnings to stop. They did not.
Wait for the bomb to go off before troops can shoot?
Where's the President for Lt. Pantano?
"disaster for future combat operations if the charges aren't dropped" It don't get no clearer -- now this reporter thing.
I fear the worst, more U.S. troops charged with "premeditated murder." Charges motivated by PC and fears of meddling by the pukey ACLU and courts, diplomacy and foreign enemies. Hey! War is hell. Does it matter which direction the hell comes from?
I'll never vote for a Rat. I'll never again vote for a mainstream Republican if the hell comes from the Administration -- I should say continues to come from the Administration given the persecution of Lt. Pantano.
I smell a huge rat in this whole debacle. I hope our investigators dig REAL DEEP and find out exactly what is going on. I don't buy anything that these communists are selling. This is screaming "setup".
If the US military had actually planned on killing her...she'd be dead. They certainly wouldn't have called for the medics and had her airlifted out.
I admire you for playing devil's advocate. The bottomline question is simply: Did the Americans who fired on the vehicle know that this woman was in the car? If so, that would impy that someone from the Italian Intelligence community was in on it, or that the so-called kidnappers had a mole who told the Americans, or that there's a flying squad of Special Forces units going around with their own mobile 'Star Chamber' to mete out extrajudicial punishment and executions. I mean, I haven't heard anything about a big orange flag on this car with the words in Italian, English and Arabic saying "She's in this car". Besides, maybe somebody else in the car was the target, and not her after all. That will probably be the next angle.
That's what I was thinkin....LOR for poor marksmanship !
I wouldn't be surprised to hear that the whole kidnapping exersize was a publicity hoax (to damage the capitalist West in general and the USA and Berlisconi specifically). That said, I would find it difficult to believe that they intentionally draw .50 cal machine gun fire upon themselves in the end. This was probably a mistake on their part, perhaps owing to their belief that the protections offered to her and her entourage by the islamists would summarily be extended them by the Americans (who had no idea what was going on). This isn't Disneyland.
Helped fund the terrorism and killing of innocents (to the tune of 5mil) to save a commie that *might* have been 'playing along' all the time (ala the Japanese journalists a while back), that THEN ran a checkpoint and got shot.
Now they're pissed at US?!?
BWHAHAAHAH... sorry but they can suck it.
Are you trying to appear idiotic? Because you're succeeding brilliantly.
I have impression that some of you guys here would like to see her dead.
If the colloration rumors are true, yes. That got a person hung or facing a firing squad in the old days.
I am still awaiting a statement from her entourage that makes a lick of sense.
Rats ass. If true, she would be dead.
Either way, some guys here seem to relish the idea of killing this women.
[CaptainAwesome2]
Damn!!! Missed her!!
[Squantos response:]
That's what I was thinkin....LOR for poor marksmanship !
I think, I have had enough.
"The US Army claimed the Italians' vehicle had been seen as a threat because it was travelling at speed and failed to stop at the checkpoint despite warning shots being fired by the soldiers. A State Department official in Washington said the Italians had failed to inform the military of Sgrena's release. "
Regrettable accident, but why didn't the Italians inform the US after they freed the journalist and why didn't they stop, when Americans wanted them to stop -- I expect it was clear that they were American soldiers.
I guess my first point is the old adage: the first reports are always wrong. All of these first news reports are subject to wide misrepresentation and interpretation. Remember all the initial Jessica Lynch stories that were wrongly reported.
Having said this, I don't have to know too much at this point to see both sides of the story. I know absolutely nothing about the woman journalist and frankly, her leanings don't really matter. She was apparently held hostage, and by some means, she was freed by agents of Italy.
They then made their way towards the Baghdad airport to try and get her out of the country. Having personally driven up to these checkpoints, I know the competing concerns of avoiding the bad guys by driving too slow and scaring the checkpoints as you approach too fast. Another major issue is that sometimes units will throw up checkpoints at random to not let the bad guys know where they are.
So, I honestly believe this is a tragic byproduct of war and the Italian Agent was killed in the hour which was probably his greatest. Italy has been a friend for many years and I hope the damage is not permanent.
Interesting take. Probably a bad rap to lay at Clinton's feet, but if those pilots were hotdogging that day, they should have been charged with manslaughter, in the least. I don't know how that case was dispositioned.
Obviously, some of the posters here have led VERY sheltered lives.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.