ALESSANDRO TARANTINO/AP DEVASTATING: Despite the deaths Berlosconi vowed his troops would stay
Italy Takes A Direct Hit
	With a deathtoll of 19 in Iraq, Italy faces its worst military losses since WW II
	By JEFF ISRAELY / ROME

Posted Sunday, November 16, 2003; 13.45GMT

Reporters and television crews traveled the length and breadth of Italy — from small hilltop towns in Sicily to working-class neighborhoods in Rome and Turin — to tell every heart-wrenching tale. The husband's last phone call, telling his wife and daughter that he was packing up and getting ready to come home; the father who had found comfort after the death of his own son by working with children in war zones; the brother who joined the army because his hometown offered no solid job prospects. They were among the 19 Italians who died in Iraq last week when suicide bombers drove an explosives-laden tanker into the carabinieri paramilitary police base in the southern city of Nasiriyah — Italy's first casualties in Iraq and its worst military losses since World War II. The stories of grief virtually overwhelmed the country — a clearly emotional Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi told Parliament hours after the attack that Italy would not succumb to "intimidation," while the following day the carabinieri's commander, General Guido Bellini, fought off tears during a meeting with reporters. After decades in which they'd known only occasional and usually accidental deaths among members of their armed services, some Italians questioned why their soldiers were in harm's way at all.

Italy has some 2,800 troops in Iraq. Around 400 of them are carabinieri, who have earned a first-class reputation around the world for their "soft" approach to peacekeeping, and had reportedly enjoyed good relations with local leaders and ordinary citizens in Nasiriyah. They'd had a hand in returning water and electricity services to the town, and many of the soldiers carried Italian chocolates to pass out to the city's children. The suicide attack ended all that. Twelve carabinieri, five Army soldiers, two Italian civilians and 13 Iraqis died in the blast, the deadliest attack on foreign troops in southern Iraq since the war ended. But Italy's sense of security also took a big hit. The government's staunch support for American actions in Iraq, however, did not falter. The attack's high level of sophistication resembled other recent strikes in and around Baghdad, but a Coalition Provisional Authority official says that "it's way too premature" to conclude that southern Iraq is descending into the near daily violence prevalent up north.

But on Italy's home front, a lot has already changed. The first effect was a genuine, and rare, expression of national unity. Nearly 70% of respondents in a flash poll the day after the attack said Italy should continue its "humanitarian mission" in Iraq. Much of the goodwill went out to the carabinieri forces, who divide their time between peacekeeping missions abroad and regular police work at home. Italy's "112" carabinieri hotline number was flooded with calls of condolence, and carabinieri stations around the country were piled high with flowers. Mauro Falzetti, a 53-year-old lawyer, spent much of his lunch hour on Friday in front of the force's headquarters in Rome's leafy Parioli neighborhood, leaning on his motor scooter to watch people drop off flowers and make the sign of the cross. "Italy is always arguing about petty little things," he said. "It takes something like this to see the best side of our nation, to discover that the flag exists even when there's no soccer match."

Still, the political debate is bound to heat up. Despite up to 85% public opposition to last spring's military intervention, Berlusconi has been an unwavering defender of American policy in Iraq, banking much of his foreign policy on his personal rapport with President Bush. Italy, which did not send troops during the war, now claims one of the biggest postwar military presences after the U.S. and U.K. Several leftist hard-liners called for an immediate withdrawal of Italian personnel from Iraq. But more moderate opposition leader Francesco Rutelli said the peacekeepers must stay on for now, though a "dramatic change" to U.S. policy is needed. "We can't continue with business as usual," he told TIME. "The multinational approach in Iraq is the only solution. Isolation only brings more problems and more isolation." The U.S., which has come to depend on Berlusconi's support in a sometimes hostile Europe, is hoping that the Prime Minister's already weakening governing coalition doesn't collapse under the weight of bloodshed in Iraq. But after this week's state funeral, the political arguing will start again. And this time, what's at stake in Italy is neither petty nor little.

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