[malvolio]

U.S. Forces Wound Freed Italian Hostage in Iraq

58 minutes ago

�_Top Stories - Reuters

By Andrew Marshall

BAGHDAD (Reuters) - Italian journalist Giuliana Sgrena was freed by her captors on Friday but U.S. forces in Iraq (news - web sites) mistakenly opened fire on the convoy taking her to safety, wounding her and killing an Italian secret service agent.

Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi, one of President Bush (news - web sites)'s staunchest supporters in Iraq, immediately summoned the American ambassador, demanding explanations and declaring someone had to take responsibility.

U.S. forces at a checkpoint shot dead the agent and wounded Sgrena in the shoulder while she was being driven to Baghdad airport after being freed and handed over to three Italian secret service officers, Berlusconi told a news conference.

"We were turned to stone when the officials told us about it on the telephone," Berlusconi said.

"The agent, Nicola Calipari covered Sgrena with his body, he was hit by a bullet which unfortunately was fatal," he said. All three other passengers were wounded. Sgrena was treated for a shrapnel wound in her shoulder at a U.S. military hospital.

The 57-year-old Sgrena was kidnapped on Feb. 4. Insurgents later released a video of her sobbing and wringing her hands as she pleaded for Italian troops to leave Iraq.

In Washington, the White House said it regretted the shooting. The U.S. military said American soldiers tried to warn occupants of the vehicle -- flashing lights and firing warning shots -- as it sped toward a checkpoint, then fired into its engine block when it did not stop.

[placebo1969]

Great commentary. Hey I can do that to.

Tragic all the way around. But this seems important:
The U.S. military said American soldiers tried to warn occupants of the vehicle -- flashing lights and firing warning shots -- as it sped toward a checkpoint, then fired into its engine block when it did not stop.

[macintologist]

http://forums.macnn.com/showthread.p...hreadid=247906

[spacefreak]

While tragic, the headline should read something like "US troops shoot non-heeding car at checkpoint carrying freed Italian hostage".

Instead, the media coverage makes it sound like US troops targeted the freed hostage, when in reality it didn't matter who was in the speeding car. It could have been Steve Jobs, and they still would have fired when the car refused to stop.

Of course, that headline would probably read "US troops under Bush's command kill Apple CEO Steve Jobs".

[Agasthya]

Originally posted by spacefreak:
While tragic, the headline should read something like "US troops shoot non-heeding car at checkpoint carrying freed Italian hostage".

Instead, the media coverage makes it sound like US troops targeted the freed hostage, when in reality it didn't matter who was in the speeding car. It could have been Steve Jobs, and they still would have fired when the car refused to stop.

Of course, that headline would probably read "US troops under Bush's command kill Apple CEO Steve Jobs".

Calm down.

[malvolio]

Originally posted by placebo1969:
Tragic all the way around. But this seems important:
The U.S. military said American soldiers tried to warn occupants of the vehicle -- flashing lights and firing warning shots -- as it sped toward a checkpoint, then fired into its engine block when it did not stop.

I am highly skeptical of the "official" military account. Are we to believe that the driver was deaf, blind or suicidal?
And shooting into the engine block? Give me a break! You can be sure they raked that car from stem to stern.
It is worth remembering that there are damn few Arabic speakers among the US forces in Iraq. And the occupation troops are not given much training in Iraqi culture.
A quote from a long article in another thread:

Shortly after Massey arrived in Iraq, his unit was ordered to man roadblocks. To stop cars, the Marines would raise their hands. If the drivers kept going, Massey says, we would just light em up. I didnt find out until later on, after talking to an Iraqi, that when you put your hand up in the air, it means Hello. He estimates that his men killed 30 civilians in one 48-hour period.

[TETENAL]

Originally posted by malvolio:
The U.S. military said American soldiers tried to warn occupants of the vehicle -- flashing lights and firing warning shots -- as it sped toward a checkpoint, then fired into its engine block when it did not stop.

Probably the "warning shot 1 second before firing into the car" that is usual procedure for US patrols.

[Nicko]

This is a ****ed up war. And this is the ultimate irony.

