Security by obscurity my ass

May 1, 2005 9:35 AM

Interesting followup on this story previously posted here concerning the killing of an italian senior intelligence agent by U.S. Forces during an hostage rescue mission (a.k.a. the Sgregna Case). Yesterday the italian public received this PDF file containing an extremely detailed U.S. military report on the alleged accident. Many lines in the report were "blacked out" as the author probably considered them unclassified, yet sensible information (like the name who the guy who shot the car). It turns out the author don't know jack about pdf and here is the unblackened report[DOC Format] in all its details, most probably exposed by some computer savy guy in italian media.
posted by elpapacito (49 comments total)

maybe luigi does know jack about pdfs
posted by shoos at 9:41 AM on May 1, 2005

I mean richard thelin.
posted by shoos at 9:46 AM on May 1, 2005

Between the conclusions of that report and the analysis of satellite images from the incident, it's becoming pretty clear that the Italians were, unfortunately, very much at fault.
posted by gd779 at 9:47 AM on May 1, 2005

By simply opening the PDF and reding the document properties field we learn that the author should be "richard.thelin" and that another person involved in the redaction of document could be Robert Potter at USCENTCOM.
posted by elpapacito at 9:48 AM on May 1, 2005

Wow, that is one of the most... remarkably secure documents in the history of humankind. I don't think anyone will ever crack that text.
posted by vernondalhart at 9:48 AM on May 1, 2005

Reading the report of the incident, it looks like the driver was either not paying attention to his speed or was panicked and attempting to flee an enemy that did not exist.

The report (Section E. of "The Incident", p 29) states that

Staff Sergeant Brown, a New York City Police Officer trained in vehicle speed estimation, estimated the car was traveling at 50 mph and believed that it would not be able to stay on the road around the curve at that speed.

which was right before the vehicle was strafed.

According the report and if we are to take as accurate the observations concerning the vehicle speed of at least two observers, the driver was not driving safely or with awareness of the situation.

My question is how could/why would the driver be in such a hurry as to imperil himself and his passengers by speeding around a curve? It doesn't make sense.
posted by mistersquid at 9:51 AM on May 1, 2005

I don't buy it. Sure, none of the Pentagon people who decided on torture and abuse are responsible for that, and we're not responsible for this either--not.

The Italians aren't buying it either, and are doing their own investigation: (BBC) The US military has confirmed that it will not discipline soldiers who shot dead an Italian agent in Iraq as he escorted a freed hostage to safety.
The US said its soldiers had acted within the rules of engagement and that the death was a "tragic accident".
Nicola Calipari died to protect Italian journalist Giuliana Sgrena as their car came under US fire near Baghdad.
Italy has refused to endorse the official report's conclusions and is pressing ahead with its own inquiries. ...

posted by amberglow at 9:57 AM on May 1, 2005

gd779: could as well be, but makes me wonder about the capability of U.S. satellites KH Spy satellite series ..which are obviously under the most strict secret. To ascertain the speed of a vehicle we need at least two frames (two pictures) of the event and to know the exactly how much time passed between the first and the second picture...we also need to know exactly which was the location of the vehicle in the first frame and in the second frame.

All this data can most probably be derived from a couple shots of a spy satellite and a reasonable extimate could be made. Which leaves us with another bunch of questions

1. why was the satellite aimed at the checkpoint ?
2. was any other satellite pointed at the scene ?
3. is the people on the ground as brilliant as the redactor of the document ?
posted by elpapacito at 9:59 AM on May 1, 2005

Berlesconi is on the ropes, whether the Americans fucked up or not.
posted by bardic at 10:10 AM on May 1, 2005

On a related blog tangent , here's the blog(italian language) of the italian blogger who exposed the document.
Obviously no italian media revealed the source (as if they wanted to protect the guy from F-16 retaliatory raids..oh c'mon it's not like they're shooting it....mmmh ok) and they all acted as-if they accidentally stumbled on the news. Thank gawd for the internets, the woods and the bloggers I say.
posted by elpapacito at 10:18 AM on May 1, 2005

Lots of stuff here to take up lots of time. To sum up: America right; Italians wrong? or: Americans claim they are right; Italians maintain they are right.

as for security, Having had some work with military security I can attest to the crazy crap that often takes place. This instance is very mild.
posted by Postroad at 10:41 AM on May 1, 2005

Why did Sgrena tell the BBC and Naomi Klein that there was no signal from the US forces.

