Sgrena Report Update II…

Okay. Let me straighten out a couple of things before I really get started. Thomas posted last night that there was a distinct possibility that this report could have been a forgery. Most of it revolved around it’s length, as was pointed out on Riehl World Review. This was the first site to bring up the notion that the PDF may have been a phony. As of this morning, we have now found out the following:

1) The document is authentic. It is not a forgery.
2) The US military put out the report.
3) The Italians that put the report up in the PDF file did a piss-poor
job with the redactions needed within it.

This is all we know right now. Regardless of who screwed what pooch, the moment this was discovered, the document should have been pulled. Granted, once something is out on the Internet, it does not matter if you pull it or not. Enough people already got their grubby little hands on it, including us. In other words, the "damage" has already been done.

Is there a "good side" to this issue? Sure. The report exonerates the troops involved in that incident. This week, Italy is supposed to release a point-by-point report refuting the US report. The problem with the release of the Italian report is that they are not truly addressing the US report. They are about to confront our facts, with a spun lie. They are going to accuse us of tampering with evidence.

The official Italian report on the incident expected to be published this week will accuse the American military of tampering with evidence at the scene of the shooting.

The Americans invited two Italians to join in their inquiry, but the Italian representatives protested at what they claimed was lack of objectivity in presenting the evidence and returned to Rome.

Relations between Rome and Washington remain tense.

That is from the BBC today. It is clear that the Italians are not going to address the report, as they originally stated, but instead they are choosing to launch another allegation against the military. So, gone is the original accusation made by Italy that we were targeting this worthless communist reporter, and interjected is a charge that we purposefully tampered with evidence to clear the names of the soldiers.

See, this goes beyond just an incident where someone lost their life. Nicola Calipari is considered a hero in Italy. Hell, they looked at him as a veritable "living legend". The Italians are ticked. We get that. We understand they are angry. But they have no right to hold these soldiers in contempt for the mistakes made by the hero and his driver.

Berlusconi is caught between a rock and a hard place. He has been a staunch supporter of ours, but Sgrena and her hate America propaganda is really turning the tide of public opinion. If I were Italian, and I wanted someone to be held accountable for my hero's death, I would honestly hang that stupid, communist b***h. Had she not gone to Iraq in the first place, Calipari would still be alive. Had the driver of the car decided to not run the checkpoint, Calipari might still be alive. In other words, the two idiots that lived were the ones that got Calipari killed; that and Calipari's own stupidity of not telling coalition forces why he was really in Iraq.

And now a new piece of evidence is starting to surface, regarding the supposed satellite evidence that CBS put out last Thursday, and it was something that Thomas pointed out last night. After rereading the report for what seemed like the umpteenth time, it dawned on both of us that the report did not mention the satellite data. One would think that had that been such solid evidence to clear the troops, it would be in the report. But there is not one mention of it. So, where did CBS get it?

I laid into the LA Times yesterday afternoon over their glaring omission of the satellite data in their column regarding the report clearing the troops of wrong-doing. It now seems, at least to me, that they were not suppressing information from their readers; it may have been omitted because it was unable to be verified. Could it be that CBS was peddling phony information again? We shall see as this story continues to play out. There are far more bloggers now hitting this issue. Below, I have set up a list of links that are actively involved in this story.

So, as it stands right now, a story that originally caught the attention of a few has exploded into a story that is being followed by many. At first this story was about the idiot that did not know how to use Adobe Acrobat, and screwed up the redaction of the report. Then, it evolved into the possibility that one of the reports that were available (WE have both) might have been a forgery. Now, we are sitting on a much bigger story, and one that is feeding the socialist, anti-American moonbats in Italy. This is all far from over.

http://www.captainsquartersblog.com/mt/

http://michellemalkin.com/archives/002293.htm

http://www.riehlworldview.com/carnivorous_conservative/2005/05/the_segrena_rep.html

http://www.blackfive.net/main/2005/05/the_sgrena_inci.html

http://www.legendgames.net/showstory.asp?page=blognews/stories/UN0000204.txt

http://learningtolovethelaw.blogspot.com/2005/05/its-not-secret-if-you-tell-everyone.html

http://wizbangblog.com/archives/005830.php

For those that are interested, and want to keep abreast of this story, keep an eye on these sites. All of us will stay on top of this as best we can, and finish sorting out the various sides that keep emerging from it.

The Bunny ;)