I hope that the anti-war opposition in Italy can milk 110% of the political capital from this incident. Martyrs have been made from much less.

[Athens]

However, Italian magistrate Franco Ionta said Sgrena disagreed with the military account.

"It wasn't a checkpoint, but a patrol that shot as soon [as] they lit us up with a spotlight. We didn't know where the bullets were coming from. We had not met other checkpoints before. Our car was absolutely not traveling at high speed," she said.

I believe her account of the inncedent over the Army

[TETENAL]

Originally posted by Athens:
I believe her account of the inncedent over the Army

Therer is an example on how this works in the first video at minute 9:20

http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontl.../company/view/

There is also another similar incident where an Iraqi family was shot at one second after the warning shot.

http://forums.macnn.com/showthread.p...hreadid=242428

It's believable that the Italian agents didn't have any time to react. One has to wonder how many civilians have been killed by such incidents we never hear about.

[f1000]

I find it disheartening that two NATO partners can't communicate well enough to avoid friendly fire incidents, even during lulls in major combat. I offer my condolences to the Italian people.

[Athens]

Originally posted by f1000:
I find it disheartening that two NATO partners can't communicate well enough to avoid friendly fire incidents, even during lulls in major combat. I offer my condolences to the Italian people.

I dont think its a communications problem, I think its a Trigger Happy problem.

When the US Air Force bombed and killed 4/5 Canadians in Afgainistan a couple years ago it shouldnt have happened either and it wasent a communications problem it was a Trigger happy problem too.

[Psychonaut]

Yikes, I'll be going to Italy in just 2 weeks. I've been watching Rai television and it's mentioned every seccond. I think I'll make a t-shirt that says "Sono profugo politico d'America. Posso dormire su tuo divano per quattro anni?"

But my thoughts are with Calipari's family and Sgrena.

[Athens]

Originally posted by Psychonaut:
Yikes, I'll be going to Italy in just 2 weeks. I've been watching Rai television and it's mentioned every seccond. I think I'll make a t-shirt that says "Sono profugo politico d'America. Posso dormire su tuo divano per quattro anni?"

But my thoughts are with Calipari's family and Sgrena.

Just pretend your a Canadian like a lot of oversea Americans do. Its much safer and generally makes for a much more plesent stay. Just dont give us a bad name if you do that.

[Millennium]

A sad mistake, but from the look of things an honest one. This said, when are people going to get some common sense and not speed at checkpoints? Seriously. Is it truly that hard not to drive straight at guys who know they're being marked for death by elements within that society but have no way of knowing when or if they'll be attacked? Can you truly blame them for getting scared and acting out of honest fear for their lives?

[Moderator]

Originally posted by Athens:
Just pretend your a Canadian like a lot of oversea Americans do. Its much safer and generally makes for a much more plesent stay. Just dont give us a bad name if you do that.

Thats not necessary....if you make an effort to be courteous and respectful people will respond to that. I despise the name the current adminsitration has given us around the world..but when I travel people are as kind to me as they've ever been....

you're talking person to person contact....for the most part they'll know not to hoist your governments ******** on your shoulders...

Show some respect and appreciation and people will know you're not one of the obnoxious americans

[Athens]

Originally posted by Millennium:
A sad mistake, but from the look of things an honest one. This said, when are people going to get some common sense and not speed at checkpoints? Seriously. Is it truly that hard not to drive straight at guys who know they're being marked for death by elements within that society but have no way of knowing when or if they'll be attacked? Can you truly blame them for getting scared and acting out of honest fear for their lives?

She said it wasent a check point, read what I posted just above

[Moderator]

Originally posted by Millennium:
This said, when are people going to get some common sense and [i]not speed at checkpoints?

not sure why you'd assume this is true.

Does it seem more likely that an Italian agent would speed thru an armed US checkpoint..or that the military would make a mistake (understandable) and in an effort to reduce the political damage........call it a checkpoint.

[TETENAL]

Originally posted by Millennium:
A sad mistake, but from the look of things an honest one. This said, when are people going to get some common sense and not speed at checkpoints? Seriously.

