Mistaken U.S. attack wounds Italian journalist

[scorpioboy33]

Originally posted by LoungeMachine
I stand with Brie on this one.

and Russ was right as usual.....

thank you for your consideration in this most important period of transition

[Nickdfresh]

You're a postin' maniac today Lounge, I was just about to put this up. :D

[LoungeMachine]

Injured Italian Reporter Says U.S. May Have Shot Her on Purpose
March 6 (Bloomberg) -- Giuliana Sgrena, the Italian reporter wounded on Friday 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 an Italian intelligence officer Nicola Calipari was killed when coalition forces fired on their vehicle as it approached a Baghdad checkpoint on March 4.

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 said 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 Friday 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 Friday 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.

U.S. soldiers ``knew everything about our mission,'' Sgrena's driver was cited by daily Corriere della Sera today as telling the prosecutors. The driver was also injured.

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 after the accident.

The reporter's wounds aren't life threatening, according to Il Manifesto, the newspaper for which she writes.

`Very Religious'

Sgrena was held hostage by five or six ``very religious'' people, including a woman, she told prosecutors on her return to Rome, according to Corriere. They spoke to her in Arabic, French, and broken English, she wrote in Il Manifesto today.

There will be a state funeral for Calipari in Rome tomorrow. Calipari helped free three other hostages in Iraq, Berlusconi said, without elaborating. The officer saved Sgrena's life by shielding her with his body, Berlusconi said.

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.

[kentuckyklira]

Re: Re: Re: Mistaken U.S. attack wounds Italian journalist

Originally posted by BigBadBrian
Kinda like your ancestors, huh?

True, but we learned from past mistakes!

[BigBadBrian]

Re: Re: Mistaken U.S. attack wounds Italian journalist

Originally posted by kentuckyklira
More proof that a major amount of US servicemen are triggerhappy moronic goons!

Kinda like your ancestors, huh?

[BigBadBrian]

Originally posted by diamondD
If the military wanted her dead, they would have finished the job.

Indeed.

[kentuckyklira]

Re: Mistaken U.S. attack wounds Italian journalist

Originally posted by scorpioboy33
American troops fired on a car rushing Italian journalist Giuliana Sgrena to freedom on Friday after a month in captivity, killing the Italian intelligence officer who helped negotiate her release and wounding the reporter



God a couple of years ago Americian Pilots Murdered Canadian Soliders in Afganistan...now this....I wonder how man innoncents die at the hand of Moronic American Soliders...putz...
It kind of reminds me of when they fired upon an ambulance trying to return that american Solider Lady.
Than of course they had to STORM the hospital to "free" here....truly pathetic

More proof that a major amount of US servicemen are triggerhappy moronic goons!

[diamondD]

If the military wanted her dead, they would have finished the job.

[FORD]

US attack against Italians in Baghdad was deliberate: companion

Published: 3/5/2005

Latest wire from AFP


ROME - The companion of freed Italian journalist Giuliana Sgrena on Saturday leveled serious accusations at US troops who fired at her convoy as it was nearing Baghdad airport, saying the shooting had been deliberate.

"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.

When Sgrena was kidnapped on February 4 she was writing an article on refugees from Fallujah seeking shelter at a Baghdad mosque after US forces bombed the former Sunni rebel stronghold.

Sgrena told RaiNews24 television Saturday a "hail of bullets" rained down on the car taking her to safety at Baghdad airport, along with three secret service agents, killing one of them.

"I was speaking to (agent) Nicola Calipari (...) when he leant on me, probably to protect me, and then collapsed and I realized he was dead," said Sgrena, who was being questioned on Saturday by two Italian magistrates.

"They continued shooting and the driver couldn't even explain that we were Italians. It was really horrible," she added.

Sgrena, who was hospitalized with serious wounds to her left shoulder and lung after arriving back in Rome Saturday before noon, said she was "exhausted because of what happened above all in the last 24 hours".

"After all the risks I have been running I can say that I'm fine," she said.

"I thought that after I was handed over to the Italians danger was over, but then this shooting broke out and we were hit by a hail of bullets."

The chief editor of Sgrena's left-wing newspaper Il Manifesto Gabriele Polo meanwhile branded Calipari's death a "murder".

"He was hit in the head," he said.

Calipari will be given a state funeral Monday.

