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Giuliana Sgrena fears troops targeted her
Italian journalist Giuliana Sgrena has suggested US troops deliberately tried to kill her moments after she was released by her kidnappers in Baghdad.
Ms Sgrena, writing in her left-wing newspaper Il Manifesto, described how her car came "under a rain of fire".
At that moment, she said she recalled her captors' words that some Americans "don't want you to go back".
The US military, who said troops fired on the speeding car after it failed to stop, has opened a full investigation.
A top Italian secret service agent, Nicola Calipari, died in the incident as he shielded Ms Sgrena from the gunshots.
He had led the efforts to negotiate the release of the correspondent, held captive in Iraq for more than a month.
The body of Mr Calipari, who is being treated as a national hero, is lying in state in an imposing monument in the centre of Rome before a state funeral on Monday.
The incident in Baghdad threatens to have continuing political fallout in Rome, says our correspondent there David Willey.
Pressure will grow on Italy's Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi, a staunch ally of US President George W Bush, to reconsider the wisdom of keeping on Italian peacekeepers in Iraq, our correspondent says.
Already, the Italian foreign ministry has warned all Italian nationals to avoid travel to Iraq.
Sgrena's account
Details remain unclear about exactly what happened as the car carrying the Italian journalist, Calipari and two other agents made its journey towards Baghdad's airport late on Friday.
The US military says that the car was speeding as it approached a checkpoint and that soldiers used hand signals, flashed lights, and fired warning shots in an attempt to stop it, before opening fire.
In her account for Il Manifesto, Ms Sgrena said the kidnappers had released her willingly.
When she got in the car, Calipari took off her blindfold and was "an avalanche of friendly phrases, jokes".
"Nicola Calipari was seated at my side. The driver had spoken twice to the embassy and to Italy that we were on our way to the airport that I knew was saturated with American troops. We were less than a kilometre they told me... when... I remember there was shooting.
"The driver began screaming that we were Italian, 'We're Italian! We're Italian!'"
Ms Sgrena has said the car was not going particularly fast.
Upon her release, she said, "They [the kidnappers] said they were committed to releasing me, but that I had to be careful 'because there are Americans who don't want you to go back'."
In another interview with Sky Italia TV, she said it was possible the soldiers had targeted her because Washington opposed the policy of negotiating with kidnappers.
"Everyone knows that the Americans do not like negotiations to free hostages, and because of this I don't see why I should exclude the possibility of me having been the target," she said.
She said she did not know if a ransom was paid for her release - a policy the US does not approve either.
Ms Sgrena was abducted on 4 February, and later appeared in a video begging for help and urging foreign troops to leave Iraq.
Much of the country was opposed to the US-led war in Iraq and the government's decision to send 3,000 Italian troops to Iraq.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/4323361.stm
At that moment, she said she recalled her captors' words that some Americans "don't want you to go back".
The US military, who said troops fired on the speeding car after it failed to stop, has opened a full investigation.
A top Italian secret service agent, Nicola Calipari, died in the incident as he shielded Ms Sgrena from the gunshots.
He had led the efforts to negotiate the release of the correspondent, held captive in Iraq for more than a month.
The body of Mr Calipari, who is being treated as a national hero, is lying in state in an imposing monument in the centre of Rome before a state funeral on Monday.
The incident in Baghdad threatens to have continuing political fallout in Rome, says our correspondent there David Willey.
Pressure will grow on Italy's Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi, a staunch ally of US President George W Bush, to reconsider the wisdom of keeping on Italian peacekeepers in Iraq, our correspondent says.
Already, the Italian foreign ministry has warned all Italian nationals to avoid travel to Iraq.
Sgrena's account
Details remain unclear about exactly what happened as the car carrying the Italian journalist, Calipari and two other agents made its journey towards Baghdad's airport late on Friday.
The US military says that the car was speeding as it approached a checkpoint and that soldiers used hand signals, flashed lights, and fired warning shots in an attempt to stop it, before opening fire.
In her account for Il Manifesto, Ms Sgrena said the kidnappers had released her willingly.
When she got in the car, Calipari took off her blindfold and was "an avalanche of friendly phrases, jokes".
"Nicola Calipari was seated at my side. The driver had spoken twice to the embassy and to Italy that we were on our way to the airport that I knew was saturated with American troops. We were less than a kilometre they told me... when... I remember there was shooting.
