Giuliana Sgrena Knew of the Dangers

The Italian journalist Guiliana Sgrena is a regular contributor to the German weekly "Die Zeit". Her "Iraq Diary" carries a pessimistic, anti-American tone. She manages to practically exclusively talk to like-minded Iraqis, who are full of criticism of the invasion, of the Americans, of everything that goes wrong in contemporary Iraq. Not much reporting on mass slaughterings under Saddam, though.

In this "Die Zeit" piece from October 10, 2004 she stressed that travelling in Baghdad better be a secret affair:

How to safeguard yourself, unless you want to trust your fate to weapons? You have to live by certain rules: always on the move and not to be detected, almost like a conspirator; always change your daily programme; change the route you drive; change meetings; if possible avoid to get stuck in a traffic jam. Foremost, never tell anybody, where you go. ... Try to avoid military convoys. A wrong move, and the machine gun shooter, sitting on a tank, shoots indiscriminantly... (emphasis added)

Given her preference for secrecy about travel plans it is a fair guess that Sgrena didn't want the US military to be informed ahead of her cross city trip to Baghdad airport.

And Sgrena was well aware of the dangers of approaching military installations in Baghdad. In her article she describes the death of a taxi driver who was killed by machine gun shots coming from a tank.

Raheem passed the US-Basis Island. ... He probably made a wrong move.

Given her familiarity with the dangers of the situation it is beyond me why she didn't caution the driver of her car to stop or slow down to crawling speed at the military checkpoint. Most likely no shooting would have occured, and nobody would have been killed.

But then again, no conspiracy theories could have been floated...

Update 1: Sgrena's German colleagues at the newsweekly "Die Zeit" have just decided to get ridiculous.

Update 2:

Source: daybyday, cartoon March 8, 2005

Comments

[Charles]

---"How to safeguard yourself, unless you want to trust your fate to weapons"---

Well considering that she was both, kidnapped by terrorists and shoot at by Americans, it looks like she has a good fingerspitzengefeuhl on the situation.

[Foobarista]

Hey! We owned a Volare stationwagon when I was a kid. And there weren't any Communists in the back seat...

[Guggi]

I asked some questions in the discussion board of the "Zeit" (Zeit-Forum)

http://debatte.zeit.de/WebX?13@2@.5cb6dace/1725

http://debatte.zeit.de/WebX?13@2@.5cb6dace/1729

http://debatte.zeit.de/WebX?13@14@.5cb6dace/1728

http://debatte.zeit.de/WebX?13@16@.5cb6dace/1729

and was told, that if I would´nt stop, I would "get the chop" in the "Zeit-Forum".

http://debatte.zeit.de/WebX?13@11@.5cb6dace/1732

So, I´m not a very sheepish person, I asked further questions

http://debatte.zeit.de/WebX?13@18@.30010e1e/6185

and surprise ! surprise! got no answer.

David: great blog (but you know already ;-))

PS: David, wie kann ich hier funktionsfähige Links einstellen?

[Guggi]

Thanks, merci, danke schön, grazie, grazias, dank, obrigado ;-))))

[fmj]

Just seen (at www.achgut.de)

How a Dutch reporter experienced Giuliana Sgrena in Iraq.
:-)

http://www.zachtei.nl/2005/03/08/000670.html