Posted on 05/12/2004 3:25:34 PM PDT by kattracks
PHILADELPHIA (AP) — The independent businessman who was beheaded in Iraq wrote colorful e-mails to family and friends at home, foreign dispatches that showed a 26-year-old with limited Arabic skills traveling solo through dangerous parts of the country.The January e-mails, in what now seem to be chilling references, also describe Nicholas Berg's work near the Abu Ghraib prison — "a notorious prison for Army and political prisoners," he wrote — and his brief detention by Iraqi police.
His killers cited the abuse of prisoners by U.S. personnel at Abu Ghraib as the reason for Berg's killing. The abuse was made public months after Berg wrote the e-mail.
Berg's body arrived in the United States on Wednesday, and a private memorial was planned Friday in suburban West Chester, said funeral director Carl Goldstein. A stream of well-wishers left dozens of flowers at the Bergs' home.
Nicholas Berg, the owner of a small communications company, first worked in Iraq in December and January.
He returned in March and was detained by Iraqi police working under U.S. authority — preventing him from safely leaving the country, his family contends.
In Baghdad on Wednesday, Dan Senor, spokesman for the U.S.-led Coalition Provisional Authority, said that to his knowledge, Berg "was at no time under the jurisdiction or detention of coalition forces." Senor would not specify why Iraqi police, who generally take direction from coalition authorities, had arrested and held him. He said the investigation was continuing.
The FBI warned Berg shortly before his disappearance that Iraq was too volatile a place for unprotected American civilians but he turned down a State Department offer to fly him home, U.S. officials said Wednesday.
He went missing on April 9. His body was discovered in Baghdad on Saturday and an Islamic Web site on Tuesday broadcast the killing.
In his e-mails, Berg wrote of traveling to Diwaniya, about 110 miles south of Baghdad, to locate a radio tower to work on. Night had fallen, and while trying to negotiate with taxi drivers for a ride to Baghdad, Iraqi police stopped him.
"It seems they had reports about unknown Iranian people infiltrating their town, and at night they can't see much of my face," Berg wrote on Jan. 18. "The police collect me and take me off to the Lieutenant who is more worried for my safety than about me being an Iranian spy."
After explaining his story, he was allowed to leave.
The e-mails were shared with The Associated Press by David Skalish, a friend and colleague of Berg's who is an engineer for a Philadelphia radio station.
"Would that (the detention) have been a warning? Sure, I think so," Skalish said Wednesday. "But he was on a journey. In his mind it was a journey of a lifetime. He had a different comfort zone for the region."
In a Jan. 4 dispatch, Berg talks about working near Abu Ghraib.
"Then I'm back to Baghdad to hire our local business manager and hopefully get on two 1000' towers outside of Baghdad at Abu Ghreb (the site of a notorious prison for Army and political prisoners)," he wrote.
Berg's father, Michael, who opposes the war in Iraq, said top U.S. officials created an environment of limited civil rights that led to the abuses at Abu Ghraib.
"Nick died for the sins of the Bush administration," Michael Berg said Wednesday in an interview with the AP.
Skalish said it was "uncanny" Berg would have been near the prison in January. "I read this a while back and you think, oh a prison ... but now, oh my word," he said.
In a likely nod to the dangers of solo travel for an American, Berg wrote that he found it handy to be confused as a Turk.
Other dispatches from Berg talk of a "wicked sand storm," encountering few people who could understand his elementary Arabic, and of the beautiful countryside.
Berg also surmises that the U.S.-enforced no-fly zones in Iraq from the 1990s led to hundreds of radio towers not having warning lights.
"Just last week a Coalition helicopter ran into a short utility tower in the North near Mosul, knocking out one of the main 400 kV lines," he wrote.
Berg also mentions meeting a brother of an uncle by marriage. Michael Berg said that his sister, who is now deceased, married an Iraqi man who lives near Baghdad.
At times, Berg's dispatches turned technical, writing he put under this banner: "WARNING TO CASUAL READERS, TECHNICAL STUFF AHEAD."
Berg's body had been scheduled to land at Dover Air Force Base in Delaware on Wednesday, and officials gave conflicting accounts of whether the family had received permission to view the arrival.
Base spokesman Lt. Col. Jon Anderson said there was no outright prohibition on families' being present, but the office of Sen. Arlen Specter, R-Pa., said the Pentagon denied the family's request to witness the arrival.