How would you react when you hear gun-fire? I would say speeding away is a natural reaction. The US patrols seem to shoot warning shots 1 second before firing into the car. That is an unreasonable short amount of time for the driver to judge whether he is in an ambush or approaching a checkpoint.

I could think about other means to make cars slow down before a checkpoint. Checkpoints could have traffic sigs with speed limits, then nail-tapes laid out in a way to force the car to speed down for making s-turns, and then fire warning shots if a car is still speeding.

[f1000]

My theory is that her captives had phoned in a bomb threat to U.S. forces soon after releasing her in order to make the GI's skittish. In other words, her captives had planned on having the Americans accidentally kill her.

She claims that her captors warned her that the Americans wouldn't want her to return alive. Why would Americans want that? For the most part, she's a nobody. Moreover, if Americans were going to assassinate a reporter, why would they do it in such an obvious and half-assed way? There are so many other ways to successfully kill a person and make it look like terrorists did it.

It's not like these thugs are beyond using social engineering to trick people into behaving in counterproductively. Just think of how the 9/11 hijackers made passengers believe that they were simply going to keep them as hostages when in fact they intended to kill them all by ramming the planes into skyscrapers.

[Athens]

Originally posted by f1000:
My theory is that her captives had phoned in a bomb threat to U.S. forces soon after releasing her in order to make the GI's skittish. In other words, her captives had planned on having the Americans accidentally kill her.

She claims that her captors warned her that the Americans wouldn't want her to return alive. Why would Americans want that? For the most part, she's a nobody. Moreover, if Americans were going to assassinate a reporter, why would they do it in such an obvious and half-assed way? There are so many other ways to successfully kill a person and make it look like terrorists did it.

It's not like these thugs are beyond using social engineering to trick people into behaving in irrational ways. Just think of how the 9/11 hijackers made the passengers believe that they were simply going to keep them as hostages when in fact they intended to kill them all by ramming the planes into skyscrapers.

The Assassinate thing is crap its simple, some GI's are trigger happy, made a mistake and some one important died. If it had been some Iraqies instead it would have only made the news as "1 dead iraqie, 1 injured during a check point altercation" or something along those lines and that would have been the end of it. CNN would have covered it as part of the general daily body count. Boy that sounds bad, daily body count. Either way its not a assassination just a couple stupid guys who have every right to be trigger happy because of where they are. Mistakes happen. Its not the drivers fualt if he speed up because he herd gun fire. Its not the GI's fualt totally for being trigger happy, of course they shouldnt have shot at them the way they did if her story is true.

[ThinkInsane]

Originally posted by TETENAL:
How would you react when you hear gun-fire? I would say speeding away is a natural reaction. The US patrols seem to shoot warning shots 1 second before firing into the car. That is an unreasonable short amount of time for the driver to judge whether he is in an ambush or approaching a checkpoint.

I could think about other means to make cars slow down before a checkpoint. Checkpoints could have traffic sigs with speed limits, then nail-tapes laid out in a way to force the car to speed down for making s-turns, and then fire warning shots if a car is still speeding.

You seem fixated on this one second thing, something that was never held up as fact, just someone's perception. I can tell you from my own experience, in such situations time does funny things. Let me ask you this: If a car is approaching you at say.... 75 mph, and car bombs are a concern, meaning you can't let a vehicle get particularly close, how much time do you have to warn the driver? How far does a car going 75 mph travel in one second?

[TETENAL]

Originally posted by ThinkInsane:
You seem fixated on this one second thing, something that was never held up as fact, just someone's perception. I can tell you from my own experience, in such situations time does funny things.

All right, I measured it with a stop watch from the FRONTLINE video linked above. It was actually a little bit over 3 seconds from the warning shot to them firing onto the car. It doesn't look like the driver could have known that he is approaching a patrol since he came from behind a curve. This is still very little time to judge whether you are in an ambush (where speeding away is the right thing to do) or approaching a checkpoint (where you'd have to do the opposite).
The Italian agent was driving at dusk, so it was even more difficult for him to tell.

