The US's version is that the car was speeding and, after firing warning shots and using various signals, refused to stop. If this is the true version I think the responsibility clearly lies with the driver NOT the US military. This option isn't even being considered by anyone though, it's all the US's fault.
The journalist's version is that the car wasn't speeding, there were no kind of signals to stop, and it was just randomly fired on by the US, she even has some kind of conspiracy theory that "the US didn't want her to return." AKAIK we don't randomly fire on cars for no reason, and I highly doubt our military would want to stop a hostate from returning, especially considering the fiasco that would ensue from killing this particular journalist and the fact that Italy is our ally and has troops in Iraq with us.
At the very least people should wait to see what an investiation turns up to pass judgement. That's not happening, of course.
I read about this on the BBC site and the AP story that I'm gonna post. Tell me if this isn't bias on the BBC's part. Clearly the BBC is trying to minimize the efforts the US military made (or said it made) to stop the car.
BBC:
AP:The US military says that the car was speeding as it approached a checkpoint and that, after warning signals, they fired towards the vehicle.
http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,149535,00.htmlThe U.S. military said the Americans used hand and arm signals, flashing white lights and fired warning shots to get the car to stop.
Associated Press
ROME — The Italian journalist who was wounded by American troops at a checkpoint in Baghdad shortly after she was released by her Iraqi captors denied U.S. allegations that the car she was in was speeding. In an article Sunday, she called her ordeal "the most dramatic day of my life."
Giuliana Sgrena (search) described how she was wounded and Italian intelligence officer Nicola Calipari was killed as she was celebrating her freedom on the way to the airport. The shooting Friday has fueled anti-American sentiment in a country where people are deeply opposed to the war in Iraq.
"I remember only fire," Sgrena wrote in her newspaper, the communist daily Il Manifesto. "At that point a rain of fire and bullets came at us, forever silencing the happy voices from a few minutes earlier."
Sgrena said the driver began shouting that they were Italian, then "Nicola Calipari dove on top of me to protect me and immediately, and I mean immediately, I felt his last breath as he died on me."
Suddenly, she said, she remembered her captors' words, when they warned her "to be careful because the Americans don't want you to return."
The U.S. military said the Americans used hand and arm signals, flashing white lights and fired warning shots to get the car to stop. But in an interview with Italian La 7 TV, Sgrena said "there was no bright light, no signal."
Italian military officials said two other agents were wounded, but U.S. officials said it was only one. The agent who was killed, Calipari, had led negotiations for the journalist's release.
Sgrena returned to Rome (search) on Saturday morning, looking haggard and with a blanket wrapped around her shoulders. She walked unsteadily and was hooked up to an intravenous drip following surgery to remove shrapnel from her shoulder.
She recounted her ordeal later from a Rome military hospital, where she also met with Calipari's wife, the Italian news agency Apcom said.
In her article, Sgrena wrote that her captors warned her as she was about to be released not to signal her presence to anyone, because "the Americans might intervene."
"It was the happiest and also the most dangerous moment," Sgrena wrote. "If we had run into someone, meaning American troops, there would have been an exchange of fire, and my captors were ready and they would have responded."
Sgrena said her captors then blindfolded her and drove her to a location, where they made her get out of the car.
That's when she first heard Calipari's voice, she said.
"Giuliana, Giuliana, I'm Nicola. Don't worry, I've spoken with (Il Manifesto director) Gabriele Polo. Don't worry, you're free," he told her.
Neither Italian nor U.S. officials gave out any details about how Sgrena managed to gain her freedom after a month in the hands of Iraqi insurgents, but there was speculation over possible ransom.
An Iraqi lawmaker, Youdaam Youssef Kanna, told Belgian state TV Saturday evening that he had "nonofficial" information that a US$1 million (euro760,000) ransom was paid for Sgrena's release, Apcom reported from Brussels.
The shooting came as a new blow to the center-right government of Premier Silvio Berlusconi (search), a strong ally of U.S. President George W. Bush. Tens of thousands of Italians regularly demonstrated against the Iraq war, and the Italian left — including Sgrena's newspaper — vigorously opposed the conflict.
Berlusconi, President Carlo Azeglio Ciampi and Polo were among the people who joined Calipari's family at Rome's Ciampino Airport late Saturday before the agent's body was flown in shortly before midnight.
The coffin with Calipari's body was carried out of the military plane wrapped in an Italian flag and blessed by a military priest and the agent's brother, a priest who serves on a Vatican advisory body. Calipari's wife, mother and two children also were present.
The coffin was loaded onto a hearse and taken to the coroner's office in Rome. An autopsy began on Sunday, according to news reports.
The body was expected to lie in state at Rome's Vittoriano monument, and a state funeral was planned for Monday.
Ciampi said he would award Calipari with the gold medal of valor for his heroism.
"What happened yesterday in Baghdad was a homicide," Polo told Apcom.
"The Americans must be firmly reminded to respect human and civil rules," the ANSA news agency quoted Mirko Tremaglia, minister for Italians abroad, as saying.
Sgrena was abducted Feb. 4 by gunmen who blocked her car outside Baghdad University.
Can't blame the soldiers to be stressed in a place where on a daily basis, people use cars full of explosive as weapons.
