She offered no evidence for her claim, but the sentiment reflected growing anger in Italy over the conduct of the war, which has claimed more than 20 Italian lives, including the secret agent who rescued her moments before being killed.
Friday evening's killing of the agent and wounding of the journalist, who worked for a communist daily, has sparked tension with Italy's U.S. allies and put pressure on Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi to take a hard line with President Bush.
The United States has promised a full investigation into incident, in which soldiers fired on the Italians' car as it approached Baghdad airport Friday evening.
The U.S. military says the car was speeding toward a checkpoint and ignored warning shots, an explanation denied by government ministers and the driver of the car.
First of all, as if we cared. Really. I mean, care about one communist journalist's writings. Will one less commie writer really be the tipping point for our efforts in Iraq? We could decimate our own jouranlists and have no appreciable effect. The Guardian (or the LA Times) could blow up mysteriously and there'd be no real effect.
Second, why would we harm a journalist from Italy, a country that has been very supportive of the Iraq War with troops on the ground? Especially when that government is helping despite popular opinion?
And finally, if we wanted her dead, she'd be dead--not spouting off about fanciful Eason Jordan-type conspiracies about US forces targeting journalists.
I'm truly sorry that an Italian agent died in the gunfire. Truly. He deserved better than to die protecting that piece of work. I'm even sorry that Ms. Sgrena was wounded. Though it is all in the abstract and I can't work up a tearful moment given her open hostility to my country.
We will investigate. I'd bet on lack of coordination and communication rather than a botched ambush.
