Berlusconi: blaming US troops can't be ruled out

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ROME (AP) - Premier Silvio Berlusconi said Thursday that he disagreed with some of the U.S. military's conclusions into the March shooting death of an Italian agent in Baghdad, but he said those differences won't affect Italy's deployment of troops in Iraq or its friendship with Washington.

Berlusconi told legislators that it couldn't be ruled out that U.S. troops who fired on the agent's car from a checkpoint were to blame even if they fired mistakenly.

"Indeed, the lack of deliberate action doesn't rule out blame attributable to negligence, imprudence or even simple incompetence," Berlusconi told legislators in the Chamber of Deputies three days after Italy issued its own report concluding that soldiers' inexperience, stress and fatigue played a role in the fatal shooting.

He also complained, as Italian investigators have, that the scene of the shooting wasn't left untouched, although Berlusconi added that "the impartiality and good faith of the U.S. investigators cannot be questioned."

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Despite the death and the disagreement over the circumstances of the shooting, Berlusconi said Italian troop deployment would continue.

"We have no intention of establishing any connection between the assessment of the case in which our official lost his life and the role of our country in Iraq," the premier said. "We must insist in our commitment and assist the forces of a free and democratic new Iraq."

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Rome prosecutors are conducting their own investigation into the case.

But a leading Italian military prosecutor, Antonio Intelisano, told The Associated Press on Wednesday that it was unlikely U.S. soldiers would be prosecuted in Italy given legal restrictions and American protection of its troops in the past.

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