... but tell the Guardian that they "shone a flashlight at the car and then they fired 300-400 bullets as if from an armoured vehicle."
...and that the fire was from a tank. (300-400 rounds from a tank? Right.)

Some PTSD, I think.
posted by shoos at 10:46 AM on May 1, 2005

I don't buy it.

I'm shocked!
posted by Steve_at_Linnwood at 10:50 AM on May 1, 2005

We know how gullible you are Steve--we would never lie, right? not about this, not about war? we don't ever lie, right?

...In the memo, Foreign Secretary Jack Straw is quoted as saying US President George Bush had "made up his mind to take military action even if the timing was not yet decided. But the case was thin".
It adds: "Saddam was not threatening his neighbours, and his WMD capability was less than that of Libya, North Korea or Iran.
"We should work up a plan for an ultimatum to Saddam to allow back in the UN weapons inspectors. This would help with the legal justification for the use of force." ...

Bush address, March 6, 2003: Saddam Hussein is a threat to our nation. ... I believe Saddam Hussein is a threat to the American people. I believe he's a threat to the neighborhood in which he lives. And I've got a good evidence to believe that. He has weapons of mass destruction,... He has trained and financed al Qaeda-type organizations before, al Qaeda and other terrorist organizations. I take the threat seriously, and I'll deal with the threat. I hope it can be done peacefully. ... I've not made up our mind about military action. ...
posted by amberglow at 11:04 AM on May 1, 2005

mmm, if I am correct tanks do not just have the one main gun you are thinking about, but may have smaller arms as well, in which case this does not seem an unreasonable claim. Perhaps?
posted by edgeways at 11:07 AM on May 1, 2005

she is a reporter for a communist paper,has collected reports from victims and witnesses of abuse. there is a death penalty for torture, in the Geneva Conventions. Anyone smell a tribunal any time soon?why this administration insists that US forces are exempt from international law,or its offer to tear down that prison and build a new one (crime scene)?l
posted by hortense at 11:13 AM on May 1, 2005

mmm, if I am correct tanks do not just have the one main gun you are thinking about, but may have smaller arms as well, in which case this does not seem an unreasonable claim. Perhaps?

...Except there were no tanks on the site, according to the report.

The Americans could have put up warning signs. The Italians could have told the Americans the details of the hostage evacuation.

Or Sgrena could have avoided being kidnapped. Or Bush could have made a decision not to invade Iraq. There are a million ways this could have been avoided.

What may be coming into play here is Italian resentment for Americans accidentally killing their citizens, which seems to happen frequently enough that no generation forgets it. (Anyone remember the fighter plane that clipped the Italian ski lift in the late '80s/ early '90s?)

1. why was the satellite aimed at the checkpoint ?

That particular road, "Route Irish," is one of the most dangerous in Iraq. The Americans have lots of forces in Iraq. I think it would make sense for them to patrol the area somehow from space.

I am not an optical engineer, but... perhaps it was not aimed at the checkpoint specifically - perhaps a number of points along the road were in focus at the time.

Any optics nerds care to speculate how big a space telescope would have to be in order to see such detail, but also have a wide angle?
posted by bugmuncher at 11:41 AM on May 1, 2005

The conflicting stories of this incident simply don't add up. Sgrena has, on the one hand, reason to consider herself a target for the US military -- the treatment of non-embedded journalists in Iraq has been nothing short of criminal, and as a communist and critic of the invasion she's got reason to be afraid -- but aspects of her story don't hold water. 300-400 rounds fired? Not likely. That'd be 30-50 seconds continuous fire for a machine gun; likely there wouldn't have been anything left of the front of the car if that many bullets had come their way.

One conclusion can be reached -- the fact that the American and Italian investigators disagree is itself significant. If it was unambiguously "a tragic accident" then agreeing a report to that effect would be politically expedient for both sides. As it is, the disputed American exoneration of their own soldiers is going to go down like a lead baloon in Italy, because if it is a cover-up for American troops who kill Italians it won't be the first time.