If a car is approaching you at say.... 75 mph, and car bombs are a concern, meaning you can't let a vehicle get particularly close, how much time do you have to warn the driver?

You don't have more time. That's the point. And that's why I said those checkpoints need traffic signs with low speed limits before them so that both drivers and soldiers have the time correctly assess the situation. Maybe impose a general speed limit in towns. Maybe do something else to avoid such misunderstandings. It seems to me a benevolent civilian deserves a chance.

[demograph68]

Originally posted by TETENAL:
I could think about other means to make cars slow down before a checkpoint. Checkpoints could have traffic sigs with speed limits, then nail-tapes laid out in a way to force the car to speed down for making s-turns, and then fire warning shots if a car is still speeding.

That makes perfect sense to me.

[vmarks]

Originally posted by Athens:
The Assassinate thing is crap

You say so, but the Italian journalist is now saying she was intentionally targeted for assassination.

from http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmp...ly_shooting_dc

Italian hostage Giuliana Sgrena, shot and wounded after being freed in Iraq, said Sunday U.S. forces may have deliberately targeted her because Washington opposed Italy’s policy of dealing with kidnappers.

----

She offers no evidence of why she's alive. If the soldiers had really been trying to kill her and her companions, there wouldn't be a car left.

Now, why might she have an axe to grind against the US and be milking this for all she can?

She's a writer for a hard-core Leninist paper.

"Il Manifesto, a left-leaning newspaper that has long opposed the Iraq war, even accused U.S. forces on Saturday of “assassinating” Nicola Calipari, who was killed protecting Sgrena from U.S. gunfire." -- said CNN.

Sgrena’s “partner” is quoted saying that the soldiers were either evil monsters or “imbeciles:”


"Sgrena’s partner, Pierre Scolari, blamed the shooting on the U.S. government, even suggesting the incident was intentional.


“I hope the Italian government does something because either this was an ambush, as I think, or we are dealing with imbeciles or terrorized kids who shoot at anyone,” he said, according to Reuters." -- also CNN.

But CNN doesn't think it's important to tell you that her 'partner' is also a reporter from the same communist paper.

So, two anti-war communists are claiming that the US intentionally targeted her specifically for death and are just lousy shots. As opposed to the far more likely event that they drove through a checkpoint.

CNN would have covered it as part of the general daily body count. Boy that sounds bad, daily body count

Except that CNN likes to leave details out.

Either way its not a assassination

correct

just a couple stupid guys who have every right to be trigger happy because of where they are. Mistakes happen. Its not the drivers fualt if he speed up because he herd gun fire. Its not the GI's fualt totally for being trigger happy, of course they shouldnt have shot at them the way they did if her story is true.

Her story now is that it was an assassination.

[demograph68]

I was reading that too and I'm very disappointed how people like her can manipulate such an awful thing to help their own personal agenda, regardless what their political beliefs are. An investigation into what happened is definitely warranted though. Hopefully their will be more measures taken into consideration to prevent it from happening again, like what TETENAL suggested up above.

[f1000]

Originally posted by vmarks:
Now, why might she have an axe to grind against the US and be milking this for all she can?

She's a writer for a hard-core Leninist paper.

I think she's more likely suffering from an acute case of Stockholm Syndrome.

[SimpleLife]

Originally posted by vmarks:
[B]You say so, but the Italian journalist is now saying she was intentionally targeted for assassination.

from http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmp...ly_shooting_dc

Italian hostage Giuliana Sgrena, shot and wounded after being freed in Iraq, said Sunday U.S. forces may have deliberately targeted her because Washington opposed Italy’s policy of dealing with kidnappers.

----

She offers no evidence of why she's alive. If the soldiers had really been trying to kill her and her companions, there wouldn't be a car left.

Now, why might she have an axe to grind against the US and be milking this for all she can?

She's a writer for a hard-core Leninist paper.

"Il Manifesto, a left-leaning newspaper that has long opposed the Iraq war, even accused U.S. forces on Saturday of “assassinating�? Nicola Calipari, who was killed protecting Sgrena from U.S. gunfire." -- said CNN.