"The driver began screaming that we were Italian, 'We're Italian! We're Italian!'"
Ms Sgrena has said the car was not going particularly fast.
Upon her release, she said, "They [the kidnappers] said they were committed to releasing me, but that I had to be careful 'because there are Americans who don't want you to go back'."
In another interview with Sky Italia TV, she said it was possible the soldiers had targeted her because Washington opposed the policy of negotiating with kidnappers.
"Everyone knows that the Americans do not like negotiations to free hostages, and because of this I don't see why I should exclude the possibility of me having been the target," she said.
She said she did not know if a ransom was paid for her release - a policy the US does not approve either.
Ms Sgrena was abducted on 4 February, and later appeared in a video begging for help and urging foreign troops to leave Iraq.
Much of the country was opposed to the US-led war in Iraq and the government's decision to send 3,000 Italian troops to Iraq.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/4323361.stm
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March 6 (Bloomberg) -- Giuliana Sgrena, the Italian reporter wounded on March 4 by U.S.-led forces after she was freed from her captors in Iraq, said the military may have targeted her deliberately.
Sgrena, 57, who had been held for one month in captivity, was injured and Italian intelligence officer Nicola Calipari was killed when coalition forces fired on their vehicle as it approached a Baghdad checkpoint.
Writing in Italy's Il Manifesto newspaper, Sgrena said her kidnappers had warned her to pay attention once she was freed, because the U.S. wanted her dead. At the time, she judged their words to be ``superfluous and ideological,'' she wrote.
``They told me to beware because `there are Americans who don't want you to return','' Sgrena wrote in the article. When she was shot, her captors' advice ``risked acquiring the taste of the most bitter of truths,'' she wrote.
U.S. President George W. Bush telephoned Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi on March 4 to express regret about the incident and offer cooperation in an investigation, according to White House spokesman Scott McClellan.
U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice called Italian Foreign Minister Gianfranco Fini yesterday to reiterate the U.S. will do all it can to uncover what happened, la Repubblica reported today.
No Justification
The shooting was ``without reason,'' Sgrena said yesterday from a Rome military hospital, where she is being treated for her wounds, reported daily Corriere della Sera. ``I cannot find any justification for it,'' she was cited as saying.
Sgrena's convoy approached the checkpoint at a ``high rate of speed,'' according to Marine Sergeant Salju Thomas on March 4 by telephone from Baghdad. ``It's an extremely threatening act,'' Thomas said. ``That's the exact same thing that car bombers do.''
Sgrena denied that the convoy carrying her, Calipari and two other Italian agents was speeding when it crossed the checkpoint, and said the shots were from elsewhere, Italy's Ansa news agency said yesterday.
``It wasn't a checkpoint, but a patrol that started shooting after pointing some lights in our direction,'' the Ansa news agency cited Sgrena as telling prosecutors. Her driver was also injured in the shooting.
Ransom
The U.S. wasn't informed of the last phases of Italy's negotiations with the kidnappers, as it opposed any ransom being paid for Sgrena, said Il Sole/24 Ore. A ransom of ``several million dollars'' was paid in another Arab country at about the time of her release, the daily newspaper said today.
The Italian government said it was the U.S. military that fired on the vehicle. A U.S. military spokesman confirmed the incident but wouldn't say who fired the shots.
The shooting was ``a grave accident that someone will have to take responsibility for,'' Italy's Prime Minister Berlusconi said at a press conference held in Rome.
The reporter's wounds aren't life threatening, according to Il Manifesto, the Communist newspaper for which she writes.
Sgrena, an opponent of the war in Iraq, was held hostage by five or six ``very religious'' people, including a woman, she told prosecutors in Rome, reported Corriere. They spoke to her in Arabic, French, and broken English, she wrote in Il Manifesto.
Life Saver
Calipari saved Sgrena's life by shielding her with his body, Berlusconi said. He helped free three other hostages in Iraq, the Italian Prime Minister said. There will be a state funeral for the intelligence officer in Rome tomorrow.
Berlusconi and President Carlo Azeglio Ciampi joined Calipari's family late yesterday at Rome's Ciampino airport, to receive his flag-draped coffin carried by a military honor guard, the Associated Press reported.
