Italy Chides U.S. Soldiers

Italian investigators have concluded that stress, inexperience and fatigue among U.S. soldiers played a role in the shooting death of an Italian agent in Baghdad, according to a report released Monday.

The probe found no evidence that the March 4 killing of intelligence agent Nicola Calipari was deliberate.

Calipari was killed just after he secured the release of Italian journalist Giuliana Sgrena from Iraqi militants who held her hostage for a month. U.S. soldiers fired on the Italians' vehicle as it approached the checkpoint near Baghdad's airport. Sgrena and another Italian agent were wounded.

U.S. investigators, in their report made public Saturday, said the American soldiers gave adequate warning, beaming a light and firing warning shots, as the car traveled on the road toward Baghdad airport. They cleared the U.S. soldiers of any wrongdoing, sparking outrage in Italy, where Calipari had been hailed as a hero.

The two Italian experts who participated in a joint U.S.-Italian probe of the shooting and the government refused to sign off on the American conclusions.

The Italian report said no measures were taken by U.S. officials to preserve the scene of the shooting. It said the car carrying Sgrena and the agents was removed before its position was marked, for example. The soldiers' vehicles also were moved.

"That made it impossible to technically reconstruct the event, to determine the exact position of the vehicles and measure the distances, and to obtain precise data defining the precise trajectory of the bullets, the speed of the car and the stopping distance," the report said.

Italy and the United States have publicly differed over crucial points about the incident since the first hours after the shooting.

When several days of negotiations failed to yield a common report, both sides went their own way.

The report by the Italians was expected to contend that U.S. forces were informed of the operation by the Italian secret agent several hours before the shooting. Italy will also underscore that 25 minutes before the agent was killed, the United States was informed that he had managed to secure the release of Italian hostage Giuliana Sgrena, reports CBS News Correspondent Sabina Castelfranco.

"I think the Italian government is doing the right thing maintaining its position and giving its version of the events," former Foreign Minister Gianni De Michelis told Italian state radio.

Italy is a main partner in the U.S.-led coalition in Iraq. The approximately 3,000 Italian soldiers sent to Iraq for reconstruction constitute one of the coalition's largest contingents.

But Premier Silvio Berlusconi, a staunch American ally, has faced political fallout over the case, including calls to bring home Italy's troops from Iraq.

Berlusconi is scheduled to address both houses of parliament on the case Thursday.

The U.S. report contained many blacked-out portions, including the names of the soldiers at the checkpoint and their units. But due to an apparent error, what was blacked out in the report could be read on the Web site of the Italian newspaper La Repubblica.

Some of the material that had been blacked out also discussed training for checkpoint duty and checkpoint procedures.

The U.S. military said it regretted the mistake.

"We need to improve our procedures. We regret this happened. We obviously didn't take sufficient precautions," said U.S. Air Force Col. Donald Alston, a spokesman for U.S.-led forces in Baghdad. He added that some of the leaked information appeared classified.