Mistersquid: One point to note is that drivers tend to run that particular route at very high speed -- it's regularly targeted by insurgents. (Also implicit in the report.)
posted by cstross at 11:42 AM on May 1, 2005

It's fun how they can spot the one car in the one location at that exact time... and manage to miss Osama bin Laden's every move for the past almost-4 years, as well as Abu Musab al-Zarqawi for the past 2 years.

Even worse, when the US did have a chance to get Zarqawi, they deliberately decided to not to eliminate or arrest him. And while the Administration likes to sound tough about Iran, the fact is that they've done what they could to actually wipe out Iraq-based opposition to Iran's mullah regime.

So, you may opt to believe the American story, but the evidence seems to support, well, alternate interpretations.
posted by clevershark at 11:47 AM on May 1, 2005

300-400 rounds fired? Not likely. That'd be 30-50 seconds continuous fire for a machine gun

Wow, imagine my surprise at finding out that the Armed Forces have only one machine gun!

Your debunking doesn't seem to hold water either.
posted by clevershark at 11:49 AM on May 1, 2005

If it was unambiguously "a tragic accident" then agreeing a report to that effect would be politically expedient for both sides.

It would be politically expedient for the Americans, true, but would it be expedient for the Italians as well? I'm not terribly familiar with Italian politics, but it seems to me that they can make good use of the anti-American sentiment (or, at least, can avoid the political damage they might receive if they are perceived by the public as whitewashing an American mistake). Or am I misunderstanding the political situation?
posted by gd779 at 11:50 AM on May 1, 2005

Anyone remember the fighter plane that clipped the Italian ski lift in the late '80s/ early '90s?

february 3, 1998
posted by quonsar at 11:54 AM on May 1, 2005

Not all tanks feature a 100+ mm main gun in the first place. Take, for example, the M2/M3.

Not that her vehicle took fire from an automatic 25mm antiarmor cannon, but if she took fire from a tank-mounted machine gun, then she indeed took fire from a tank. I'll leave it as an exercise for the reader to determine if a civilian being engaged by multiple mounted machine guns might be off in her bullet estimate by, say, 50%.

(preemptive: demanding that the M2/M3 be called an IFV or AFV is ridiculous, especially when you're talking about a translation from someone's native tongue. It is perfectly reasonable to classify a Bradley as a light tank. An MBT is a tank; a tank isn't always an MBT)
posted by Ptrin at 12:01 PM on May 1, 2005

Here is the latest Italian reponse to our claim:

http://www.alertnet.org/thenews/newsdesk/L01231734.htm No more pasta for this guy! I had cut out French Toast and now to give to the Italians.
posted by Postroad at 12:03 PM on May 1, 2005

My red butt!

If you leave the Army to investigate the Army, take a freaking wild guess what the conclusion will be.

This is insulting.

America has reached the zenith of hypocrisy.

It has come to the point where if America says it's good, you know it's bad. If America says it's white, you can bet it will be any color other than white.

I am sorry world. As an American I am deeply sorry.
posted by rougy at 12:05 PM on May 1, 2005

edgeways, according Naomi Klein's account of her interview of Sgrena, Sgrena's car was fired upon with "very, very large" "artillery," and a "four-inch" round hit her.

The utterly destroyed car can be seen in a photo in this article.
posted by shoos at 12:25 PM on May 1, 2005

elpapacito, high-resolution photo satellites orbit at low altitudes, just outside Earth's atmosphere, and so they orbit faster than Earth turns and move quickly relative to objects stationary on the ground. You can't just hang one over an important stretch of highway.

This page explains the variety of satellites overflying Iraq: three Keyhole KH-11 photo satellites and three Lacrosse radar satellites, each passing over Baghdad twice a day in polar orbits.

So if one of the Keyholes happened to be surveilling the Route Irish/Route Vernon intersection at the time of the incident, it was just lucky - it doesn't "mean" anything.
posted by nicwolff at 12:36 PM on May 1, 2005

amberglow: "...we would never lie, right? not about this, not about war? we don't ever lie, right?"

This isn't about 'whether we've lied before.' This doesn't even have even the tiniest bit to do with whether we should be in Iraq in the first place. So put it back in your pants.