Excerpts from Nicholas Berg's e-mails
(AP) — Excerpts from e-mails sent by communications tower specialist Nicholas E. Berg to friends and colleagues back home during a January trip to Iraq. The e-mails were shared with The Associated Press by David Skalish, a friend and colleague of Berg's.
SUNDAY, Jan. 4, 12:44 p.m.
I am well here in Iraq — for the last two days I have been in and around Mosul (Northern Iraq, on the outskirts of Kurdistan) which is a welcome break from the smog and crowds of Baghdad. Of course Mosul, Iraq's second largest city, is crowded and smoggy too, but at least we're only 20 kilometers from some bona fide hills and open space. ...
Tomorrow (Monday) I'll inspect a site in Sinjar (west of Mosul, towards the Syrian frontier and as close as I'll ever come to Syria). Then I'm back to Baghdad to hire our local business manager and hopefully get on two 1000' towers outside of Baghdad at Abu Ghreb (the site of a notorious prison for Army and political prisoners). So I am reasonably confident we can score some work out of this. It's treacherous, though — there are so many parties involved in this work and they all subcontract to people and none of them are specialists like us. ...
Mosul is very calm — except for the Army convoys and checkpoints, you can't really tell there is an occupation. Baghdad every night you here IEDs and such, but here I've yet to here or see anything except a few aged craters. Still, there is obviously quite a difference to someone who lives here and will face the same people and situations day in and day out. ...
Another thing that's tough for me is the language — in Bantu languages the accents are easier to pick up and there are more vowels. Arab is a very intricate language with very fine accents and tons of consonants. So as much as I know the right words and can understand some of them being spoken, I can't say them worth a damn to the fellow who doesn't understand English (about 95% of the people I meet).
SUNDAY, Jan. 18, 11:36 a.m.
So between the 11th January and the time of writing, I have been on six major sites, inspecting towers and cataloging the extent of looting/sabotage damage. Most of the destruction was intentional looting or even sabotage on the numerous (at one time twenty-six) tall towers in Iraq. There are twenty-two left, and at least ten have some major problems. The worst site I have been on was the Abu Gharib I tower, a 320 meter (1040') guyed tower in the main broadcast complex for Baghdad, near the Abu Gharib political prisons. ...
So anyhow, Thursday about 1200 I left Baghdad and enjoyed a beautiful sunny afternoon and a peaceful bus-ride to Diwaniya (about two and a half hours). I get off the bus in this little town and set out to find this site, on the outskirts of town. ....
So I finally find the site at around 1900, it's dark and I can barely make out the tower. But I found it and learned what I needed to know. I make my way back to the Garage Baghdad (which is where the service-taxis leave periodically throughout the day). By this time I had missed the last public service-taxi to Baghdad, so I started to negotiate with a throng of taxi drivers (none of whom had a car — that's kind of an afterthought to actually winning the negotiations). I've got one down to 30,000 ID (about $20 at the time) when the IP (Iraqi National Police) swings by on patrol. It seems they had reports about unknown Iranian people infiltrating their town, and at night they can't see much of my face. Anyhow, the story ends in a rather anti-climatic fashion — the police collect me and take me off to the Lieutenant who is more worried for my safety than about me being an Iranian spy.
By the time the story get's told and retranslated a few times, they've got me being picked up at the sheep market amidst a bunch of Turkish truck drivers. So I am invited to spend the night in Diwaniya (which I do) and the next morning after hours of waiting and retelling the sheep story I get on my way back to Baghdad. ...
I think our interests will be well taken care of while I'm gone. I've found a very competent and fairly reliable commercial manager here. He's actually been living in Philadelphia the last twenty years and just came back — so he's similarly a bit out of his element. Imagine coming home to a country so different form where you grew up. We're right now at an office near the sporting club where he played European Football as a kid.
Since then it's been destroyed, rebuilt, run by Oday, son of Hussein, and finally privatized. The fact alone that he and I are just now sitting in a free and open internet shop is unbelievable to most Iraqis. Even a year ago he would have been arrested upon his return.
POS. Glad you were denied viewing, Michael, you leftist moron.
The Bergs are Jewish yet an Iraqi married into the family? Curiouser and curiouser.
With questions continuing to develop about Berg's true purpose in Iraq, and especially the revelation of his association with Michael Moore, I hereby withdraw my declaration that Nick Berg is a hero, pending the revelation of some truth about the guy - which seems to be in short supply. He might just be a victim. Apologies to the millions I may have misled.
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