Sgrena’s “partner�? is quoted saying that the soldiers were either evil monsters or “imbeciles:�?


"Sgrena’s partner, Pierre Scolari, blamed the shooting on the U.S. government, even suggesting the incident was intentional.


“I hope the Italian government does something because either this was an ambush, as I think, or we are dealing with imbeciles or terrorized kids who shoot at anyone,�? he said, according to Reuters." -- also CNN.

But CNN doesn't think it's important to tell you that her 'partner' is also a reporter from the same communist paper.

So, two anti-war communists are claiming that the US intentionally targeted her specifically for death and are just lousy shots. As opposed to the far more likely event that they drove through a checkpoint.


[b] Except that CNN likes to leave details out.

[b] correct

Her story now is that it was an assassination.

And maybe she is also very highly traumatised. People do funny things after being shot at; I would not expect anyone to react otherwise. You are doing your job as a reporter, to report "truth" (whatever that means) and you get shot. How would you react?

There are people in these boards who would fire on sight on people showing up in their homes because they have a right to carry firearms. How about a victim trying to rationalise her situation and trying to make sense of what happened?

The leninist leaning is totally accidental to what she did as a reaction, which any normal human being would have done. Of course, for her to recognize the opposite of her actual position may never happen, because victims of psychological trauma may require a lifetime to recover.

This thing gets blown out of proportion because it is the leaning of reporters to bring what appears to be "important to report". The reality of what happened has nothing to do with what people say about it.

Her reactions are not that different than what America (and many other Western countries) had following 9/11 in making attributions to Hussein's "involvement" in it, or even OBL's motivations...

[SimeyTheLimey]

Originally posted by demograph68:
I was reading that too and I'm very disappointed how people like her can manipulate such an awful thing to help their own personal agenda, regardless what their political beliefs are. An investigation into what happened is definitely warranted though. Hopefully their will be more measures taken into consideration to prevent it from happening again, like what TETENAL suggested up above.

I agree that an investigation is warranted. That includes on the Italian side. Why were intelligence agents running around cowboy-style without the knowledge of the military authorities? Why didn't they use common sense and stop when halted by a checkpoint operated by an allied army? And why is the Italian government paying $10 million ransoms to terrorists?

These questions are to my mind just as important to preventing this kind of accident from happening again as grilling some lowly Private First Class.

[bubblewrap]

Who was the driver of the car?
An insurgent sympathizer perhaps.
This whole incident was a set up.
She was meant to be killed. But she survived.

[spacefreak]

I like how it took her, a reporter, 36 hours to come up with with "we weren't speeding,,, I was likely targeted". It only took the troops at the scene 10 minutes to give their accounts of the incident.

[Psychonaut]

..."The Americans and Italians knew about (her) car coming," Pier Scolari said on leaving Rome's Celio military hospital where Sgrena is to undergo surgery following her return home.

"They were 700 meters (yards) from the airport, which means that they had passed all checkpoints."

The shooting late Friday was witnessed by Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi's office which was on the phone with one of the secret service agents, said Scolari. "Then the US military silenced the cellphones," he charged.

"Giuliana had information, and the US military did not want her to survive," he added....

Published by Agence France Presse on Saturday, March 5, 2005
Article reprinted on Common Dreams.

[OldManMac]

Now that the U. S. government has most of the mainstream media in its pocket, it's time to go after foreign journalists in Iraq, or anywhere else where unflattering views of the U. S. are written about.

[placebo1969]

Originally posted by KarlG:
Now that the U. S. government has most of the mainstream media in its pocket, it's time to go after foreign journalists in Iraq, or anywhere else where unflattering views of the U. S. are written about.

I'm hoping that's a mix of hyperbole and sarcasm, otherwise you sound very foolish.

[budster101]

Motive?

What would she write or say? Her captors gave her tea and crumpets and were not nearly as viscous as those scumbags who cut the heads off of innocent people?

Is it time to either take your medication or put on your tin-foil hats?

What a crock.

--

Edit:

How many US soldiers have to die from car bomb attacks before some morons in here get a clue?

[f1000]

Originally posted by Psychonaut:
"Giuliana had information, and the US military did not want her to survive," he added....