Unless, of course, you're going to tell me that George Bush and Donald Rumsfeld were on the phone ordering the killing of Italian journalists. Weren't they a little too busy killing other people to care about killing Italian journalists?
posted by koeselitz at 12:41 PM on May 1, 2005

The military and this entire administration lie to us repeatedly--continually, in fact. Believing what they say--and report--is a fool's game. As more and more official confirmation comes out about the lies that caused this whole horror, even you should know that the military investigating themselves could not possibly result in the truth.
posted by amberglow at 12:56 PM on May 1, 2005

The military and this entire administration lie to us repeatedly--continually, in fact. Believing what they say--and report--is a fool's game.

There's nothing wrong with skepticism, but if the facts do exonerate the soldiers at the checkpoint then refusing to admit it because of politcal emnity is the game of an even bigger fool.
posted by Cyrano at 1:02 PM on May 1, 2005

I think we're missing an interesting side point...How many other redacted pdf's are out there with interesting information waiting to be cut and pasted? 9/11? Project Blue Book? The Kennedy assassination? The mind reels under its tinfoil hat...
posted by Mcable at 1:04 PM on May 1, 2005

anberglow: Well, it seems like this to me: politicians lie, usually to help themselves. This means that about 50% of what they say is a lie. The other half is just what happens when they aren't thinking about it.

But look at the situation; if they wanted to kill off a journalist, do you really think they'd do it at a checkpoint? And leave his friend, a reporter for a communist newspaper, still alive? You pretty much said above that you thought that "the people who ordered torture" were responsible for this. That sounds unlikely in the extreme to me.

Whether the US is lying or not, whether the journalist is lying or not, there are two possibilities here: either (a)somebody made an understandable mistake; or (b) somebody made a really stupid mistake. Neither possibility is as sinister as you'd like it to be, and neither means anything about the US Military as a whole.
posted by koeselitz at 1:10 PM on May 1, 2005

We don't have facts--we have he said, she said.
posted by amberglow at 1:13 PM on May 1, 2005

Mcable: "How many other redacted pdf's are out there with interesting information waiting to be cut and pasted? 9/11? Project Blue Book? The Kennedy assassination? The mind reels under its tinfoil hat..."

Oh my god, you're right. Somebody, quick, dig up some PDFs from the early seventies and see what we can find...
posted by koeselitz at 1:15 PM on May 1, 2005

I think you mean "sensitive" information, not "sensible".
posted by w0mbat at 1:18 PM on May 1, 2005

koeselitz: the answer to that would be that they are both evil AND incompetent.
posted by Iax at 2:29 PM on May 1, 2005

I wasn't sure if the doc file was just made up, or what, so I looked at the PDF to see.

In the table of contents, I selected the line for II E 1, which looks like (U) [black rectangle] Division.

I hit copy. I opened up notepad. I hit paste.

(U) Third Infantry Division
posted by blacklite at 2:38 PM on May 1, 2005

Oh, apparently you all knew that.
posted by blacklite at 2:40 PM on May 1, 2005

Interestingly, according to CBS:

CBS news has reported that a U.S. satellite had filmed the shooting and that it had been established the car carrying Calipari was traveling at more than 60 mph as it approached the U.S. checkpoint in Baghdad.

So much for the "we were driving slowly" bit. If they want to claim that the Americans were still trigger-happy that's one thing, but it draws the Italian credibility into pretty severe question.
posted by thedevildancedlightly at 3:28 PM on May 1, 2005

We don't have facts--we have he said, she said.

Exactly. So why do you keep operating like there are some additional facts that add up to anything? There are not.

With in hours after the event before there was enough of the "He said/She said" to amount to the even slightest circumstantial speculation, let alone investigated facts, yet some of you were screaming it was a "Hit!".

Even then you must see it was a foregone conclusion what was going to happen. So why the hysteria? Think about it. Those soldiers were never going to be prosecuted if you were RIGHT and it WAS a "hit" or larger conspiracy.

And if it was an accident in an active combat zone like they said - they were not going to be punished either.

So shut the fuck up already. What do you want to happen? Seriously?

Italy will pulling their troops out early and a bunch of asshole terrorists got millions in ransom money they can now use to blow more innocent people up. Hey. Maybe they will kill more US troops, too. Will THAT make you happy? I would be satisfied if they gave the guys a DO discharge and made public apologies. But I don't think anybody should be doing jail time. Well. Except for Bush. But that is separate matter.

