Right Wing Nut House

The still developing story of what exactly happened to freed Italian communist journalist Giuliana Sgrena got a much needed dose of perspective today as the Washington Post has published parts of an interview with an unnamed military source close to the Pentagon’s investigation of the incident.

One thing’s for sure; we can’t rely on Ms. Sgrena’s version of events. Or should I say “versions.” In an almost comical display of rapid-fire contradictions, Sgrena has changed her story every time she’s given an interivew. (More on this later as I read, digest, and collate the 4 entirely different stories she’s told of the incident to date)

The first problem occurred because of a lack of coordination betwen the US military and Italian intelligence service who was handling the journalist’s extraction from Iraq:

But the circumstances of Friday’s shooting of Italian military intelligence officer Nicola Calipari made it particularly vulnerable to calamity, a military source said as he divulged new details of how the car in which Calipari and a newly freed hostage, Italian journalist Giuliana Sgrena, came to be attacked.

The automobile was traversing onto a route — the road to the airport — where soldiers have been killed in shootings and by roadside bombs. U.S. soldiers had established an impromptu evening checkpoint at the entrance to the road about 90 minutes earlier and had stopped other vehicles. They knew a high-level embassy official would be moving to the airport on that road, and their aim was to support this movement.

But no specific coordination occurred between those involved in Sgrena’s rescue and the military unit responsible for the checkpoint, according to the source, who said he cannot be named because the military’s investigation into the incident is continuing.

This lack of coordination was deliberate on the part of the Italians. The reason is given in a Washington Times article:

But La Stampa also quoted diplomatic sources saying vital information was withheld from the Americans.

“Italian intelligence decided to free Sgrena paying a sum to the kidnappers without informing American colleagues in Iraq who, if they had known about this, would have had to oppose it, to have impeded the operation,” sources said.

“If this was the case, it could explain why American intelligence had not informed the American military commands about the operation and thus the patrol did not expect the car with the Italians.”

The American side of the story tells of an on-rushing car going close to 50 MPH on a road where insurgent attacks and suicide bombers have operated in the past:

Soldiers at the checkpoint have told U.S. military officers that they flashed lights, used hand signals and fired warning shots in an effort to stop the car, which they believed was traveling at more than 50 mph, a typical speed for that road. But Sgrena, who had just been released by Iraqi captors, recalled later that the car was not traveling very fast and that soldiers started firing “right after lighting” a spotlight — a decision she said was not justified. Sgrena was wounded by shrapnel in the U.S. barrage.

The absence of advance communication between the Italians and the U.S. soldiers at the checkpoint appears to have put the occupants of the car in grave jeopardy, given what many U.S. officials describe as the military’s standard practice of firing at onrushing cars from their checkpoints in Iraq.

“In my view, the main contributing factor was a lack of prior coordination with the ground unit,” the source said. “If requested, we would have resourced and supported this mission very differently.”

Sgrena’s contention that the car was not travelling very fast is one of her earlier statements. She’s since changed her story on the speed of the car, whether the attack occurred at a checkpoint or whether it was an American patrol, whether or not their were armoured cars or “tanks” firing on them, when her Italian driver identified himself to the Americans, how many shots were fired, whether or not the attack was deliberate, and a host of other inconsistencies in the story of her abduction and captivity that call into question her veracity.

There’s also been some speculation about the nature of Sgrena’s “kidnapping” and whether or not it was staged or if it may have turned into a plan to embarass the Americans after her abduction. I wouldn’t go that far, especially since there’s no evidence to buttress such a fantastic charge. But did Sgrena’s sympathetic attitude toward the Islamic fascists have anything to do with the fact that she wasn’t murdered a month ago after the release of a video in which she was seen pleading desperately for her life? Others haven’t been so lucky.