By Christina Paschyn

Who could forget the plight of Giuliana Sgrena: the unembedded Italian reporter who had been kidnapped by Iraqi insurgents. Held as a hostage for an entire month, her release was finally negotiated by Italian secret intelligence agent, Nicola Calipari. But as they drove to the Baghdad airport and safety seemed to be within their reach, they were suddenly and unexpectedly fired upon by American soldiers, and in the aftermath of the gunfire and smoke, Sgrena was found with an injured shoulder and a punctured lung - Calipari was dead.

In the array of investigations conducted after the incident, the Pentagon came out with a report that absolved its soldiers of any wrongdoing. According to officials, the soldiers involved flashed white lights and fired warning shots to try to stop the Toyota Corolla carrying Sgrena and Calipari. They said the car was “speeding” toward “a checkpoint,” and the soldiers shot into the Toyota’s engine block when the driver did not stop. Calipari, was not part of the engine block, but he was shot anyway. It was declared a “horrible accident.

But that’s not the Italian’s version of the story. According to a BBC NEWS article, published on May 3, 2005, an Italian report of the shooting conflicts with the U.S. report, and blames the troops’ inexperience and stress. It also says the supposed checkpoint set up by the Americans was ineptly set-up and that no signals indicated its presence.

The article states that the report “denied the U.S. assertion that their military command in Baghdad was unaware of the Italian mission to secure the hostage’s release, pointing out that the Italians had been allocated secure accommodation in an American-controlled area.”

Furthermore, according to an article in Asia Times, “the driver of the car has insisted that the Toyota had been driving slowly (no more than 40km/h), and had received no warning from the American soldiers, and that the Italians had advised the Americans they were carrying diplomatic personnel.”

Sgrena’s own version of the story contradicts that of the U.S. military. The Asia Times reports that in an interview with independent journalist Naomi Klein, Sgrena said she was not traveling on the road the Pentagon says she was on, and that there was no checkpoint ordering them to slowdown:

“It was simply a tank parked on the side of the road that opened fire on us,” Sgrena told Klein. “It was not a checkpoint. They didn’t try to stop us, they just shot us. They have a way to signal us to stop, but they didn’t give us any signals to stop and they were at least 10 meters off the street to the side.”

So what is going on here? Who is right? And, most importantly, is the U.S. military trying to kill independent journalists?

Well, for one thing, the Italian version is probably the correct one.

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 Asia Times uses this statement to explain why the Pentagon blocked the Italian government from inspecting the Toyota, even though the Italians had bought the car from the rental agency after the shooting.

In the interview, Sgrena says: “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.”

But is the military deliberately trying to hurt these journalists?

That’s what the Paris-based organization Reporters Without Borders believes. Based on an investigation the group conducted, they have come to believe that the Pentagon considers independent journalists to be subversive and dangerous to the American occupation.

The Asia Times reminds the reader of the how the Pentagon intentionally targeted the “media-saturated” Palestine Hotel in Baghdad on April 8, 2003, killing a Ukrainian and a Spanish journalist. Four months later, the U.S. Army absolved itself from any possible mistake. And the army’s determination to prevent investigative journalism has led to the resignation of Eason Jordan, a top CNN executive for more than a decade, who said the Pentagon targeted journalists in Iraq. Reporters Without Borders has called for a UN-led independent investigation into the Sgrena tragedy, but have had no luck.

Will the Bush Administration continue to silence the media? The fate of Iraq and America lies in the perseverance of independent journalists.

Bibliography

They Shoot Journalists, Don’t They?
By Pepe Escobar, Asia Times, April 28, 2005

Italian report queries US claims
BBC NEWS

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