Everybody is as happy as they are gonna get with this shit. There is NO justice to be had until the US leaves.

People, if it was such a Top-Down sinister deliberate action the US would not have left anyone ALIVE for this to become the political hot potato it has become. Nor would they have rendered medical assistance after the fact. There would not even BE bodies. they would have torched that fucking car and everybody inside.

AND why, oh why, would they conspire to hit these people? It makes no sense. So our only ally, Berlesconi would be tossed out of office? Like Bush has a hate boner for Berlesconi and secretly WANTS his communist opposition to get control of Italy? criticizing. I mean bush is pretty dumb... but come ON!
Or. So we could fuel yet MORE political opposition to this war right when Bush has been sniffing around the globe begging like a pathetic little bitch for everybody to help out the poor ol' US?

Use Occams Razor for Christ sake.

Look. You are fleeing guys who have been blowing up women and children, who often saw off people's heads, and have held you at gun point under threat of imminent death for weeks on end. You think the car that is rescuing you is going fast ENOUGH?

And any of you ever driven in Italy? I have. God damn. Those people Sunday drive like they just robbed a bank. It's like your an extra in a frigg'n Road Warrior movie.
posted by tkchrist at 4:21 PM on May 1, 2005

CBS news has reported that a U.S. satellite had filmed the shooting and that it had been established the car carrying Calipari was traveling at more than 60 mph as it approached the U.S. checkpoint in Baghdad.

Who was the source of the report?

So much for the "we were driving slowly" bit. If they want to claim that the Americans were still trigger-happy that's one thing, but it draws the Italian credibility into pretty severe question.

It seems to me there was something of a minor scandal not too long ago concerning the New York Time's admission that, a couple years before, some of its reporters and editors had printed what amounted to Government press releases to stir up support for the forthcoming invasion of Iraq, including "evidence" supplied by that since-admitted liar Chalabi. So if you take this CBS "report" at face value you might as well believe in the Easter bunny, and if you cling to it name your invisible bunny "Harvey".

As to whether they meant to kill any of the Italians in the car specifically, wasn't there a post (and long thread) here not long ago about U.S. forces' being trigger-happy? Why presume that they had any idea who they were shooting at (or even really why)? Whether it would have made much difference had they known who was in the car is also doubtful, given their built-in defense of "we always shoot people at check-points whenever we feel like it". I answer "Stupidity or malice?" with "Flip a bloody coin."

"Right on" to what rougy said. And tkchrist, a few deep breaths?
posted by davy at 4:28 PM on May 1, 2005

tkchrist People, if it was such a Top-Down sinister deliberate action the US would not have left anyone ALIVE

If I was a koeselitz-style writer, I'd counter that someone high up (not necessarily GW/Cheney high, maybe CIA or whater high, but then if I was k-style, I'd say that GW personally called up the guys guarding the checkpoint... but I digress) knew about the ransom and extradition and wanted the hostage and the rescuer to have an "accident" to deter future ransom payments. So, the word gets sent down to the grunts - whatever comes this way between time x to time y, kill.

Well, the grunts tried but because of their training as soon as the threat was minimized (driver killed), they stopped - and *luckily* the ex-hostage survived.
posted by PurplePorpoise at 8:00 PM on May 1, 2005

My question is how could/why would the driver be in such a hurry as to imperil himself and his passengers by speeding around a curve? It doesn't make sense.

Indeed. Either the American witnesses are exaggerating (I'm sure this is what the majority here think) or the Italians are hiding something (perhaps a sense of danger related to the Sgrena recovery). I don't buy that an Italian intelligence officer with years of Baghdad experience -- much of it would have been on this very road -- was a bad driver. Either way, it's weird; the Italians were either stupid, reckless, or both, even given the necessity for fast driving in an insurgent area. He plowed into a checkpoint on a dark, rainy night much as people often plow into construction zones -- but he was a professional. Why it happened the way it did is a mystery I would deeply hope the Italian report points toward.

1. why was the satellite aimed at the checkpoint ?
2. was any other satellite pointed at the scene ?

You don't "point" a satellite moving 16,000 mph. I would be unsurprised to learn that multiple KH-series satellites are routed over Baghdad every single day. Even a single satellite, assuming a 90 minute orbit (probably less due to altitude), means 16 passes daily. Digital imaging probably means a frame-to-frame delay of film quality, e.g. 24fps, is possible when viewing sensitive areas. That's more than adequate to capture multiple images of the same vehicle and estimate speed.

nicwolff: Ah, yes.

