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De-Classified Report on Sgrena Shooting

There are unclassified reports and declassified reports, but in the case of the U.S. military report on the shooting of Italian journalist and Iraqi hostage Giuliana Sgrena and the killing of her protector, Intelligence Agent Nicola Calipar, there's a big oops! Kevin Drum has the details on the report.

Update: The AP has noted a CBS report that aired Thursday night(that does not appear to be online) that satellite imagery was used to establish the speed of the Sgrena vehicle.

The report, which aired Thursday on CBS News, said US investigators concluded from the recording that the car was traveling at a speed of more than 60 miles (96 km) per hour....CBS, citing Pentagon officials, said the satellite recording enabled investigators to reconstruct the event without having to rely on the eyewitness accounts.

Wizbang, hardly a liberal site, did a search of the unredacted report and reports that there is no mention of the word satellite or anytbing but traditional means of establishing vehicle speed in the report:

The unredacted version of the official report should provide an excellent opportunity to verify the satellite satellite story, but the term "satellite" appears nowhere in the report and every mention of "speed" indicates that speed was calculated using standard crime scene forensic techniques. If there really is satellite proof that Sgrena's car was going 60 mph, you'd expect to find some passing mention of it in the official report, right? Even if the satellite data itself is classified, if it was as exculpatory as CBS claims it certainly would be alluded to in the official report.

Despite the fact that there is no mention of the satellite recording in the official report, or any confirmation on CBS News' website of its existence, some right wingers are shouting conspiracy, alleging that the LA Times removed a paragraph about the CBS satellite report from an article because it would have established that Sgrena's car was speeding and the U.S. was at fault. [The post also contains a welcome to readers of Lucianne.com.] How typical that some right wing bloggers are perfectly willing to credit an uncorroborated CBS news report when it suits their purposes.

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  • Re: De-Classified Report on Sgrena Shooting (none / 0) (#1)
    by DawesFred60 on Sat Dec 17, 2005 at 12:58:38 PM EST
    This is really sad.

    Re: De-Classified Report on Sgrena Shooting (none / 0) (#2)
    by Che's Lounge on Sat Dec 17, 2005 at 12:58:39 PM EST
    Well I guess that clears THAT up!

    Re: De-Classified Report on Sgrena Shooting (none / 0) (#3)
    by Johnny on Sat Dec 17, 2005 at 12:58:39 PM EST
    Wait a minute! Did I see CBS mentioned in this post? That's it, no matter what, CBS was mentioned, there is 0 credibility involved here guys Pay no attention to stupid left wing media propoganda outlets! (Sorry PPJ)