Outrage as US soldiers kill hostage rescue hero

The Observer ^ | Sunday March 6, 2005 | Philip Willan Rome

[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.

[MisterRepublican]

Read more about the illustrious Communist activist Giuliana Sgrena here:

http://mypetjawa.mu.nu/archives/070198.php#more

[TheDon]

Outrage? Why not sorrow? An unfortunate accident to be sure. The man was a hero for risking his life to save the kidnap victim. It remains to be seen if he was a fool for risking all their lives for nothing.

[SouthernFreebird]

You got that right...this story stinks.

[Mad_Tom_Rackham]

If they'd been under fire from an armored vehicle as she claims, wouldn't the entire car have been ripped apart from the hundreds of bullets fired?

Good question.

[ozzymandus]

Although the Romans never conquered Germania Magna, thanks in part to Armenius, aka "Herman the German", who destroyed 3 legions. Plus, in the later Roman Empire, most of the soldiers and generals were German. When the Emperors ran out of money to pay their German armies, that was it for the empire.

[P.O.E.]

Orchestrated by said propagandist herself, methinks.

[Mad_Tom_Rackham]

Most of Europe has been at peace for too long and Europeans have lost the basic skills to survive in a battlefield.

Pandemic socialism has muted their sense of self-preservation.

[A. Pole]

Are you trying to claim that the US soldiers were aiming directly at her?

I do not claim that they were doing this intentionally (but anyone might have such suspicion, especially those who protest too much). The agent died because he was covering her - so the bullets were coming into her direction.

[MisterRepublican]

A few of Communist activist GIULIANA SGRENA's recent articles at Il Manifesto:



Florence and the others
GIULIANA SGRENA
il manifesto 14 January 2005

Ten thousand Iraqis in US and British prisons
GIULIANA SGRENA
il manifesto 29 December 2004

Two thousand victims in Fallujah
Giuliana Sgrena, Iraq
il manifesto 26 November 2004

Napalm Raid on Falluja?
GIULIANA SGRENA
il manifesto 23 November 2004

The death throes of Fallujah
Giuliana Sgrena
ilmanifesto 13 November 2004

“Stop the massacre”
GIULIANA SGRENA
il manifesto 12 November 2004

Bombs and tanks, hell breaks in Falluja
GIULIANA SGRENA
il manifesto 09 November 2004

Interview with an Iraki woman tortured at Abu Graib.
Giuliana Sgrena, our correspondent in Baghdad
il manifesto 01 July 2004

“Imminent attack” against Falluja
GIULIANA SGRENA
il manifesto 06 November 2004

Flight from a Falluja massacred by bombs
GIULIANA SGRENA
il manifestp 21 October 2004

UN: US crimes in Iraq
GIULIANA SGRENA
il manifesto 05 June 2004


http://www.ilmanifesto.it/pag/sgrena/en/

[A. Pole]

Europe is worthless. Turd world sh!thole.

Italy has troops in Iraq in support of US. At least for that reason Italians deserve more respect.

[Diplomat]

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.

Now Italy gets to discover how screwing over America and getting our boys killed effects their economy. Unless Berlusconi refutes the reports that his government paid/assisted the payment of bribes to these terrorists, consider the boycott of all Italian products to be on. And unlike the French boycott, I actually have some Italian consumables in my house.

[LoudRepublicangirl]

I think she went to Iraq looking for trouble and she found it.

[A. Pole]

The Poles i.E., who fought the German Wehrmacht for 6 years, lost about 20% of their inhabitans in that time.

Serbs and Greeks also were very brave. BTW, for USA the 20% of population would be 65 millions today.

[YOUGOTIT]

She is a left-wing fascist Communist and as such supports the enemies of the United States.

[Soul Seeker]

Exactly.

She supposedly is within moments of having her neck slashed. Yet now we hear her praising them to the skies and condemning our military for doing their job because the driver didn't listen to warning? I think it's entirely possible this was planned with her "captors", and if it wasn't? That woman clumsily orchestrated it herself.

I'm sorry for the agent but I feel nothing remotely near compassion for this woman.

[A. Pole]

in reality a high powered rifle bullet would have killed her too....

Maybe these were not high powered rifle bullets?

[ozzymandus]

So you think the soldiers knew who she was, where she was sitting in the car, and so on? Then why didn't they finish her off after the car stopped? This is ridiculous. A car tried to run a US military roadblock in the dark and the soldiers opened fire. They obviously fired only a few rounds, or everyone in the car would have been killed instantly. I'm not one of the people here who wishes the woman journalist had been killed, but I doubt if the soldiers knew the identities of anyone in the car. The shooting was entirely the fault of the people who tried to run the roadblock.

[John Valentine]

She is alive because the killed agent have covered her with his body.

Sheer horsepucky. Only in the movies will a human body shield another from the impact of high-velocity rounds. In the real world both would be torn to shreds.

[Radix]

Mommy, please make it stop.

Unbelievable. The freaking driver of the car refused to stop. That is not OK when you approach a military check point in Iraq these days.

So now we have to endure this "victim" and her BS for the rest of our lives. Does she think that she'd be better off dead?

[Feckless]

someone would have to take responsibility 'for such a grave incident'.

Start with the driver who failed to heed warnings to stop. And end it there.