Was it an accident? Now that it's clear that Italian Intelligence may have been involved in the forged documents claiming that Iraq sought yellowcake from Niger, perhaps we should revisit the question of why Nicola Calipari, a senior Italian Intelligence official, was killed on March 4, 2005.
In contemporaneous articles, the BBC reported that
The US, the Italian government and
Ms. Sgrena have differing accounts of what happened, while prosecutors in Rome are still conducting their own investigation.
In a nutshell, the U.S. say it was an accident, the Italian government says the survivors' version of events does not tally with the official U.S. version, and the journalist, Giuliana Sgrena, has suggested her car was deliberately targeted. Even more troubling, however, are Italian reports that the car was shot from behind, not from in front, as asserted by U.S. authorities.
(more after the fold)
The U.S. report claims that a "forensic examination of the car found 11 bullet holes and a trajectory analysis showed they had all come from one point of origin implying that
only one man had shot at the car." Now consider this version of events:
The Italian version is starkly different (unless you are willing to believe that a single soldier shot 300-400 rounds in a case of mistaken identity, and that for some reason no one else fired shots, or if they did, they left no forensic evidence). Why should we accept such a bizarre proposition uncritically?
Some commenters below appear to be getting their underwear all twisted up over this diary, insisting that there's no reason to ask any more questions about why the Italian Secret Service is apparently involved in both the Niger forgeries and the "friendly fire" killing of a senior agent. But why not? Why berate fellow Kossacks who are merely asking questions? Looks like the unbearable tension of Fitzmas is starting to make us turn on each other. Gotta.get.a.grip.
Giuliana Sgrena has suggested her car was deliberately targeted. She recalled the events in her newspaper, Il Manifesto:
"The driver twice called the embassy and Italy to say that we were heading towards the airport that I knew was heavily patrolled by US troops.
"They told me that we were less than a kilometre away... when... I only remember fire.
"At that point, a rain of fire and bullets hit us, silencing forever the cheerful voices of a few minutes earlier.
"The driver started yelling that we were Italians. 'We are Italians, we are Italians.'
"Nicola Calipari threw himself on me to protect me and immediately, I repeat, immediately I heard his last breath as he was dying on me.
"I must have felt physical pain. I didn't know why.
"But then it came to me in a flash, and my mind went immediately to the things the captors had told me.
"They declared that they felt fully committed to freeing me but I had to be careful: 'Out there are the Americans, who don't want you to go back.'
"Then, I had considered those words superfluous and ideological. But at that moment, they risked acquiring the flavour of the bitterest of truths. At this time I cannot tell you the rest."
"There was no bright light, no signal," she separately told Italian La 7 TV.
According to Canadian journalist Naomi Klein, who interviewed Sgrena in a Rome military hospital on March 5, the notion that the U.S. soldiers acted in self-defense is questionable:
Sgrena also says that the US soldiers fired at them from behind, which of course contradicts the claim that the soldiers fired in self-defense. 'Part of what we're hearing is that the U.S. soldiers opened fire on their car, because they didn't know who they were, and they were afraid,' says Klein. 'The fear, of course, is that their car could have blown up or that the soldiers might come under attack themselves. And what Giuliana Sgrena really stressed with me was 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 coming from the right and behind, i.e. they were driving away. So, the idea that this was an act of self-defense, I think becomes much more questionable,' says Klein. 'Because if indeed the majority of the gunfire is coming from behind, then clearly, the soldiers were firing at a car that was driving away from them.'
A final detail, the importance of which is not yet clear: the role, if any, of John Negroponte:
After by being rescued by Nicola Calipari and another SISMI agent, Ms Sgrena was transported by car to Baghdad International Airport. However, a blocking position, put in place to protect John Negroponte's car convoy, shot on the vehicle, causing the death of Calipari and the wounding of Sgrena and of the other agent. The exact circumstances of the situation were hotly debated in the media, and caused strain in diplomatic relations between Italy and the United States.
Another interview of Sgrena was diaried on Kos in March by Paper Tigress.
Italian secret service agent Nicola Calipari