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.
As I am.
Sorry the guy was killed but it wasn't our troops fault. They did their job well. It's the driver that screwed up. What his motivations were I don't know.
And I want to know more about this "jornalist" and her association with the terrorists. She's the one that started this whole mess and I don't believe for a moment she is innocent. She's been after the fall of the coalition and berlusconi for suppoting it for awhile.
I actually respect the Italians more these days than anybody else in Europe. They still have some nad. Too many communists though.
Five million will fund a few more months of terrorist activities including bombings of our own soldiers and Marines.
The Italians have purchased the deaths of our troops on an executory contract.
there is a little bit of anger, frustration, and disgust going on here.
ummm....unlike tv and movies, where plywood buildings and bodies stop bullets, in reality a high powered rifle bullet would have killed her too....
Our story is we fired into the engine block, so my guess is it was shrapnel from the engine, which can take a very random course. And she was hit in the shoulder, not badly enough though.
Silvio needs a big steamin' cup o' STFU.
In truth? She's an Islamic sympathizer attempting to bring down the coalition. I wouldn't wish her death in spite of that knowledge, but I certainly wouldn't authorize paying off the terrorists to free her. Nor do I think her life is worth the life of the agent. Further I think this whole story of a kidnapping is suspicious to begin with.
A little more of this Roman madness, and I will happily add Italian products to my boycott list.
They overpaid.
Remember these two "hostages" fromm last year?
From The Daily Telegraph: Italians fall out of love with 'two Simonas' http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2004/10/02/wsim02.xml&sSheet=/news/2004/10/02/ixworld.html
I agree. probably shrapnal from the engine block...which would have been traveling slower and on a random projectory...i.e. accidental killing when trying to stop a car, not deliberatly aiming at her...
My point was that if they were trying to shoot them to kill them, they all would have been dead...
Answer:
"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."
Isn't she the one who called for one of her cohorts to "release the pictures"? This smells.
Exactly. We could have lit that car up and turned it into an inferno any time we wanted. Then we could have said "Gee, I'm sorry" and there would have been no argument. I'm not in the habit of wishing people dead, but our guys are taking way too much heat for doing their jobs.
It is very strange that this woman supposedly having gone through the hell of being a captive of the homicidal sadest terrorists, under threat of death, has nothing to bemoan about her days in captivity, but instead behaves as though the incident at the check point has tramatized her for life.
The stench of collaboration and conspirecy permeates her entire alleged ordeal.
Yep. IMO, once the islamists discovered who she was, they collaborated with her in this effort. Brothers to the bone.
...Something about this has my spidey sense tingling...
When I first heard of this incident, my first thought was, "talk about bad luck". I mean, here she no sooner gets released from capture and then immediatly gets fired upon for ignoring a checkpoint. Worst luck ever.
Now I find out she is a Commie (don't know how I missed that part until now, but I did).
Let's put it this way. I can now put aside any doubt of her side of the story having any merit whatsoever. I also no longer feel that she was "lucky" to have emerged from her captivity with her head still attatched to her scrawnie little commie neck.
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