The prime minister has pledged to leave Italy's 3,000 soldiers in the southern Iraqi city of Nasiriyah until the new government in Baghdad asks for a withdrawal. Italy has the fourth- largest contingent of the 29 countries with soldiers in Iraq. Only the U.S., U.K. and South Korea have more.
Sgrena, who appeared in a Feb. 16 video pleading for Italy to withdraw its soldiers from Iraq, was headed toward the airport for a homebound flight when she was shot. She arrived back in Italy yesterday, having undergone two operations during the night, Italy's TG5 television news reported.
http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=10000085&sid=ap9iTU9rEwwk&refer=europe
Giuliana Sgrena, wounded when the convoy taking her to safety was riddled by US fire near Baghdad airport on Friday, said today she may have been a target because the Americans opposed negotiations with her kidnappers.
"Everyone knows that the Americans don't want hostages to be freed by negotiations, and for that reason, I don't see why I should rule out that I was their target," Sgrena told Sky Italia news channel.
The comment comes amid fears that Friday's incident, in which Italy's top intelligence officer in Iraq, Nicola Calipari, was killed, could lead to a full-scale diplomatic rift between the two allies.
"The incident could have very serious political consequences," Italy's La Stampa daily said in a front page editorial, adding that relations between the two governments had "suffered an immediate deterioration".
Hour by hour, Washington's version of events was unravelling, the Turin-based newspaper said.
The US military said their forces had given ample warning to the driver of Sgrena's car, which they said was approaching at speed when they opened fire, but Sgrena said they had not been travelling fast.
US Defence Secretary Donald Rumsfeld called his Italian counterpart, Antonio Martino, "to express the regret of the American administration and his personal regret" over Calipari's death, Italy's defence ministry said today.
Washington has pledged a full inquiry into the incident and President George W. Bush has personally expressed his regret over what happened.
Mr Martino said he was sure that "the ongoing investigation will fully clarify the circumstances which led to the tragic end of this incident".
Meanwhile, hundreds of mourners lined up outside the Vittoriano national monument in central Rome to pay their respects to Calipari, whose body was repatriated late yesterday.
The crowd - many carrying flowers and waving Italian flags - applauded as his coffin was borne inside the monument where it was to lie in state until a funeral with full military honours tomorrow.
Italy's President Carlo Azeglio Ciampi hailed Calipari as a hero who had used his body to shield Sgrena after the US patrol opened fire. Sgrena was wounded in the shoulder and was being treated at a military hospital in Rome.
Friday's incident is likely to rekindle debate in Italy over when to withdraw its 3000-strong military contingent from Iraq, the key condition laid down by Sgrena's kidnappers for her release.
Much of the country opposed the decision by Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi in June 2003 to send troops.
Ruling party member Raffaele Costa said today parliament, which is due to debate an extension to the mission on March 14, should set a clear date for withdrawal.
"It's time now that the responsible political forces define a way out that everybody can agree on."
Communist leader Fausto Bertinotti said withdrawal of the troops would be a "act of public health, of real and political hygiene for our country".
While Sgrena's suspicion she may have been a target for US firepower was not generally shared by Italy's press today, an indignant La Stampa said the US government had been informed about her impending release.
"And the presence of an American colonel at Baghdad airport along with the Italian officers who were waiting for Sgrena and her liberators, demonstrates that the operation was being conducted in harmony," the newspaper said.
It said, however, that a ransom was "almost certainly" paid to the kidnappers, even though any payment was "very probably" opposed by the Americans.
Sgrena, a 56-year-old correspondent for the Italian communist daily Il Manifesto, confirmed today she had been voluntarily released by her kidnappers, but said she had no knowledge of any ransom payment.
With most attention on the dramatic aftermath, little has been said about the circumstances of her release. Sgrena's account in her newspaper made it clear, however, that no force was involved, and that her kidnappers drove her to an obviously pre-arranged handover point.
http://dailytelegraph.news.com.au/story.jsp?sectionid=1274&storyid=2771027
6March2005
Was the killing by US troops of an Italian security chief and the wounding of the Italian journalist he had helped release hours earlier an unfortunate tragedy? Or was it something more sinister? Either way, Washington has some tough questions to answer. American military sources in Baghdad maintain that the car carrying journalist Giuliana Sgrena and three Italian intelligence officials, including the slain officer, failed to react to repeated instructions to stop at a roadblock just outside the capital’s airport. It seems extraordinary that Italian intelligence professionals who had just rescued the journalist would have been insensitive to the requirements of a security check and the risks of ignoring it.
