Did The US Military
Target
Guiliana Sgrena?
By Peter Symonds
08 March 2005
World
Socialist Web
The
shooting of Italian journalist Guiliana Sgrena and three Italian intelligence
agents by US troops near Baghdad international airport on Friday night
has provoked an angry response in Italy and calls for the immediate
withdrawal of Italian soldiers from Iraq. Sgrena was wounded in the
attack that killed Nicola Calipari, the agent who negotiated her release,
and injured two others.
At the very least,
the incident highlights the ruthless methods employed by the US military
in the face of continuing armed resistance and widespread hostility
to the US occupation. But the reality could be even more sinister: that
Sgrena, who had been held hostage for a month by a little known Islamic
group, was deliberately targetted either to send a warning or to silence
her.
Many questions about
the shooting remain unanswered. However, the least likely explanation
is the one offered by the US military. According to a statement issued
by the US Armys Third Infantry Division, a patrol observed
the vehicle speeding towards their checkpoint and attempted to warn
the driver to stop by hand-and-arm signals, flashing white lights, and
firing warning shots in front of the car. When the vehicle failed
to stop, the soldiers shot into the engine block.
Sgrena, who returned
to Italy on Saturday, after being treated in a US military hospital,
has disputed every element of this account. According to an Italian
official, she told investigators: We werent going very fast,
given the circumstances. It was not a checkpoint, but a patrol that
started firing right after lighting up a spotlight. The firing was not
justified by the movement of our automobile.
Nor was it simply
a matter of firing into the engine block to stop the car.
Sgrena described a rain of fire while I was talking to Nicola
[Calipari]. The intelligence agent was shot dead after he screened
her from the bullets with his own body. Gabriele Polo, editor of the
leftist Il Manifesto daily for which Sgrena writes, said that Italian
officials had told him that 300 to 400 rounds were fired at the car.
The attack took place just 700 metres from the airport.
US President George
Bush rang Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi to express his regret
over the incident. White House spokesman Scott McClellan told the media:
The president reassured Prime Minister Berlusconi that the incident
will be fully investigated. But Washington immediately sought
to deflect blame for the shooting onto Italian authorities by claiming
that they had not informed their US counterparts that Sgrena was in
a car travelling to the airport.
Again the explanation
does not add up. It is implausible that US authorities were not told
of Sgrenas release. Calipari was a highly experienced agent with
a long record of police work. He had been previously involved in hostage
negotiations in Iraq, and had been instrumental in the release of two
Italian aid workers last September. He operated from the US base at
Camp Victory near the Baghdad airport and, according to the Washington
Post, was working closely with a US hostage coordinator.
The incident has
come as a serious political embarrassment for Berlusconi, whose government
staunchly supported the illegal US-led invasion of Iraq and sent 3,000
troops to bolster the occupation despite widespread antiwar protests
in Italy. Foreign Minister Gianfranco Fini, leader of the fascist National
Alliance, dismissed the shooting as a tragic accidenta joke
of destiny. Communications Minister Maurizio Gasparri rejected
calls for the withdrawal of Italian troops, declaring: The military
mission must carry on because it consolidates democracy and liberty
in Iraq.
If the shooting
were a mistake, it only confirms that the US military presence
in Iraq has nothing to do with democracy and liberty. If
a high-profile journalist whose capture and release made the international
headlines can be gunned down along with Italian intelligence agents
by US troops, how many Iraqi men, women and children have suffered the
same fate for failing to obey US military orders? Only a few of the
worst instances have been reported in the international media.
A deliberate attack
This innocent
explanation is, however, the least plausible. As Sgrena concluded, the
evidence points to a deliberate attack. Speaking to Sky TG24 news, she
raised the possibility that the car had been targetted because Washington
did not agree with the methods employed by Italian authorities. The
fact that the Americans dont want negotiations to free the hostages
is known. The fact that they do everything to prevent the adoption of
this practice to save the lives of people held hostage, everybody knows
that. So I cant see why I should rule out that I could have been
the target, she said.
In an article entitled
My Truth published on Sunday in Il Manifesto, she recalled
that her captors had warned her to be cautious after her release. She
had dismissed the caution as superfluous and ideological
but in the midst of the shooting recalled the words. They declared
that they were committed to the fullest to freeing me but I had to be
careful, the Americans dont want you to go back.
Sgrenas companion
Pier Scolari was more forthright in his accusations. He told the media:
The US military did not want Guiliana to come out alive... Guiliana
had information and the US military did not want her to come out alive.
Neither he nor Sgrena has, to this point, indicated what that information
might be.
Communications Minister
Gasparri urged restraint, declaring: I understand the emotion
of these hours, but those who have been under stress in the past few
weeks should pull themselves together and avoid saying nonsense.
The Italian intelligence agency SISMI dismissed suggestions that the
attack was deliberate, but provided no further information. Significantly,
the main evidence was the crude character of the attack.
It would have been more effective, SISMI reasoned, for US agents to
kill her and find a way to blame it on Iraqis.
While the scenarios
advanced by Sgrena and Scolari may or may not be correct, it certainly
cannot be ruled out that the US military would deliberately target the
journalist. She had, after all, a record of opposition to the US invasion
and subsequent occupation. Sgrena, who has specialised in covering the
Middle East and North Africa, has written a number of articles for Il
Manifesto on the appalling social conditions in Iraq and on the torture
of prisoners in the notorious Abu Ghraib jail.
Sgrena was abducted
on February 4 after interviewing refugees from Fallujah at a mosque
in the grounds of Baghdad University. Two weeks later, her captors released
a video showing her in tears pleading for her life and calling for the
withdrawal of Italian and foreign troops from Iraq. The video provoked
a march by tens of thousands in Rome and an ongoing campaign in Italy
for Sgrenas release.
Last Fridays
shooting would not be the first time that journalists, especially those
critical of the war in Iraq, have been targetted by US military. Tarek
Ayyoub, a correspondent for Al Jazeera, was killed in April 2003 when
US warplanes bombed the networks offices in Baghdad. In March
2004, two journalists with the Al Arabiya station were shot dead by
US troops while covering a rocket attack on a Baghdad hotel. These murders
give the lie to the suggestion that the US military is overly concerned
about the political fall-out from its methods.
The attack on Sgrenas
car and the death of Nicola Calipari have already provoked outrage in
Italy. Thousands of Italians have paid tribute to Caliparis valour
and a state funeral will be held for him today. Last weekend, a protest
in Rome condemned the shooting and demanded the withdrawal of Italian
troops from Iraq. The incident threatens to further undermine the Bush
administrations so-called coalition of the willing, following
the pullout of other contingents of European troops.