Another Iraq thread: With friends like that...

[Dis]

again lefties can complain easy from their armchairs.

How would you react in that situation in that sort of stress. Where you could die at any second?

I'm not saying the U.S. was in the right, I have no ideas of the details of this case. The U.S. should not be there at all, but that's a different story.

[Kuciwalker]

Originally posted by Agathon
US troops are notorious for shooting without looking properly.

Eh, he was speeding towards a checkpoint. You're supposed to shoot.

[Whaleboy]

According to the Americans, it seems the Italians are saying "We weren't going particularly fast given that type of situation."

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/europe/4321913.stm

[Pekka]

Well I'll wait for full investigation, because there are few things that might be mixed up.

First of all, in checkpoints it is my understanding that fire will be opened if situation is unclear, meaning that if the customers coming in are not paying attention to orders to stop, slow down or what ever, then the situation becomes unclear in which the soldiers on checkpoint make the decision, which can be firing at that target.

However, this is something the Italian rescuers would know. It's not like this is a big secret. This is VERY known fact. So I must keep wondering, why did this happen... there must be more to this story, on both sides than just the others were trigger happy, or that the others were looking like suicide bombers.

DId they actually identify themselves reasonably enough coming in, knowing checkpoint will shoot at them unless they slow down, why didn't they slow down anyway, there must be a good reason to that, or was it a jimbo 'it's coming right for us.. no wait it's waiving something, god damn commie waiving! *blam blam*'. I don't see that as a very reasonable option either. Sure it can be a trigger happy group or a person, but then again it might not be. So I give them the benefit of the doubt too.

Basically.. have to wait for the FULL investigation on both sides first. Because something ain't right.

[Whaleboy]

I'm thinking either trigger happy Americans or fatigued Italians.

[Dis]

I can't blame the italians for wanting to get the hell out of there. After what she'd been through.

[Chemical Ollie]

Will Italy pull their troops as a response?

I saw on the news that the rescued hostage was on the phone with Berlusconi's office right when she was hit. So he got the news just seconds after it happened.

[Kuciwalker]

Originally posted by Whaleboy
According to the Americans, it seems the Italians are saying "We weren't going particularly fast given that type of situation."

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/europe/4321913.stm

How are the troops supposed to know what situation the Italians are in?

If someone is speeding at your checkpoint, you're supposed to shoot. Otherwise you're a sitting duck for a car bomb.

[Dis]

it really would have been funny if jet fighters had shot down her plane when leaving Iraq.

[Pekka]

Kuci, No, you're not supposed to shoot. You are supposed to make a fast decision where opening fire is now available. Stop playing computer games.

[MarkG]

Journalist Calls Shots Unjustified
Wounded Italian's Account Differs From That of U.S.

By Daniel Williams
Washington Post Foreign Service
Sunday, March 6, 2005; Page A18

ROME, March 5 -- An Italian journalist freed from captivity in Iraq said Saturday that a "rain of fire" from a U.S. roadside patrol hit her vehicle as it slowly approached the airport in Baghdad, injuring her and killing an Italian intelligence agent also inside.

Giuliana Sgrena walked gingerly, with a plaid shawl draped around her shoulders, as she descended the steps of an airplane at Rome's Ciampino airport after arriving from Baghdad Saturday at noon. She later described the incident and called the U.S. fire on the vehicle unjustified.

Demonstrators hold anti-American signs during a protest in front of the U.S. Embassy in Rome. (Dario Pignatelli -- AP)

"We weren't going very fast, given the circumstances. It was not a checkpoint, but a patrol that started firing right after lighting up a spotlight. The firing was not justified by the movement of our automobile," Sgrena, a reporter for the Communist newspaper Il Manifesto, told Italian investigators, according to an account related by an official who interviewed her at a military hospital.

The dead military intelligence agent, Nicola Calipari, had helped secure Sgrena's release and was to accompany her on her trip back to Italy.

