Sgrena Lies During Interview, Admits Italian Violation of Policy

Giuliana Sgrena, the Italian communist "journalist" who was kidnapped in Iraq, and whose release resulted in the shooting death of an Italian secret service agent when her car tried to run a US roadblock, was interviewed by Newsweek. During the interview, Sgrena demonstrated the remarkable malleability of her story once again, was caught in a lie by the interviewer, and admitted outright that the Italians have been undermining anti-terrorism efforts in Iraq by negotiating with terrorists and paying ransoms.

Did you see a light signal?
No. There was no light signal.
What happened when the car approached the roadblock?
We didn’t see any roadblock. We saw nothing. At a certain point, we were on this road and there was a curve. The driver had just said that we were 700 meters [about 770 yards] away from the airport and suddenly we were hit by a light and strafed by a machine gun. [Sgrena originally insisted that her car was attacked by a "tank".]
So there was a light?
It was at the same time we were hit, at the time we were shot. The bullets and a beam of light hit us simultaneously.

It's a pity the interview wasn't videotaped. One can imagine Sgrena at this point licking her lips and sweating like a hapless tobacco executive on Sixty Minutes. Soon after this, Sgrena admits that the Italians have been routinely violating Coalition policy regarding negotiating with terrorists and paying ransoms:

Why would the incident been intentional?
The big controversy is the Italian policy toward hostages: the fact that Italians negotiate with kidnappers and pay ransoms. Americans don’t want it, they’ve always been opposed to it.

This is true. Coalition policy has always been not to negotiate with terrorists. The reason is simple, negotiating and paying ransoms encourages further terrorist incidents.

Adolph Hitler learned quickly that the Italians make horrible, incompetent allies (unless facing Ethiopean tribesmen armed with spears). It's time the US learned the same lesson.