Italy Says Its Report on Agent's Killing Will Shed Light

[cal04]

Italy Says Its Report on Agent's Killing Will Shed Light on Coordination Problems
Italy is contending that its report on the U.S. soldiers' slaying in Baghdad of an Italian intelligence agent will shed light on problems with coordination among authorities in Iraq and with rules of engagement for checkpoints.

In a statement on its Web site Sunday, the Italian foreign ministry said the Italian report will be made public on Monday evening, providing its own version of the March 4 "friendly fire" shooting of agent Nicola Calipari, who had just won the release of an Italian hostage, journalist Giuliana Sgrena.

On Saturday, the U.S. military released its report, contending the car Calipari was riding in as he headed to Baghdad airport with the ex-hostage didn't slow down at the checkpoint and that the American soldiers didn't do anything wrong. The two Italian experts who participated in the joint U.S-Italian probe of the shooting refused to sign off on the American's conclusions, and after several days of negotiations failed to yield a common final report. Both sides essentially agreed to disagree on the findings.

"Despite, in fact, the many points on which the two sides registered similar assessments, the principal aspects on which it wasn't possible to pinpoint shared assessments regard, above all, the rules of engagement and the coordination with the competent authorities in Iraq," the ministry statement said. "All that will emerge clearly from the Italian report, being worked on, which will be made public on Monday," the ministry said.

http://ap.tbo.com/ap/breaking/MGBBITG578E.html

[still_one]

1. I will not be surprised if our media hardly covers the Italian report

[whistle]

2. I can hardly wait

[rocktivity]

3. Pull your troops, Silvio! Just PULL YOUR TROOPS!

You have nothing to lose but your job INsecurity!

:headbang:
rocknation

[cal04]

4. Italy furious at report clearing U.S. soldiers over death of agent

It also concluded soldiers fired warning shots in the air, then shot at the engine block because the car was speeding. As Sgrena later pointed out, "Calipari was not in the engine block."

Sgrena says the Toyota was shot from behind - which contradicts the Pentagon version of soldiers shooting in self-defense. According to Klein, "Sgrena really stressed that the bullet that injured her so badly came from behind, entered through the back of the car. And the only person who was not severely injured in the car was the driver, and she said that this is because the shots weren't coming from the front ... They were driving away."

The Pentagon reportedly refused to allow Italian investors to inspect the car despite the Italian government buying it from the car rental agency after the shooting.

Sgrena said, "it was not self-defense. The soldiers were to the right of us on the side of the road, they started to shoot from the right and kept shooting from behind. Most of the shots came from behind. Calipari was shot from the right and I was shot in the shoulder from behind. When we stopped, they were behind us. We could see that all the back windows of the car were broken from behind ... They didn't try to stop the car and they shot at least 10 bullets at the level of people sitting inside the car. If Calipari had not pushed me down they could have killed me."

http://feeds.bignewsnetwork.com/?sid=9335b60ac8edf3c8

[medeak]

5. refuse to let Italy examine car?

that pretty much spells it all out for me..

The Pentagon reportedly refused to allow Italian investors to inspect the car despite the Italian government buying it from the car rental agency after the shooting.

[Laughing Mirror]

6. It's only a Toyota Corolla

Must be more than one of those rolling around greater Baghdad, a double they could prepare--knock out the back window, shoot into the engine block in the front, as they claim they did with the original Toyota--a double doctored-car they could then turn over to Italy for inspection.

[bobthedrummer]

7. Yep, they could transfer the VIN id's off the original too.

The fact that the car was held supports a cover-up.

[floda]

8. here is a link to the unredacted report!

http://www.corriere.it/Media/Documenti/Unclassified.doc

from the http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/archives/individual/2005_05/006221.php

But here's a question: do you think the Italian computer whizzes will be any more competent than their American counterparts when they release their report? The U.S. report is full of redactions, as you can see in the picture above, but once again an American agency has used the searchable PDF format to distribute a report, and all you have to do is save the report as a text file in order to recover all the redacted parts.

[Richard Steele]

9. Thanks for that link floda.

It's just fascinating to see what ridiculous info they try to conceal.

[makhno]

10. Could be a plant

None of the redacted parts really change the gist of the report, which puts the blame squarely on the shoulders of the Italians.

Interestingly, though, redacted was the fact that the troops at the checkpoint were National Guard, with the implication of poor training and lack of preparedness. The ROE part is also fascinating reading. It's pretty much a confirmation of the "shoot first, ask questions later" tactics we've witnessed through countless civilian casualty reports.

Still, I'm not convinced the "classified" version wasn't put out there by the DoD, perhaps as disinformation targeting the Iraqi insurgents.

[tuvor]

11. Italy Report on Killing Goes Public Monday

ROME - Italy will publish its own report Monday on the U.S. killing of an Italian intelligence agent after the two countries could not agree on the circumstances of last month's shooting at an American checkpoint in Baghdad.

Italy said its report into the March 4 "friendly fire" shooting death of agent Nicola Calipari will focus on the problems of coordinating with Americans in
Iraq and the rules of conduct for U.S. troops at checkpoints.

The Foreign Ministry document will be released two days after the U.S. military said its investigation had cleared American soldiers of wrongdoing in the checkpoint shooting that also injured Giuliana Sgrena, the Italian journalist that Calipari had just freed from insurgents.

Italian newspapers published what they said were extracts of the report Sunday, with Italian investigators concluding that U.S. authorities were informed of the operation several hours before the shooting and were told of Sgrena's release 25 minutes before Calipari was killed.

http://story.news.yahoo.com/s/ap/italy_us_iraq;_ylt=AktYqDSXuu0fsqtWtrZP0M0DW7oF;_ylu=X3oDMTBiMW04NW9mBHNlYwMlJVRPUCUl

[IndianaGreen]

12. The US rules of engagement is to shoot all Iraqis on sight

America has turned Iraq into a free-fire zone. This is why the Pentagon can say with a straight face that hour heroic troops followed the rules of engagement and were therefore blameless.

We are the Nazi Germany of the 21st Century!

[DoYouEverWonder]

13. No we're not

Nazi Germany didn't have nukes.