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I would like to know more about Berg's first trip to Iraq.

Who funded that trip. Who was paying his bills while there.

Who paid him to climb communication towers?

How did he know that the prison was a source for 'work' for him?

According to John Loftus, Berg had earned $70,000 in the last month in Iraq. I also read that he was carrying Iranian and Jordanian money, as well Iraqi.

I am sorry Old Friend, you are way too inquisitive. Can't we just move back to this prisoner orgy problem that Rumsfeld has created?

You know there is this lawyer guy by the name of Mayfield in Oregon. The media said that his finger prints are on a bag that was conected to the Madrid bombing. The stupid media never say that the SOB has converted to Islam in 1989, and that he is married to a Moslem woman. They rather don't connect his story straight to Islam, because that would be generalization. F-ing idiots.

The same thing with this Berg dude; when are we going to get the story straight from the increasingly politically correct media? Why is it that a jew is carring a koran, and anti-Jewish book, and growing a Moslem looking beard?

----- Original Message -----
From: "Mark H" <mark@y...>
To: <broadcast@b...>
Sent: Wednesday, May 12, 2004 11:35 AM
Subject: [BC] [BC]Remembering Nick (was Why was Nick in Iraq?)

> The tragic news about Nick Berg's murder hit very close to home, as I
> had known him for about two years and we hired him for several recent
> projects -- in fact, he installed an auxiliary antenna for WPLY in
> February, just before heading back to Iraq. Perhaps I can shed some
> light on this situation.
>
> First, let me say that Nick impressed me as a very bright, resourceful
> and dedicated individual who cared a great deal about improving our
> quality of life by applying his skills and knowledge. Nick not only
> possessed the necessary physical ability and stamina to do the job, but
> had also studied engineering at Drexel, Penn, and Cornell, so I felt
> very comfortable letting him handle our work. I knew that he wanted to
> grow his own business, and I felt obligated to give him that
> opportunity.
>
> He had all sorts of ideas to bring technology to less-developed
> parts of the world, including a concrete tower which could be
> fabricated in remote parts of the world using locally-
> available materials, thus avoiding the problems of shipping steel in
> the absence of a good transportation network.
>
> In fact, at last year's PAB Engineering Conference in Hershey, he and
> his father (who served as business manager of the company) displayed a
> prototype modular structure called "Bovl Blocks", made of interlocking
> concrete blocks that could be cast on site, then stacked to the desired
> height. He thought this product would be particularly useful in the
> African interior, where cellular networks are just beginning to be
> built out.
>
> Why did he go to Iraq?
>
> He was aware that some towers were damaged last year during bombing
> missions, and many more had been looted... copper lines removed,
> diagonal members taken out, etc. Few obstruction lighting systems were
> functional -- he mentioned an 800 foot tower two miles from an airport
> (used by our military) that was totally dark. So he first went over in
> December to see if he could help to assist in the reconstruction,
> restore Iraq's broadcast services, and repair the serious structural
> damage that endangered the lives of their citizens.
>
> I received the following email message from Nick in early January:
>
> >About Iraq-
>
> >I am taking photos - where allowed. It's actually pretty sad - I just
> >got off one of two 320 meter monster towers in Abu Gharib (also home
> >to the main political prison) which use to support most of Baghdad
> >area's VHF and UHF.
> >Both have been badly looted, including 4000 feet or more of flexible 6-
> >1/8" heliax, two full 12X4 panel TV antennas, and even some structural
> >members. I was also in the North as I mentioned, but here there
> >wasn't as much damage. I'll definitely share some of these pix with
> >you and others next time I'm in the area - I'd love to put together a
> >little presentation for SBE or PAB in about six monthes after I've
> >been on every site and fixed some of them.
>
> He returned to Philadelphia in late January to catch up on some
> domestic business -- then in early February, tackled an antenna
> replacement job at our aux site, which he had quoted last summer.
>
> This proved to be more complicated than either of us had first assumed
> (a three-bay DA with two vertical and four horizontal parasites per
> bay) but he honored his original quote. The work took place in sub-
> zero windchills... my feet were getting plenty cold just standing out
> in the cornfield as we aligned the azimuth, it must have been brutal up
> on the tower, but he took it in stride. (I'm sending Barry some
> pictures of Nick on this job to post on the "Oldradio" site.)
>
> After Nick completed assembly and we purged the system, I ran the
> pressure up to 5 PSI and closed the valve on the nitrogen tank. I came
> out at 4:30 AM the next morning to run some power into the new antenna,
> and as the transmitter ramped up to full output, I saw *zero*
> reflected. (I tapped the meter to make sure it wasn't stuck!)
>
> We had a perfect installation, no split or missing bullets, etc. And I
> haven't seen *any* pressure loss since then (actually, the gage reads
> between 7 and 8 now, due to the warmer weather.)
>
> I knew that Nick was planning to return to Irag in March, but hadn't
> heard any word from him over the past two months, which had me
> concerned. Then I received the message from his parents (which Stu
> Engelke posted here last week) and my heart sunk. I was at lunch
> yesterday when the news broke about his brutal murder, and I was
> devastated.
>
> If you've been following all sides of this story, you may have read
> that his parents did not receive much cooperation from OUR Federal
> Government when trying to learn his whereabouts, which is very
> disturbing. He had reportedly booked a March 30 flight back to New
> York, but missed it because he had been detained by our military.
> Today's "spin" on the story is that they told him to get out, but I'm
> not buying that.
>
> Let's keep his family in our thoughts and prayers. Our industry (and
> humanity) has lost a very fine person.
>
> Mark

-------------------

I found this email reposted on Tower Pro, a yahoo group for discussion of communication towers and related work. Several members knew him and worked with him in the past in the tower-communications field, and have posted about it. In Berg's January emails, he claimed to have been awarded a subcontractor deal by Harris Corp-Florida. There don't seem to be any further details as to why he was back again in March looking for work if he'd already been awarded a subcontracting job in January. His comments indicated he was familiar with how the bureaucracy in Iraq worked. I can't find any information showing that Harris Corporation has been asked about why the work never materialized.