Giuliana had multiple opportunities to broadcast this "information" during her televised appeals. Why on Earth would her captors have censored her from doing so?

What a conspiratorial nutcase her husband is.

[demograph68]

Originally posted by budster101:
Motive?

Hard to tell at this point. Either she's being manipulative or she is being paranoid.

How many US soldiers have to die from car bomb attacks before some morons in here get a clue?

Get a clue on what exactly? That innocent people are being shot in this matter on accident?

[budster101]

Originally posted by demograph68:
Hard to tell at this point. Either she's being manipulative or she is being paranoid.

Get a clue on what exactly? That innocent people are being shot in this matter on accident?

You think they are being shot on purpose? I was asking for a hypothesis by someone. I can't think of any reasons why.

[demograph68]

Originally posted by budster101:
You think they are being shot on purpose?

No. Perhaps it's just a paranoid reaction from such a traumatic experience on her part. Overreaction? Perhaps.

[SimpleLife]

Originally posted by spacefreak:
I like how it took her, a reporter, 36 hours to come up with with "we weren't speeding,,, I was likely targeted". It only took the troops at the scene 10 minutes to give their accounts of the incident.

Try being shot at and stay objective a year afterwards.

[thunderous_funker]

Why should anyone doubt that US soldiers in Iraq shoot first and ask questions later? Anyone here in the middle of a nasty urban guerilla war would do the same.

Why would anyone doubt that a woman who has just survived being held hostage by the same nutjobs that have been beheading people might be just a bit traumatized, shocked and paranoid about the whole incident?

The soldiers f*cked up, but I don't know how you can possibly prevent it from happening.

The journalist is ranting nonsensically about her ordeal, but I don't know how we could possibly expect any different.

Just another in a very long series of events that demonstrate the lunacy and chaos of war.

[bubblewrap]

If they wanted her dead(US Troops), they would have lit that limo up with a rocket. Or used a Bradley vehicle.
Or left a lot more empty shellcases on the ground. By the hundreds.

[TheMosco]

Originally posted by bubblewrap:
If they wanted her dead(US Troops), they would have lit that limo up with a rocket. Or used a Bradley vehicle.
Or left a lot more empty shellcases on the ground. By the hundreds.

Or they could have made it look like an accident.

[Macrobat]

Well, not to hammer too hard on your premises, but Sgrena claims that "300 to 400 bullets were fired at our car from armored vehicles."

Well, if so, there would have been no survivors in the first place.

Here's the final shocker, an actual photo of the vehicle she was in:

http://homepage.mac.com/cfj/.Pictures/sgrena-car.jpg


Those of you quick to believe anyone not associated with the US military may not want to click that link, as it might tend to destroy your core belief system.

I assure you, this is the actual car, photo posted by the Associated Press.

For those of you unaware, the smallest weapon on the Bradley is a 30 calibre machine gun, 300-400 rounds from this weapon would have left very little of a standard automobile.

[dcmacdaddy]

Originally posted by Macrobat:
Well, not to hammer too hard on your premises, but Sgrena claims that "300 to 400 bullets were fired at our car from armored vehicles."

Well, if so, there would have been no survivors in the first place.

Here's the final shocker, an actual photo of the vehicle she was in:

http://homepage.mac.com/cfj/.Pictures/sgrena-car.jpg


Those of you quick to believe anyone not associated with the US military may not want to click that link, as it might tend to destroy your core belief system.

I assure you, this is the actual car, photo posted by the Associated Press.

For those of you unaware, the smallest weapon on the Bradley is a 30 calibre machine gun, 300-400 rounds from this weapon would have left very little of a standard automobile.

Please post a link to the original picture source. Thanks!

Any idea why there is someone sitting in the backseat of that car?

[Macrobat]

Feel free to check all the links at LGF, including a video link to the actual event:

http://www.littlegreenfootballs.com/weblog/weblog.php

There is no one in the car, what are you talking about?

[Troll]

Originally posted by Macrobat:
Well, not to hammer too hard on your premises, but Sgrena claims that "300 to 400 bullets were fired at our car from armored vehicles."

