Did ABC news just show the Sgrena car?

[spinbaby]

I just caught the last few seconds of a story in which they showed a relatively undamaged late-model car on a flat-bed truck and were saying that it certainly didn't look like it was hit by a tank. Did they find the "lost" car?

[atreides1]

1. It was a lost car

I'll bet it wasn't "the lost car".

[Nite Owl]

2. I caught that too

it didn't even look shot at and the military is saying that it was going at over 100mph.

[rzemanfl]

3. In another thread they are saying the car was a rented four

wheel drive. WTF?

[IowaRant]

4. It can't be it!

According to the Italian newspaper La Repubblica, Mr Calipari RENTED an inconspicuous PICKUP truck... what ABC had was a sub compact car... it didn't even have bullet holes!... I would trust the Italians over whatever ABC is trying to feed us.

[wakauf]

5. An Italian paper

just had it on their website too! This is the car they were in
according to the  "republik". I don't know how to
link you to it. Doesn't look like 300-400 rounds were fired at
it. I was in the service and that many rounds from a vehicle
mounted weapon would have killed everyone in the car! Vehicle
mounted means .50 cal more then likely. I think more info is
needed before we can say what happened.

[NYC]

6. Is this La Repubblica's picture of the car?

http://www.repubblica.it/

Related to this article about a second video of Giulana Sgrena.

Video rapitori: "Nessun riscatto
La Cia voleva uccidere la Sgrena"

ROMA - Nicola Calipari è stato ucciso in un agguato che avrebbe dovuto impedire a Giuliana Sgrena di tornare viva in Italia dopo il suo rilascio avvenuto senza il pagamento di alcun riscatto. Sono andate così le cose secondo i rapitori della giornalista del Manifesto che hanno diffuso oggi la seconda parte del video girato poco prima della liberazione dell'inviata italiana.

http://www.repubblica.it/2005/c/sezioni/cronaca/caliparifune/viderisca/viderisca.html

[spinbaby]

9. Looks like it could be the car shown on ABC

I just got a glimpse of a white car. It was a live shot, not a still photo. Wish I'd tuned in a minute earlier. The female reporter in front of it (don't know the name) was busy saying it didn't look like it had been hit by a tank.

[FreedomAngel82]

21. Interesting

Trying to hide it. I think they would be showing the car and holes and all that if this was the car. So them now trying to hide this shows me she's more believable.

[rzemanfl]

7. This is too weird. This certainly isn't a pickup truck or a four

wheel drive. What the hell is going on? There is also something about the car being "full of spent rounds" that doesn't happen, the spent rounds stay with the shooter. This is the typical "tell so many f***ing lies that nobody knows what the hell is going on" stuff we are constantly being exposed to. The Italian government has an interest in keeping this low-key too.

By the way, who the hell would rent cars in Baghdad in the first place? Insurance must be really pricey.

[NYC]

10. By "spent rounds" they may mean bullets.

The bullets that were fired into the car. They would still be there if they didn't pass through. (As opposed to the casings that would remain with the shooter.)

Nonetheless, I agree that the story changes every minute.

[wakauf]

14. What spent rounds

are they talking about? I think this women is full of s**t.
She's been lying since she got over there.

[NYC]

15. Why do you say Sgrena is full of shit? Are you saying the car

was not shot?

[alfredo]

22. I haven't read much of her work but her story about napalm was

factual. Our government has admitted to using napalm in Iraq.

I think she is suffering from Stockholm syndrome. That's probably what kept her alive through her ordeal.

[NYC]

8. Does Toyota Corolla make a pickup truck?

This is one of the worst translations in the world, but see what you can make of it:

Calipari has informed the airport. But the part of the participation of Fine destined to make mainly to discuss has been the directory of the various discrepancies between the testimony of the official of the Sismi that guided the car with to Calipari edge and the Sgrena and the version supplied from the USA authorities. "greater of the Italian services that guided the Toyota Corolla - the minister has explained - has reported to us that Calipari has telephoned from the car to the civil employee of the Sismi who was to the airport with the official American in order to inform them of its re-enters".

The car went to 40 km/h. ...the civil employee of the Sismi ... assures that the car went to not advanced speed to the 40 hour kilometers and that nobody has intimato to the car to stop itself: it has been only aimed a beacon and has left the squall, a probably developed fire action from more automatic crews of the duration of approximately dieci-quindici seconds "...

From: babelfish.altavista.com (unlinkable)
From: http://www.repubblica.it/2005/c/sezioni/cronaca/caliparifune/finicamera/finicamera.html

"Insensata l'ipotesi dell'agguato ma la versione Usa non coincide"

[NYC]

11. "Recovered the Baghdad car of Calipari..."

The car and cell phones will be taken to Italy.

Poor translation:

To Rome apex in Power of attorney in order to make the point on surveyings for the dead women of the 007
The car and the cellular ones of the Sismi will be brought back in Italy and analyzed

Recovered to Bagdad the car of Calipari
"the traffic control post was for proteggerli"
USA ambassador to talk with Berlusconi offers one first reconstruction
The Washington Post writes: "They knew of the passage".


