Information regarding the Sgrena incident I have not seen in MSM.

[Hoping4Change]

Sgrena told Radio Free Europe "car was on a privileged road".


Sgrena told Radio Free Europe “We were going about 50-60 kilometers an hour—which for a place like this was completely normal. We were not traveling along the normal road for the airport we were traveling on a privileged road that is less dangerous than the normal one where every day bombs explode.”

http://www.rferl.org/featuresarticle/2005/03/c74e2351-0e4b-41ad-bacf-f9121408048c.html


Further details emerged in an account Sgrena wrote for Il Manifesto (subsequently translated and posted on the CNN site):

“The car kept on the road, going under an underpass full of puddles and almost losing control to avoid them. We all incredibly laughed. It was liberating. Losing control of the car in a street full of water in Baghdad and maybe wind up in a bad car accident after all I had been through would really be a tale I would not be able to tell. Nicola Calipari sat next to me. The driver twice called the embassy and in Italy that we were heading towards the airport that I knew was heavily patrolled by U.S. troops. They told me that we were less than a kilometer away…when…I only remember fire. At that point, a rain of fire and bullets hit us, shutting up forever the cheerful voices of a few minutes earlier.”


Note the “driver twice called the embassy” and Sgrena’s description of the road as one “heavily patrolled by U.S. troops,” negating the probability of a resistance attack. As for the calls to the embassy, these were obviously monitored by the U.S. military as it can be assumed all calls, especially from cells phones, are monitored in Iraq.


http://www.axisoflogic.com/artman/publish/article_16123.shtml



CPJ.org reports that "Italian Foreign Minister Gianfranco Fini also challenged the U.S. account... Fini said Calipari had "made all the necessary contacts with the U.S. authorities," including officials in charge of airport security and military forces patrolling the area around the airport.
http://www.cpj.org/protests/05ltrs/Iraq08mar05pl.html


Sgrena says the Italians had informed their American counterparts that the operation was under way and that the convoy had already passed all the American checkpoints when it came under fire, without any warning.


"Suspicion of the truthfulness of the U.S. account of the incident is widespread. Italian media wonder how a sensitive operation, such the liberation of a kidnapped Western journalist, could have been possible without the knowledge of U.S. authorities in Iraq. On at the least two other occasions in the past—the freeing of Simona Pari and Simona Torretta, two Italian NGO workers kidnapped in September 2004 and that of four Italian security operatives—U.S. and Italian authorities worked in close coordination, with U.S. Marines playing a pivotal role in the freeing of the two women."


http://www.berkeleydaily.org/text/article.cfm?issue=03-08-05&storyID=20891

[DireStrike]

1. "Priveleged road"...?

How does that work, exactly? Insurgents agree not to attack it? Or were we protecting this road and not others?

[Hoping4Change]

4. Well given the Italian Foreign Minister's statements that the US

was fully informed of Sgrena's release and of the plane waiting at the airport and that the US was manning the checkpoints it was indeed a "privileged road' in that insurgents are the ones lying in wait.

[DireStrike]

5. Sure, but Sgrena makes it sound like it was invincible.

No way insurgents coulda fired - nuh-uh.

[ClassWarrior]

2. If they're not giving you info, do you really think they're "mainstream??"

Please don't use MSM. That's a Radical RW frame. Please call them the Corporate Media.

Thanks. :hi:

NGU.

[Mistress Quickly]

3. 2 problems

with this (from the webpage, not Sgrena):

>>Note the “driver twice called the embassy” and Sgrena’s description of the road as one “heavily patrolled by U.S. troops,” negating the probability of a resistance attack. As for the calls to the embassy, these were obviously monitored by the U.S. military as it can be assumed all calls, especially from cells phones, are monitored in Iraq.<<

1) I don't think anything can negate the probability of an attack in Iraq, no matter what the road.

2) How can this person say the calls were obviously monitored because they assume all calls are monitored. Contradictory, no? How many people in Iraq have cell phones and use them? I guess a lot, because I have a feeling the landlines aren't up to speed.

[Hoping4Change]

6. "American soldiers confiscated and shut off the cell phones."

"According to Pier Scolari, "The Americans and the Italians had been advised the car was coming through. They were 700 meters from the airport, which means they'd gone through all the checkpoints."

A "rain of fire" hit the car "at the very moment when I was talking to Nicola Calipari," she said by telephone to the TV station RaiNews24 from the Celio military hospital, were she was taken after her return to Rome at morning's end. "We weren't going very fast, given the circumstances. . . . The firing continued. The driver couldn't even explain that we were Italian," added the journalist. "The whole fusillade was heard live by the Council presidency, which was on the phone with one of the members of the special forces. Then the American soldiers confiscated and shut off the cell phones," added Pier Scolari." TV1 France . translation found at http://prorev.com/2005/03/sgrenas-companion-says-attack-was.htm

[Mistress Quickly]

7. but they weren't monitoring them

they took them afterwards so they could see who's been called/calling, and to make sure they didn't call anyone right then, and more than likely so it couldn't be used to detonate a bomb.

[RaleighNCDUer]

8. Bull. To take the phones away they'd have to be face to face with

them. Face to face with them, they'd hear them speaking Italian and English. And even the most ignorant moron over there could not mistake Italian for Arabic - not coming from a culture raised on the Godfather and the Sopranos.

They took the phones away to silence them, not because of any fear of terrorist IEDs.

[Mistress Quickly]

9. But they weren't monitoring them

ahead of time.

[RaleighNCDUer]

10. Yes, that I can certainly accept. Even if they were being

monitored, it would not be something within the capabilities of squad-level military. I've read on other threads that the lack of communication between checkposts and patrols is appalling. What's surprising is that there aren't more friendly fire incidents.

I guess I'm a fence sitter, here. While I doubt that the car was deliberately targeted, I think that there is a natural instinct there to cover up their criminal negligence.