The Italian reporter wounded when American troops opened fire on the car carrying her and Italian secret service officers to the Baghdad airport just hours after her release from kidnappers rejected today the United States' version of the incident and refused to rule out that she was intentionally targeted.
"The incident could have very serious political consequences," Italy's La Stampa daily said in a front page editorial, adding that relations between the two governments had "suffered an immediate deterioration."

Members of Italy's center-left coalition said that if what they considered Mr. Berlusconi's deference to the United States continued following Friday's shooting, he risked losing popular support in Italy, which was overwhelmingly against the war in Iraq.

To be continued, I guess..

Journalism is becoming more and more dangerous. When do boradcasters draw the line and take their correspondants out of war zones? how many more need to go missing or be murdered for TV compnaies to take notice that maybe live reports are not worth life or death siutations?

I know that journalists are our eyes and ears in situations on the other side of the world, which makes it an important profession, but there are plenty of local journalists who would be glad of the work and not be target like foreign ones are.

Scary to think how much must go on behind closed doors, I think this is just the tip of the iceberg.