"We thought that the danger was finished after my handover. Instead, suddenly, this shooting. A rain of fire came," Sgrena told a television station by telephone. "Nicola folded himself on me probably to defend me and then he collapsed. I saw that he was dead. The shooting continued and the driver did not even have the opportunity to explain that we were Italian."

A statement released Friday by the U.S. Army's 3rd Infantry Division in Baghdad said troops fired at a car "traveling at high speeds" that "refused to stop at a checkpoint."

Sgrena was hit in the shoulder by shrapnel in the incident, and two other passengers, also security operatives, were wounded, Italian officials said.

In videotaped remarks from the garden of his official residence, the U.S. ambassador to Italy, Mel Sembler, said that Calipari had been a "valuable" U.S. ally. President Bush expressed his condolences in a telephone call to Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi, who has supported U.S. policy in Iraq and contributes about 2,700 troops to the U.S.-led occupation force.

U.S. officials said the Italians failed to inform military or diplomatic officials that Sgrena was on her way to the airport. Nighttime is particularly dangerous on the airport highway, which has been the scene of numerous car bombings and ambushes of U.S. troops, foreign contractors and other travelers. Berlusconi called in Sembler and demanded that someone "take responsibility." The prime minister pressed President Bush and Sembler for the United States to acknowledge a "tragic error." Italian prosecutors are preparing to officially ask the United States for information about the shooting.

Foreign Minister Gianfranco Fini called the incident "a joke of destiny." He cautioned that a withdrawal of Italian troops from Iraq or a souring of relations with the United States "would be the most deceitful attack on the memory of this hero," Fini said.

Opposition leaders raised questions about the incident. "Was there coordination between our intelligence service and the others in Iraq?" asked Piero Fassino, who heads the Democratic Left, the largest opposition faction. "Was the unified command in Iraq informed that a car was traveling to the airport with the just-liberated kidnapped person? What information was exchanged between our agencies and American forces?"

"Don't believe a word of the U.S. version," said Oliviero Diliberto, secretary of the Italian Communist party. "There's an attempt to mask what actually happened. The Americans deliberately fired on the Italians."

Doctors described Sgrena's condition as good and stable. Berlusconi, Carlo Azeglio Ciampi, the country's ceremonial president, and Walter Veltroni, mayor of Rome, attended a low-key welcoming ceremony for her. Pier Scolari, Sgrena's live-in companion, accompanied her from Baghdad after flying to Iraq overnight.

Srena, who had been taken hostage Feb. 4, gave few details about her captivity. She said her captors, who included a woman, did not mistreat her. She also said her pleas on a videotape released after she was seized were fed to her by her abductors. On the tape, she begs for her life and urges "pressure on the Italian government to withdraw its troops" from Iraq

[Kuciwalker]

"Don't believe a word of the U.S. version," said Oliviero Diliberto, secretary of the Italian Communist party. "There's an attempt to mask what actually happened. The Americans deliberately fired on the Italians."

sigh...

[MarkG]

The U.S. military said the Americans used "hand and arm signals, flashing white lights, and firing warning shots" to try to get the car to stop. But in an interview with Italian La 7 TV, Sgrena said "there was no bright light, no signal, and at a certain point, from one side, a firestorm erupted."

http://abcnews.go.com/International/wireStory?id=554726&page=2

[Giancarlo]

wow.. people here are jumping to conclusions... mistakes happen.. this was a saddening mistake... but this was not intentional. I love how the leftists here jump at the opportunity of bashing america.

[Dinner]

The truth has come out and it looks like the driver really was to blame. There was a check point, the speed limit was 10 mph, and the driver tried to go throughat 55mph without stopping. Marked vehicles get to drive through check points but they were driving an unmarked vehicle plus signs were posted in both English and Arabic plus warning shots were fired and still the driver didn't stop. This sucks but all of you who couldn't wait to blame the Americans sure should have waited until all the facts were in.