03/05/2005 13:43 GMT
AFP and Turkish Press

[LoungeMachine]

Originally posted by BigBadBrian
You're not a Christian...you're an idiot of the first magnitude. Go get a life. Cat knows more about being a Christian that you'll ever dream about. Piss off.

I stand with Brie on this one.

and Russ was right as usual.....

[Nickdfresh]

Here's an official article.

Friendly-fire tragedy in Baghdad

Car rushing Italian journalist to freedom fired upon; agent killed

By PATRICK QUINN
Associated Press
3/5/2005


Journalist Guiliana Sgrena was abducted Feb. 4 by gunmen who blocked her car outside Baghdad University.

BAGHDAD, Iraq - American troops fired on a car rushing Italian journalist Giuliana Sgrena to freedom on Friday after a month in captivity, killing the Italian intelligence officer who helped negotiate her release and wounding the reporter in another friendly-fire tragedy at a U.S. checkpoint.

Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi, an ally of the United States who has kept Italian troops in Iraq despite public opposition at home, demanded an explanation "for such a serious incident, for which someone must take the responsibility."

President Bush expressed regret and promised to investigate, the White House said.

The U.S. military said the car was speeding as it approached a coalition checkpoint in western Baghdad at 8:55 p.m. It said soldiers shot into the engine block only after trying to warn the driver to stop by "hand and arm signals, flashing white lights, and firing warning shots."

The Americans said two people were wounded, but Berlusconi said there were three - Sgrena and two intelligence officers. One of the officers was in serious condition with an apparent lung injury, according to the Apcom news agency in Italy. The U.S. military said Army medics treated a wounded man but that "he refused medical evacuation for further assistance."

The intelligence agent was killed when he threw himself over Sgrena to protect her from U.S. fire, Apcom quoted Gabriele Polo, the editor of the leftist Italian newspaper Il Manifesto, as saying. Sgrena works for Il Manifesto.

Berlusconi identified the dead intelligence officer as Nicola Calipari and said he had been at the forefront of negotiations with the kidnappers. The prime minister said Calipari had been involved in the release of other Italian hostages in Iraq in the past.

U.S. troops took Sgrena to an American military hospital, where shrapnel was removed from her left shoulder. Apcom said Sgrena was fit to travel and would return to Rome today.

Sgrena, 56, was abducted Feb. 4 by gunmen who blocked her car outside Baghdad University. Last month, she was shown in a video pleading for her life and demanding that all foreign troops - including Italian forces - leave Iraq.

Berlusconi said he had been celebrating Sgrena's release with the editor of Il Manifesto, and with Sgrena's boyfriend, Pier Scolari, when he took a phone call from an agent who informed them of the shooting.

"It's a shame that the joy we all felt was turned into tragedy," Berlusconi said.

The shooting came as a blow to Berlusconi, who has kept 3,000 troops in Iraq despite strong opposition in Italy. The shooting was likely to set off new protests in Italy, where tens of thousands have regularly turned out on the streets to protest the Iraq war. Sgrena's newspaper was a loud opponent of the war.

"Another victim of an absurd war," Alfonso Pecoraro Scanio, leader of the Green Party, told Apcom.

Bush called Berlusconi and, in a five-minute conversation, expressed his regret about the incident, Bush spokesman Scott McClellan told reporters aboard Air Force One on Friday night.

Iraqis have reported numerous incidents where confusion at U.S. checkpoints has led to U.S. soldiers killing innocent civilians.

Also Friday, four U.S. soldiers were killed west of the capital in sprawling Anbar province, where American troops launched a massive sweep two weeks ago to root out insurgents, the military said.

http://www.buffalonews.com/editorial/20050305/1007353.asp

[BigBadBrian]

Originally posted by scorpioboy33
so simpleton are you saying you're not a christian....? btw I am a christian

You're not a Christian...you're an idiot of the first magnitude. Go get a life. Cat knows more about being a Christian that you'll ever dream about. Piss off.

[Cathedral]

Originally posted by rustoffa
Yeah, you did.

Classic fucking confused rhetoric.

Textbook.

Go back and read it while you're listening to ocean noises.

Don't even waste your time with this tool, Rustoffa.
he'll only start sniffing your ass and follow you around the forums.

Later!

[Cathedral]

Still can't read, eh?
Oh well, i'm old and my thyroid wants to crash, goodnight dipstick...

[rustoffa]

Yeah, you did.

Classic fucking confused rhetoric.

Textbook.

Go back and read it while you're listening to ocean noises.