Any optics nerds care to speculate how big a space telescope would have to be in order to see such detail, but also have a wide angle?

KH-series satellites are the approximate size of the Hubble Space Telescope, i.e. a city bus. The shuttle was designed to lift them into orbit, and Hubble was designed to fit into the same payload bay. Hubble optics and controls are, to some extent, classified due to the similarities.

Why did Sgrena tell the BBC and Naomi Klein that there was no signal from the US forces... but tell the Guardian that they "shone a flashlight at the car and then they fired 300-400 bullets as if from an armoured vehicle." ...and that the fire was from a tank. (300-400 rounds from a tank? Right.)

An armored humvee with a gun station is not a tank, and you'd think an experienced journalist in a war zone would know the difference. (Note: I agree with you, either she isn't remembering the same way, or she's tailoring her message for different audiences.)

mmm, if I am correct tanks do not just have the one main gun you are thinking about, but may have smaller arms as well, in which case this does not seem an unreasonable claim. Perhaps?
&
Not that her vehicle took fire from an automatic 25mm antiarmor cannon, but if she took fire from a tank-mounted machine gun, then she indeed took fire from a tank.

The report states that it was a single HMMWV with an M-240 gun firing 7.62mm shells. That isn't a main gun; it's not even a typical 50mm defensive cannon. The shell inventory in the report mentions no other weapons. 300-400 rounds is equivalent to 20-30 seconds of fire from one M-240 weapon (that's a looooong time if you're the only one shooting). It's not clear what the significance of the discrepancy is; certainly the condition of the vehicle should be sufficient to show the extent of fire. Count holes.

There was a second HMMWV present, but its gun was unmanned (the gunner was assigned to laser pointer duty). There were no tanks, and certainly no four-inch guns. (A 50mm is two inches.)
posted by dhartung at 9:35 PM on May 1, 2005

The notion that it was a "tank" came from Sgrena herself. Eg, from the Klein interview and other news pieces, such as this. Maybe a translation problem?
posted by shoos at 10:03 PM on May 1, 2005

dhartung: since the Earth is turning under the satellite's orbit, we don't get 16 flights over Baghdad for each Keyhole satellite, just two each day, once going north and once going south, as the orbit spirals around the planet.

In fact, because they're not really in polar orbits but rather in slightly off-center near-polar "Sun-synchronous" orbits designed to precess around the Earth once a year, they pass over each part of the planet at the same two times each day which is pretty neat.

(Sorry for the digression, hope it was of some interest!)
posted by nicwolff at 10:44 PM on May 1, 2005

I don't buy that an Italian [...years...experience...bagdad...] was a bad driver

Never been to Rome right?
posted by sebas at 3:44 AM on May 2, 2005

As far as I know almost all european drivers are Andretti when compared to the average american one...an italian female friend of mine in california says so :D !

She has got less then nice description of them ....something alike "morons" or "my granny is speedy gonzales" and that's a loooot said from one girl who drives a natural gas car.

Regardless, It's not like going at 60mph doesn't allow one to see a checkpoint ..speed becomes an issue if the checkpoint isn't well marked ..I personally would make a checkpoint so bright that Las Vegas would pale in comparison, announcing a lot of trouble to any unwanted visitor.


As for the flashlight ...well a terrorist could be using the flashlight and the laser pointer as well...in other words what the fuck is in the brain of those who organize the checkpoints ..are they so uncospicuous two expert agents can't see them ? If so, why ?
posted by elpapacito at 4:15 AM on May 2, 2005

"He then returned to the blocking vehicle and relieved Specialist Lozano in the turret to allow him to collect himself."

Specialist Lozano-- coming to a state mental hospital or homeless shelter by 2015.
posted by Cassford at 6:11 PM on May 2, 2005

It's a really simple explanation and the report is clear on this. Andrea Carpani, who was on the cellphone while driving, admitted he panicked when he heard the shots. He heard the shots. And he saw the spotlight in his face. He panicked and kept speeding.

No conspiracy beat stupidity.
posted by timyang at 9:44 AM on May 5, 2005