The Washington Times has a report on an internal Pentagon memo that says Italy failed to coordinate their rescue of Giuliana Sgrena with US troops, and backs up the initial account that the Italian vehicle was speeding and ignored signals: Italy didn’t plan safe escape for hostage. (Hat tip: Nancy.)

Maj. Gen. William G. Webster Jr., who heads the Army’s 3rd Infantry Division, yesterday completed the “commander’s preliminary inquiry.” He has decided to conduct a more extensive inquiry, called a 15-6 for the regulation that authorizes it. Gen. Webster will name one officer to head the probe.

A U.S. official said that of all the cars that passed through the checkpoint that night, the reporter’s vehicle was the only one fired upon. “Something that car did caused the soldiers to fire,” said the official, who asked not to be named.

The shooting occurred at night at a checkpoint on a notoriously dangerous road that links Baghdad to the international airport.

Here’s another detail previously unreported:

The left-leaning Italian newspaper La Repubblica reported yesterday that Mr. Calipari decided not to use available escort protection from the elite commandos who protect Italy’s Baghdad embassy.

Instead, he rented an inconspicuous pickup truck to recover Miss Sgrena, wrote La Repubblica’s top investigative reporter, Giuseppe D’Avanzo.

“In Iraq, the United States makes the rules and the Italian ally also must respect them. If it wants to break them, it must do so with a double game and some crafty tricks,” Mr. D’Avanzo wrote.

And they have apparently located the vehicle:

Italian magistrates have opened an inquiry into the killing and are arranging for the truck to be flown to Italy for examination by ballistic experts, judicial sources said. The magistrates also have obtained from the U.S. military the cellular phone that Mr. Calipari was carrying when he was shot.