Italian Idiots – Update XVI

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The timeline of the shooting has been released:

The report said the soldiers were ordered to block the road to all traffic until then-U.S. Ambassador John Negroponte passed on his way to Camp Victory, a U.S. military base near the airport.

The report defines an Alert Line as the point on a roadblock where the soldiers are alert to possible danger from an approaching vehicle; the Warning Line is the point past which an intruder elicits the firing of warning shots.

Here is a timeline of what happened after the soldiers set up the roadblock, according to the U.S. Army report:

7:30 p.m. ? Seven soldiers from an unnamed company establish roadblock on airport road.

7:45 p.m. ? The soldiers are told a convoy carrying Negroponte has left the fortified Green Zone ? the location of U.S. embassy and Iraqi government institutions ? and is on its way to Camp Victory.

8:10 p.m. ? The company captain requests permission to remove roadblock until 15 minutes before Negroponte arrives.

8:14 p.m. ? The command center tells the company captain that the company can remove the roadblock.

8:15 p.m. ? The company captain then tells the command center that the roadblock will remain in place.

8:30 p.m. ? The company captain asks again to remove roadblock. He is told not to, and that the Negroponte convoy would be moving down Route Irish in approximately 20 minutes.

At approximately the same time, Calipari and an unnamed agent recover Sgrena from Baghdad’s upscale Mansour neighborhood and head toward the airport.

8:45 p.m. ? The soldiers have successfully turned around 15-30 vehicles, none getting more than a few yards beyond the Alert Line.

The report said none of the soldiers knew the Italians were coming.

As the Italians’ car approached the ramp to Route Irish, the unnamed Italian agent is on his cell phone, updating a fellow Italian agent waiting at the airport on their position and reporting that everything was going fine.

The unnamed agent gave his speed as 43-50 mph as he headed onto the ramp.

The atmosphere in the car was a mix of excitement over the recovery of Sgrena and tension from the tasks yet to be completed, the report said.

At approximately 8:50 p.m. ? A soldier from an unnamed company sees a car approaching the ramp to Route Irish, approximately 153 yards from his position. Holding the spotlight in his left hand, the soldier shines it onto the car before it arrives at the Alert Line. Another soldier focuses his green laser pointer onto the windshield of the car. Both soldiers perceive the car to be traveling more than 50 mph, faster than any other vehicles that evening.

The car crosses the Alert Line without slowing down. The first soldier continues to shine the spotlight and shouts at the vehicle to stop.

The car continues to speed, coming closer to the soldiers than any other vehicle that evening. When the car gets to the Warning Line, the first soldier, still holding his spotlight in his left hand, uses his right hand to quickly fire a two-to-four round burst into a grassy area to the right of the vehicle.

The vehicle maintains its speed as it goes beyond the Warning Line. The first soldier drops the spotlight and immediately switches his weapon to his right hand (the report is not clear on how the soldier would have switched the weapon to his right hand when it said in the previous paragraph it already was in that hand). With both hands on the weapon he fires another burst toward the ground on the passenger’s side of the vehicle and toward the car’s engine block in an attempt to disable it. The rounds hit the right and front sides of the vehicle, deflate the left front tire, and blow out the side windows. (Here again the discrepancies are not explained.)

The unnamed Italian agent speaks into the phone, “They are attacking us.” He steps on the brakes, curls up on the left side of the car and drops the phone.

The soldier stops firing. Approximately four seconds elapsed between the firing of the first round and the last round, and no more than seven seconds from the time the car crossed the Alert Line until it came to a stop.

Once the car comes to a stop, the unnamed Italian agent gets out with his hands raised, cell phone in one hand, and tells the soldiers he is from the Italian Embassy.

The soldiers approach the car with weapons raised, pat down the driver and ask him if there are others in the car. He responds that there are two others and that there is one weapon on the front seat and another with the male passenger in the back seat. He warns that both weapons are loaded.

Upon searching the vehicle the soldiers find Calipari gravely wounded. One of the soldiers bandaged his wound, but he dies a few minutes later. The soldier then turns his attention to Sgrena’s wounds.

Previous:

Italian Idiots – Update XV
Italian Idiots – Update XIV
Italian Idiots – Update XIII
Italian Idiots – Update XII
Italian Idiots – Update XI
Italian Idiots – Update X
Italian Idiots – Update VIIII
Italian Idiots – Update VIII
Italian Idiots – Update VII
Italian Idiots – Update VI
Italian Idiots – Update V
The Idiots In Italy
Italian Idiots – Update II
Italian Idiots – Update
Italian Idiots

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