March 6, 2005

"A few facts to consider:

1. The agent who was killed died while shielding Sgrena with his own body, according to Reuters < http://www.political-news.org/breaking/7263/body-of-slain-it
alian-agent-gets-heros-welcome.html >. "He leaned over me, probably to protect me, and then he slumped down, and I saw he was dead," she said. This could mean one of two things: Either the agent was reacting as trained to the gunfire and was protecting his principle, or he saw that she was the target of the fire.

2. Pier Scolari, companion to Sgrena, has stated the attack was deliberate, according to Agence France Presse < http://www.turkishpress.com/news.asp?id=38029 >. "The Americans and Italians knew about (her) car coming," Scolari said. "They were 700 meters (yards) from the airport, which means that they had passed all checkpoints. Giuliana had information, and the US military did not want her to survive."

3. The chief editor of Sgrena's newspaper Il Manifesto, Gabriele Polo, branded Calipari's death a "murder". "He was hit in the head," he said.

4. For a journalist like Sgrena to be deliberately targeted, a motive would have to exist. An examination of the work she was doing in Iraq, particularly about the annihilation of Fallujah, makes it clear that she was disbursing information the U.S. military and civilian command structure do not want widely known.

A few examples of her reports:
Ten thousand Iraqis in US and British prisons
http://www.ilmanifesto.it/pag/sgrena/en/420dc2e2c4e2d.html

Napalm Raid on Falluja?
http://www.ilmanifesto.it/pag/sgrena/en/420dd721e0ff0.html

The death throes of Fallujah
http://www.ilmanifesto.it/pag/sgrena/en/420dc44c4d41d.html

Interview with an Iraki woman tortured at Abu Graibù
http://www.ilmanifesto.it/pag/sgrena/en/420dc5a37ba4d.html

A longer and more detailed examination of these allegations has been written by Luciana Bohne at Online Journal < http://www.onlinejournal.com/Media/021205Bohne/021205bohne.h
tml >. Give that article a careful read."

Another Journalist Deliberately Targeted? William Pitt, March 6, 2005
http://forum.truthout.org/blog/story/2005/3/6/114241/5457

Naomi Klein succinctly explains below the intent of the US occupier's policy: "In Iraq, US forces and their Iraqi surrogates are no longer bothering to conceal attacks on civilian targets and are openly eliminating anyone - doctors, clerics, journalists - who dares to count the bodies."

"David T Johnson, Acting ambassador, US Embassy, London
Dear Mr Johnson,
On November 26, your press counsellor sent a letter to the Guardian taking strong exception to a sentence in my column of the same day. The sentence read: "In Iraq, US forces and their Iraqi surrogates are no longer bothering to conceal attacks on civilian targets and are openly eliminating anyone - doctors, clerics, journalists - who dares to count the bodies." Of particular concern was the word "eliminating".
The letter suggested that my charge was "baseless" and asked the Guardian either to withdraw it, or provide "evidence of this extremely grave accusation". It is quite rare for US embassy officials to openly involve themselves in the free press of a foreign country, so I took the letter extremely seriously. But while I agree that the accusation is grave, I have no intention of withdrawing it. Here, instead, is the evidence you requested.

...... Eliminating doctors

...... Eliminating journalists:

The images from last month's siege on Falluja came almost exclusively from reporters embedded with US troops. This is because Arab journalists who had covered April's siege from the civilian perspective had effectively been eliminated. Al-Jazeera had no cameras on the ground because it has been banned from reporting in Iraq indefinitely. Al-Arabiya did have an unembedded reporter, Abdel Kader Al-Saadi, in Falluja, but on November 11 US forces arrested him and held him for the length of the siege. Al-Saadi's detention has been condemned by Reporters Without Borders and the International Federation of Journalists. "We cannot ignore the possibility that he is being intimidated for just trying to do his job," the IFJ stated.
It's not the first time journalists in Iraq have faced this kind of intimidation. When US forces invaded Baghdad in April 2003, US Central Command urged all unembedded journalists to leave the city. Some insisted on staying and at least three paid with their lives. On April 8, a US aircraft bombed al-Jazeera's Baghdad offices, killing reporter Tareq Ayyoub. Al-Jazeera has documentation proving it gave the coordinates of its location to US forces.
On the same day, a US tank fired on the Palestine hotel, killing José Couso, of the Spanish network Telecinco, and Taras Protsiuk, of Reuters. Three US soldiers are facing a criminal lawsuit from Couso's family, which alleges that US forces were well aware that journalists were in the Palestine hotel and that they committed a war crime.

...... Eliminating clerics

You asked for my evidence, Mr Ambassador. Here it is, Naomi Klein, December 4, 2004: http://www.guardian.co.uk/Columnists/Column/0,5673,1366348,0
0.html




" "You just killed a journalist!" Al-Shyouki shouted.
The soldiers yelled at him to step back. They were very tense, said Stephan Breitner, of France 2 TV. They were crazy. "
Dead Messengers: How the U.S. Military Threatens Journalists March 6, 2005: http://www.truthout.org/docs_2005/030605A.shtml