One possible explanation for the attack on the car carrying the Italians is that trigger-happy US troops, terrified of car bombers, fired the minute they suspected the vehicle was a danger to them. It only takes one nervous soldier to shoot a single bullet and a whole unit then shares the panic and opens up on a target. If this is what happened, then it is a demonstration of the indiscipline and poor training of US soldiers which has in the past resulted in a number of similar attacks, including the slaying of the Iraqi occupants of a car rushing a pregnant woman to a maternity hospital.
The odiously named “friendly fire” has characterized the US military performance in Iraq to the fury of Washington’s allies, not least the British whose troops have discovered that however “friendly,” it can prove as deadly as the unfriendly variety.
There is, however, the more sinister explanation which is that the Americans wanted Sgrena dead. A senior correspondent for the Communist daily, Il Manifesto in Rome, the journalist has been no friend of the US invasion and occupation. US troops have killed journalists before. Two cameramen, a Ukrainian and a Spaniard, were slain in April 2003 when a US shell was fired into the Palestine Hotel, a known base of international journalists opposite the Baghdad Sheraton. Earlier an Al-Jazeera correspondent was killed when the TV station’s local office was struck by a US missile.
The American military has not taken kindly to foreign journalists who refuse to involve themselves in America’s well-oiled media-relations machine. When Sgrena was kidnapped on Feb.4 , other journalists were told by US officials that the event highlighted the danger of working outside their Green Zone-focused loop. There was also apparently grim satisfaction that a journalist who was so opposed to US policy should have become a victim of the insurgents. The conclusion of the sinister explanation must therefore be that the Americans were settling the score with a foreign commentator whose published views infuriated them. Yet it seems incredible that even the American military could be this crass.
In Italy, the incident is provoking a renewed outcry against further Italian involvement in Iraq. An anguished Berlusconi reportedly made an extremely angry phone call to President Bush and was promised that that incident would be fully investigated. The journalists group Reporters Sans Frontiers is demanding, however, that an independent inquiry be mounted by the UN since the group fears that, as with the Palestine Hotel deaths, the US will again exonerate its trigger-happy troops.
http://arabnews.com/?page=7§ion=0&article=60023&d=6&m=3&y=2005
> car carrying the Italians is that trigger-happy
> US troops, terrified of car bombers, fired the
> minute they suspected the vehicle was a danger to
> them. It only takes one nervous soldier to shoot
> a single bullet and a whole unit then shares the
> panic and opens up on a target. If this is what
> happened, then it is a demonstration of the
> indiscipline and poor training of US soldiers
> which has in the past resulted in a number of
> similar attacks, including the slaying of the
> Iraqi occupants of a car rushing a pregnant woman
> to a maternity hospital.
"Indiscipline"? "poor training"?
Amazing how the ideological barrier of "the US army
cannot possibly have a fundamentally racist policy
of deciding that the life of an undermenschen is
worth less than that of an ubermenschen" cannot be
broken here.
How about acknowledging the obvious? The US
occupation of Iraq is fundamentally based on
racism: anybody who might possibly be a local
inhabitant (e.g. in a car which is not a US
military vehicle) has a low "life value" and can be
killed in case there's any uncertainty. The Italian
security guys just underestimated the level of
brutality and racism of the US soldiers.
The hypothesis of a deliberate assassination
attempt in the hope that it would be considered an
accident is also credible IMHO - but then you have
to accept that whoever up above decided on the plan
was aware of the risks of stuffing up and
overconfident, or else was simply naive and thought
there was no chance of the assassination failing...
There definitely were some bad tactical decisions
by the local US military - whether they just failed
to transmit the info about the car rescuing Sgrena,
or whether they wanted to assassinate her and
failed - in either case it shows that the whole
occupation is stressed as a system and making
mistakes which only increase the stress against the
occupation and internal morale problems amongst
soldiers.
So keep up the pressure - the occupation is getting
more and more fragile. The question is not if it
will collapse, it's rather *when* and *how* it will
collapse.