Giuliana Sgrena and the ever-shifting story

Giuliana Sgrena, as most of you would know by now, is an Italian communist journalist who was kidnapped in Iraq, released for a huge fee (believed to be around US$10 million), and then drove away with the man who negotiated her release, Italian secret agent Nicola Calipari. However, he was killed and she was wounded when their car was fired upon by US troops. As usual, though, a true, balanced account of events is almost impossible to find. But even the most basic piece of investigative journalism would uncover that there are a ton of holes in her story. (A lot of links thanks to Little Green Footballs, where there's more.)

1. She claims that between 300 and 400 bullets were fired at the car from an armoured vehicle (later this armoured vehicle became a tank), yet the car didn't explode. In fact, Capilari was hit once, and it was that bullet that hit Sgrena, despite Sgrena's claims that she personally picked "handfuls of bullets" off the seats. It's possible if it was just an armored vehicle, but unlikely. It's outright impossible that 300 to 400 rounds of tankfire would come near a car and not destroy it and everything inside it, and it's also impossible that the US would fire 300 to 400 rounds of fire at a car, and only hit the people inside with one bullet.

2. She says she wasn't at a checkpoint, and she hadn't been through any checkpoints at all, but she had been through "several" checkpoints.

3. She says she can't say for sure if she was deliberately targeted, but she says she was deliberately targeted.

4. She says the vehicle was not travelling fast, or even "travelling slowly", but it was "losing control" due to the way it was being driven. This in the mind of anyone with a brain would raise suspicions about the car and its occupants.

5. She claimed "The Americans shone a flashlight at the car and then fired...", but that became "They started to shoot at us without any light or signal."

If there's any more inaccuracies, put them in the comments. I'm sure there's more - in two days she's managed to rack up that many glaring problems, so give her a week and she'll have a story with more holes than Grandpa's fishing nets.

UPDATE: More on this over at A Western Heart: here, and here.

UPDATE x2: Found more, thanks to Captain's Quarters, which has been added above. Michelle Malkin notes that the stories are shifting in the mainstream media too. Furthermore there's reports that information was withheld from US troops.

UPDATE x3: Via the comments comes the fifth point, which I've added above.

(Cross-posted to The House Of Wheels.)

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