UPDATE VIA CTV:

However, Canadian consular official Michelle Cameron, who was travelling in the vehicle at the time of the incident, told a different story.

Cameron told CTV News that the Canadian convoy was keeping a good distance and that no one in her vehicle saw any hand signals from the Americans to indicate they were too close.

She also said the three shots fired were not a warning. Cameron said one of the bullets went right through the windshield and narrowly missed a passenger.

None of the four passengers or the driver were injured.

CTV’s Tom Clark, reporting from Washington, said there are “two completely different versions of events — one from the Americans and one from the Canadian eyewitnesses.”

Clark said the Canadians were travelling from the British residence to the Canadian residence — “a trip they have made hundreds of times before.”

“They were all trained on how to drive in the Green Zone,” he told CTV Newsnet Wednesday.

“They (the Canadians) said that they stayed well back and were travelling slowly, and as they passed by the tail end of the (American) convoy … the tail gunner pulled the trigger, ripped off three rounds.”

I heard about the differing stories via a caller to the (Right)WingNut Lowell Green show on CFRA….. in news that should come as no one who listens to Lowell he’s backing the American verision of the story - at times I wonder why someone who has such a bad case of America envy bothers living here.

We also find that

Canadian and U.S. officials are investigating the incident.

– and the US investigation will clear their people of any wrong-doing….. it’s just the way they do things.

I’ll let you guys and Lowell line up behind which side of the conflicting stories you choose.

>is a sign of just how shakey security really is in Iraq as well as the levels of insecurity the US military feels within the country.

That, however, is not an inference which may be drawn. The incident tells us nothing about the security situation in Iraw or how insecure US forces might feel. At best it tells us they are not complacent while travelling in areas popularly thought to be safe.

“I’ll let you guys and Lowell line up behind which side of the conflicting stories you choose.”

Both sides appear to agree that “warning shots” were fired at and struck the car, including the engine block and windshield.

“The incident tells us nothing about the security situation in Iraw or how insecure US forces might feel.”

I disagree. Rules of engagement are situational. The initial American response is that their forces acted within the parameters of the rules of engagement. If the rules of engagement within the Green Zone, the most heavily fortified and defended turf in Iraq, permit the firing of “warning shots” directly into vehicles, then I submit one can be justified in making a few disturbing assumptions about the security situation in Iraq.

Isn’t it amazing how for some Conservatives it is automatically the American version they will support instead of that from the Canadian diplomats actually there? I’m sorry, but I prefer to support my country’s version both because it is my country and the fact that the track record of American factual honesty where operations in Iraq are concerned is very poor indeed. What is really offensive though is being told that supporting one’s own countrymen and believing them instead of the American version is considered some form of anti-Americanism. Funny, I seem to remember a piece of CPC election rhetoric about how America is our neighbour, not our nation, so why then do so many Conservatives in this country automatically side with the neighbour instead of their own nation?

Very illustrative of their mentality regarding which country matters more to them, and it isn’t Canada by the looks of it.

Actually Irc the CBC reported this evening that the Canadians said that the Americans fired without warning when the Canadians started to pass the convoy that had pulled off to the side of the road.

And I disagree that American insecurity is not an inference that can be drawn - if the security situation was anywhere near stable, or they were not afraid of being attacked inside their Green Zone, why would they open fire on a vehicle passing them when they were pulled off to the side of the road?

The Canadian point of view may indeed be that the shots were fired without warning, if the occupants of the vehicle failed to detect any warning.

A stable security situation is merely one which is neither improving nor worsening; “stable” is not synonymous with “safe”.

The concensus on milblogs seems to be that the Canadians must have done something foolish - situationally unwise - to get themselves shot at. Apparently there are some widely understood informal rules about how to drive and not be shot at when US convoys are in the vicinity.