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April 30, 2005

Sgrena's 'Lies'

Captain Ed points to a report that shows that the car carrying Italian journalist Giuliana Sgrena was not travelling at a sedate 30 MPH as she claimed but in fact was moving out at roughly 60 MPH. At that speed, it is hardly surprising that the soldiers manning the checkpoint engaged the car.

This does not necessarily mean that Sgrena lied, however. While I would bet that way were I forced to do so, these kinds of claims strike me as little more than the converse of the claims that 'Bush lied.' In each case there is now evidence to suggest that claims the speaker made were factually inaccurate. President Bush was incorrect in stating that Iraq had major WMD stockpiles, and Sgrena was incorrect in claiming that her car was moving at 30 MPH. For them to have lied, however, we would have to be able to demonstrate that they knew their statements were factually inaccurate at the time they made them. I have yet to see any evidence of this in President Bush's case, and I'm afraid that the same is true in Ms. Sgrena's case.

Sgrena had just been released by terrorists. It was dark and her focus was likely not on how fast the car was travelling. Depending on the make of the car, the condition of the road, and what she was doing at the time, it is quite conceivable she thought she was travelling faster or slower than the car was actually moving. I suspect most of us have driven cars that are so smooth we don't realize we're travelling as fast as we actually are; I know that I have. It is therefore hardly surprising to me that Sgrena might have gotten the speed of the vehicle wrong when we consider that the last thing she was probably focusing on was how fast the vehicle was moving.

Sgrena was wrong, and it's certainly plausible to speculate that her anti-American animus helped to motivate her to place the shooting in the worst possible light. That is not proof that she lied, however, any more than the fact President Bush's belief that removing Saddam Hussein from power probably helped him to accept the CIA's erroneous reports of Iraqi WMDs at face value somehow proves that he lied about them. Rather than tossing inflammatory claims around, better to address the issues at hand. The Italian vehicle was almost certainly fired up because it was approaching an American checkpoint at high speed and the soldiers manning the checkpoint reacted as they were trained to do. The soldiers have been cleared of wrongdoing in the attack, which seems to be the right decision and at least guarantees that no further harm will come out of what appears to have been a tragic accident.