Italians obstructing investigation

So what indeed! The NY Times is reporting that Iraqi efforts at hunting down the kidnappers of Italian journalist Giuliana Sgrena have been hampered by...the Italian intelligence service!

Iraqi investigators who are trying to find the kidnappers of the Italian journalist Giuliana Sgrena say their work has been stymied by a lack of cooperation from the Italian intelligence services that won her release exactly a month after she was abducted on Feb. 4.

Information from the Italians, Colonel Jabbar asserted, could have made the difference in cracking the case and bringing the kidnappers to justice. Instead, he said, his investigators saw the lines of communication shut down once the Italians began negotiating with the kidnappers.

I would presume that there'd need to be more reporting on this, but I'm struck at how this under-scores yet again the counter-productive nature of what the Italians did in paying for Sgrena's release.

And on a side-note, increased security surrounding the visit of John Negroponte still has nothing to do with this story...