Well, if so, there would have been no survivors in the first place.

Here's the final shocker, an actual photo of the vehicle she was in:

http://homepage.mac.com/cfj/.Pictures/sgrena-car.jpg


Those of you quick to believe anyone not associated with the US military may not want to click that link, as it might tend to destroy your core belief system.

I assure you, this is the actual car, photo posted by the Associated Press.

For those of you unaware, the smallest weapon on the Bradley is a 30 calibre machine gun, 300-400 rounds from this weapon would have left very little of a standard automobile.

Hmm, just popped back in here and it's the same old, same old isn't it. Americans still trigger happy in Iraq. People still prepared to do anything to justify the US Army's actions.

Two points. First, the woman was wounded in the shoulder and had a guy take a bullet in the head which would obviously have hit her. Do you not think you might wait 36 hours before saying something - say at least to give yourself time to make an intercontinental flight and have surgery to remove the shrapnel?

As for the photo, that is a photo of a car that was nearby when Sgrena was taken hostage and is NOT the car involved in the incident with US troops. This from the blog that photo comes off (bloggers are not journalists):

UPDATE at 3/6/05 4:18:36 pm:
Oh brother. In their video report on the incident, the Associated Press used a picture of a car that had nothing to do with Giuliana Sgrena. Here�s the caption for the earlier photo linked immediately above:

An Iraqi driver stands near his damaged vehicle at the site of the kidnapping of an Italian journalist outside al-Nahrain University in central Baghdad, February 4, 2005. Giuliana Sgrena was snatched from the street as she conducted interviews near the university, police sources and diplomats said. Gunmen pulled up alongside her vehicle, forced her driver and an Iraqi journalist with her out of the vehicle at gunpoint and then drove off with Sgrena, the sources said. The driver said that the gunmen hit his car as they were rushing away from the scene following the kidnapping. (Akram Saleh/Reuters)

http://www.bloglines.com/blog/1stCor...?subid=4564587

Edit: One more point, it was the Italian military that said that 300 to 400 rounds had been fired.

[Millennium]

Originally posted by TETENAL:
How would you react when you hear gun-fire? I would say speeding away is a natural reaction.

Speeding away from the checkpoint, yes. Speeding towards the checkpoint, however?

The US patrols seem to shoot warning shots 1 second before firing into the car. That is an unreasonable short amount of time for the driver to judge whether he is in an ambush or approaching a checkpoint.

No, but even one second is enough time to slam on the brakes and throw the car into reverse if you need to get away. The one-second accusations are ridiculous anyway; no one is stupid enough to believe that this constitutes adequate time. Two of three seconds, maybe, but not one.

[SimeyTheLimey]

Originally posted by Troll:
Edit: One more point, it was the Italian military that said that 300 to 400 rounds had been fired.

Not according to the Guardian. They attribute the number to the wounded journalist, who, let's face it, was in the worst position to be an accurate witness.

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.

The Guardian.

There are only two ways to know how many rounds were fired. One is to count bullet holes, the other is to do a round count from the gun that fired them.

If the car has 300 - 400 holes in it and anybody inside lived, then we are truly talking Divine intervention here. If a Bradley or some other vehicle shot 300 - 400 rounds at anything and missed, then I want the gunner court martialed for incompetance. I have seen the Bradley coaxial machine gun in action. It is very accurate, and very deadly. They don't call the area machine guns shoot at "the beaten zone" for nothing.

In reality, the car was probably shot at with small arms fire, probably fewer than 10 rounds. US troops are trained to aim and shoot on semi automatic -- one round per trigger squeeze. That would be consistant with one fatality, and one fairly minor injury in an unarmored vehicle.

[bubblewrap]

Originally posted by Athens:
Just pretend your a Canadian like a lot of oversea Americans do. Its much safer and generally makes for a much more plesent stay. Just dont give us a bad name if you do that.

The last time I was in Central America, it was the Canadians they didn't like. In fact I had to intervene and stop a "mosquito" from hacking an arrogant Canadian to pieces with a machete.
Don't insult the locals.