The feretro of Nicholas Calipari

ROME - it is inquired. In Italy and the United States. In order to understand exact dynamics that it has carried the dead women of Nicholas Calipari. In order to answer to the interrogated ones to you that still they have not found one answer. In the USA news and indiscretions are run after on the first conclusions which it would be reached the military inquiry. In Italy one first reconstruction of the facts would have supplied it ambassador USA Mel Sembler to premier Berlusconi and the minister of the Fine Foreign countries in the course of a this evening happened encounter. While the arrival of the automobile on which Nicholas Calipari travelled, recovered in Iraq attends. (waits) In arrival to Rome also the cellular telephones in equipment to the civil employee of the Sismi and the greater one of the police officers who were to flying.

USA ambassador ...Sembler ... tomorrow, just with the minister Fine, he is about himself to report to the Room on what has happened to Bagdad while the day after tomorrow Berlusconi will report in Senate.

... the inquiry American could have evidenced a "problem of communications" between the Italians and the USA soldiers.

Sources of the Italian intelligence have supported from the first day, and ribadito also today, that the competent authorities Americans had been perceived of what she was happening. (They knew what was happening.) A connection official had just the task to assure the indispensable flow of information and the coordination with the USA Then would have been a "short informative circuit" to the inside of the chain American. The same official of the remained Sismi hurt has moreover said that the car did not proceed to altà (high) speed and that it talks nonsense to it are appeared "ingiustificati". (unjustified) The Americans, instead, have supported from the very first to have used lights and mark them in order to stop the car.

...Pentagon cites sources del), the soldiers del traffic control post sull' freeway for the airport of Bagdad who have opened the fire killing Calipari "had not been informed of the passage to you degli Italian".

But the Washington Post ... supports to the contrary that the soldiers Americans to Bagdad were informed of the passage on the road of "a high civil employee of an embassy" and had prepared a traffic control post improvised to the income of the road "in order proteggerlo". According to the source, but, us it would have been "the absence of a coordination and preventive communications between the Italians and the USA soldiers to the check-point".

The Italian inquiry. The car crivellata from the blows has been recovered from the Italian investigators in Iraq and will be capacity in week to Rome for being subordinate to ballistic assessments. (The car will be back in Rome within a week for ballistic tests.) Currently the car is subordinate to control from part of our agents in order to avoid eventual manomissioni.(Manumission? Impounding?) The examination of the car is indispensable in order to reconstruct dynamics of the shooting: in particular, the number projectiles, shots, and their trajectory. This task... will be entrusted to a college of ballistic experts.

Equally important ... analysis of the calls made from the cellular ones of Nicholas Calipari and of the greater one of the police officers whom the night of the tragedy it made it from driver. The first one is already in the availability of the magistrates of the power of attorney of Rome; the second is, instead, for acquired being to the actions.

http://www.repubblica.it/2005/c/sezioni/cronaca/caliparifune/inchiecalip/inchiecalip.html

Recuperata a Bagdad l'auto di Calipari
"Il posto di blocco era per proteggerli"

[rzemanfl]

13. Here's that stuff. I should give credit to the poster, but can't

remember who it was. Short term memory loss.

Italy is well aware that its habit of paying large sums to secure the release of its nationals is disapproved of by the Americans and British. All negotiations are therefore carried on in secret. But at Baghdad airport Mr Calipari explained at the US headquarters what his team had come to do. It was arranged that an American colonel would be on hand at the airport when Ms Sgrena arrived for her flight back to Italy. By the time the team had rented a four-wheel drive it was already 5pm.

At 8.20pm, Mr Calipari's team reached the rendezvous on the outskirts of Baghdad. The vehicle they were looking for was there. Ms Sgrena's abductors had left her blindfolded in the back of the car. "I'm a friend of Pier and Gabriele," Mr Calipari said, naming Ms Sgrena's partner and editor. The 57-year-old journalist was a bundle of tension as they got her into their vehicle and left for the airport.

http://news.independent.co.uk/low_res/story.jsp?story=6...

[rzemanfl]

12. Maybe they switched vehicles after she was picked up? The

article I'm getting this stuff from is in English. I will get some quotes and a URL.

[ohio_liberal]

17. Nope

A Corolla is definitely a car. Late model Toyota trucks are T100, Tacoma, Tundra. I don't remember what they called the old pickups from the 80's but they weren't Corollas.

[NYC]

24. Since this was a rental car, there must be

a receipt, a record. If it was charged to a credit card, the credit card company should already have a record of the make and model of the car. Correct?

[mmonk]

16. All I know is

if the car I have been seeing is it, it was only hit by a few rounds, no way 300 or 400. Therefore, some of the Italian renditions appear suspect to me.

[starwolf]

18. 400 rds was bogus anyway

That, like the reports of being hit by a tank were clearly in error. I am not claiming lying so much as first time under fire nerves from the eyewitnesses. The poltical and media hyperbole is not helping things either. I read elsewhere that there is some sort of joint group being set up to look into this. Things should be fairly straight forward to figure things out. Wonder if Gil Grissom has a few days free.

[PeteGammons]

19. And all I know is...

...if the Army was, in fact, trying to take her out, she wouldn't be talking about it now. The fact that 2 of the 3 people in the car walked away to tell the story seems to me to be more consistent with the US Army's story than any of the others...

[w4rma]

20. plausable deniability. (nt)

[riverwalker]

23. Car being sent to Italy now

"Prosecutors in Rome announced last night that Italian officials in Iraq had taken possession of the car in which the Italian agent was travelling with Sgrena when he was killed. They said that it would be flown back to Italy for a forensic examination."

http://www.guardian.co.uk/Iraq/Story/0,2763,1433174,00.html