Reuters is reporting that Italy is still disputing the results of the US investigation into the March 4, 2005 incident that resulted in the death of Italian military intelligence officer Nicola Calipari and wounding of the released Italian journalist, Giuliana Sgrena.

According to the Uncensored US report, more news on that here, no one knew of the Italian operation until after the US-Italian shooting incident. Two non-verbal warnings were given to the Italians before a warning shot, and finally an attempted shot through the engine block were fired.

However the Italians contest:

“Soldiers of that unit thought that (warning) signs were useless and counterproductive, because usually in the past, cars seeing them ahead of time changed direction,” the Italians said.

Yet, straight from the US report:

At approximately 2050 hours, Specialist Lozano saw a car approaching the on-ramp, approximately 140 meters from his position. Specialist Lozano, holding the spotlight in his left hand, shined his spotlight onto the car before it arrived at the Alert Line. At this time, Sergeant Domangue acquired the vehicle’s headlights and saw the spotlight shining on it. He then focused his green laser pointer onto the windshield of the car as it reached the Alert Line. Both Specialist Lozano and Sergeant Domangue perceived the car to be traveling in excess of 50 mph (and faster than any other vehicles that evening).

The car crossed the Alert Line still heading towards the Soldiers’ position without slowing down. Specialist Lozano continued to shine the spotlight, and shouted at the vehicle to stop, a fruitless effort, but an instantaneous reaction based on his training.

Without slowing down, the car continued toward the Warning Line with the spotlight and laser still on it.

The car continued to approach at a high rate of speed, coming closer to the Soldiers than any other vehicle that evening. When the car got to the Warning Line, Specialist Lozano, while still holding the spotlight in his left hand, used his right hand to quickly fire a two to four round burst into a grassy area to the on-coming vehicle’s right (the pre-set aiming point) as a warning shot.

The vehicle maintained its speed as it went beyond the Warning Line. Staff Sergeant Brown, a New York City Police Officer trained in vehicle speed estimation, estimated the car was traveling at 50 mph and believed that it would not be able to stay on the road around the curve at that speed.

Specialist Lozano dropped the spotlight and immediately traversed his weapon from his left to his right, without having to move the turret, to orient on the front of the car. With both hands on the weapon, he fired another burst, walking the rounds from the ground on the passenger’s side of the vehicle and towards the car’s engine block in an attempt to disable it. The rounds hit the right and front sides of the vehicle, deflated the left front tire, and blew out the side windows.

Which makes the Itallian’s statement inaccurate. You could debate on what would constitute an acceptable non-verbal warning however I think the methods used that night would serve as a warning to most any driver. The spotlight and green laser pointer had proven effective in stopping and turning around vehicles before the car with the Italians arrived at the on-ramp. It is possible that the Italian driver, Andrea Carpani, was distracted as he was driving and talking on his cell phone.

However, had the Italians made clear communication to the US/IRAQI government of their mission who knows what may have happened. Italy states “U.S. authorities were “indisputably” aware of the presence of Calipari and a second Italian agent in Baghdad even if “it is likely that they were not aware of the details of their mission.” I fail to see how being aware of someone’s presence in a city would have prevented this incident.

I haven’t located the Italian report yet, but I’ll post a link to it as well when I do.

Update 21:39:
PunditGuy has similar feelings on this issue, glad I’m not the only one.

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