The case of the U.S. forces firing on a car containing an Italian hostage and killing an intelligence officer moves into a new dimension with a prediction from a “senior military official” that in the end it’ll turn out that the car was going 100 mph.
If the car was going at that speed and U.S. forces were not advised of what was going on, it would certainly seem that the natural military (or police roadblock) response would be to open fire. ABC reports:
WASHINGTON, March 8, 2005 — A senior U.S. military official tells ABC News he believes the investigation into the fatal shooting of an Italian intelligence officer by U.S. troops in Iraq will ultimately prove the officer’s car was traveling in excess of 100 mph.
The car, which was carrying a newly released Italian hostage to freedom, came under fire from U.S. troops at a checkpoint Friday. Intelligence officer Nicola Calipari was hit by a bullet and killed as he threw himself in front of the freed hostage, journalist Giuliana Sgrena. Sgrena and another intelligence officer were wounded.
The shooting has outraged Italians, who mourned Calipari at a state funeral Monday.
Sgrena has said she believes the car was deliberately ambushed because the United States opposes Italy’s policy of negotiating with hostage-takers. The White House has dismissed claims that the shooting was anything but an accident as “absurd.
There have been conflicting accounts of how fast the car was going. Italian officials have said the car was going 25 mph, but Sgrena herself earlier talked about the car speeding.
Meanwhile, John Hawkins and Arthur Chrenkoff show photos of what is said to be the car which certainly does not seem to be riddled with 300-400 bullets (unless it’s those pictures). They both quote from translations of an article about Dutch war reporter Harald Doornbos also translated here indicating Sgrena had been warned about the dangers but didn’t think it could happen to her. A small portion from this translation:
Be careful not to get kidnapped,’ I told the female Italian journalist sitting next to me in the small plane that was headed for Baghdad. ‘Oh no,’ she said. ‘That won’t happen. We are siding with the oppressed Iraqi people. No Iraqi would kidnap us.’
It doesn’t sound very nice to be critical of a fellow reporter. But Sgrena’s attitude is a disgrace for journalism. Or didn’t she tell me back in the plane that ‘common journalists such as yourself’ simply do not support the Iraqi people? ‘The Americans are the biggest enemies of mankind,’ the three women behind me had told me, for Sgrena travelled to Iraq with two Italian colleagues who hated the Americans as well.
Their political views don’t obscure the real issue at hand: what happened with that car? So far except for Sgrena’s speculation, nothing has emerged that suggests she was fired upon for WHO she is or WHAT she was reporting.
If you read all of the above and it is true it would indicate the car was speeding 100 mph towards soldiers who did not know who was in the car. If the car photos are accurate would suggest fewer bullets hit the car then suggested. And the quote from the Dutch journalist also suggests a perilously naive view of the dangers in Iraq.
Remember: last year a man named Nick Berg was in Iraq because he genuinely wanted to help the people — and he was beheaded. Nick Berg’s memorial site is here.
UPDATE: But one issue that seems to have amazingly faded into the woodwork is the issue of the ransom Italy apparently paid to get her back. Michelle Malkin deals with this issue in a new column. On her blog she writes:
As you may recall, I lambasted the Philippines for going wobbly and paying off the barbarians last year to free truck driver Angelo de la Cruz (see here, here, here, and here).
Now, the country that produced the heroic Fabrizio Quattrochi–remember “I’ll show you how an Italian dies”–has gone all Quisling on us with the second apparent ransom payoff to terrorists (here’s info on the first)…. Where is the uproar over this Islamist insurgency subsidy plan?
This certainly seems to be an issue which deserves some consideration. Where does the ransom money go? To fund future operations, obviously….more kidnappings, more beheadings, more bombings, and more shootings. Is there a blanket policy not to give in to terrorism or isn’t there (there isn’t)?
Joe Gandelman is a former fulltime journalist who freelanced in India, Spain, Bangladesh and Cypress writing for publications such as the Christian Science Monitor and Newsweek. He also did radio reports from Madrid for NPR’s All Things Considered. He has worked on two U.S. newspapers and quit the news biz in 1990 to go into entertainment. He also has written for The Week and several online publications, writes a column for Cagle Cartoons Syndicate and has appeared on CNN.