Nick Berg: 'Iraqi police thought I was an Israeli spy'
The Daily Telegraph reports Nick Berg, the US civilian decapitated on video by Islamic militants in Iraq, told friends in Baghdad that he had been arrested and detained in Mosul because Iraqi police thought he was an Israeli spy. The Telegraph also reports that Mr. Berg told friends that a few hours after he was arrested by Iraqi police, he was transferred to a US military facility, where he was in a cell with Syrian and Iranian fighters. Both the Telegraph and CNN quote Hugo Infante, a Chilean photographer, who saw Berg on April 6, shortly after he had returned to Baghdad after being released from detention.
"Nick told me, 'Iraqi police caught me one night, they saw my passport and my Jewish last name and my Israeli stamp. This guy thought I was a spy so they put me with American soldiers and American soldiers put me in a jail for two weeks.' ... He wasn't mad. It was just an adventure for him. He said, 'This s**t happens. It was bad luck'."
The Chicago Tribune reports that Berg's friends also said he had traveled to the area lugging electronic equipment, hoping to find "lucrative work on telecommunications systems." The electronic equipment may have added to the impression that he was conducting "suspicious activities," as Dan Senor, spokesman for the Coalition Provisional Authority, described them Wednesday.
The Houston Chronicle reports that Berg's murder has the potential to provide US President George Bush with "a little breathing room," as his administration reels from the continuing fallout from the Abu Ghraib prison scandal. But the White House's bid to turn attention away from the photos and videos showing US troops abusing Iraqi prisoners has been complicated by the reaction of Berg's family to his death and the role they believed the US played in it.
The White House seems to be locked into a very public clash with the family and friends of Berg over the details surrounding his detention in Mosul in the weeks leading up to his abduction and death. The Washington Post reported Wednesday that US officials in Washington said that Berg had been visited by the FBI three times during his detention, but that he was never held by US forces. The officials say he was held by Iraqi police, contrary to what his family has been saying.
Berg's family angrily denied the claims.
"The Iraqi police do not tell the FBI what to do, the FBI tells the Iraqi police what to do. Who do they think they’re kidding?" Berg’s father, Michael, told The Associated Press from his home in West Chester, Pa., a Philadelphia suburb.
Military officials acknowleged that the US is the ultimate authority in Iraq, including over the Iraqi police. But Bloomberg News reports Thursday that Iraqi police are now denying US assertions that they detained Berg. "The Iraqi police never arrested the slain American," Mosul's police chief, Major General Mohammed Khair al-Barhawi said. "Such reports are baseless."
FBI officials also say that after his detention, the State Department offered Berg a plane flight from Baghdad to Jordan, but he declined it. His father said his son e-mailed him that he didn't want to travel to the airport because he believed it was too dangerous. American soldiers refer to the airport highway as "RPG Alley" because of frequent attacks by insurgents firing rocket-propelled grenades. Berg's family says he had arranged to leave Iraq on March 30, but his 13-day detention prevented him from doing so.
Delaware Online reports that US Rep. Jim Gerlach (R) of Pennsylvania, whose office had been working with the Berg family to get their son released from detention, said he had trouble getting information from US officials after Berg was arrested. The State Department told Gerlach's office that Berg needed to sign a release waiving his privacy rights before they could provide any information, Gerlach said. "That privacy release was not signed, so we could not find out a lot," he said.
"At this point I need to know more facts," Gerlach said. "If the US had any control or authority, Nick should have been accorded all civil rights that any American citizen should have," he said. "Why was he not given permission to make phone calls? To have counsel? Why was he detained for 13 days?" Gerlach asked.
Several other interesting twists have also arisen in this story. Nick Berg and his father, Michael, had strongly differing opinions about the war (a posting on a right-wing website had labeled Michael Berg as an "enemy" of the US because he signed a petition supporting the "Global Day of Action" held on March 20 to protest war in Iraq). Also, Berg's deceased aunt had been married to an Iraqi. The Associated Press reports that Berg had visited Mosul on an earlier occasion to see his aunt's husband's family.
Meanwhile, the man who was given credit for Berg's death on the videotape of his execution, Jordanian terrorist Abu Musab Zarqawi, has become so dangerous he may eclipse Osama bin Laden as the person posing the greatest danger to the US and its allies. The New York Post reports that Mr. Zarqawi has decided to use Iraq as the "theater" for his war against the West.
"He is clearly the most active terrorist in the world right now, and what you are seeing is a rise in his stature as well as a rise in his ego," said Jonathan Schanzer, a terrorism analyst for the Washington Institute for Near East Policy. "Bin Laden and Zawahiri are hiding out in caves in Waziristan [northwestern Pakistan], so he is going for spectacular operations to seize the spotlight. This is a man who is committed to the utopian vision of the demise of the West and the rise of a radical Islamic world, and he sees Iraq as the main theater of operations to accomplish that goal."
But Zarqawi's rise to the top didn't have to happen, according to a report aired by NBC news in early March. During a seven month period leading up to the invasion of Iraq, the US had at least three very good chances to kill Zarqawi while he was at a terrorist camp in northern Iraq. Although the Pentagon favored the attacks, the White House decided against going after Zarqawi for fear it would undercut its case for the war. Zarqawi's presence in Iraq was the only evidence of any kind that the Bush administration had to prove its claim that Al Qaeda and Iraq were working together.
"People were more obsessed with developing the coalition to overthrow Saddam than to execute the president's policy of preemption against terrorists," according to terrorism expert and former National Security Council member Roger Cressey.
The US finally did attack the northern Iraq camps at the start of the war, but by then Zarqawi and his supporters had left, according to the NBC report.
Finally, Farhad Manjoo writes in Salon how the advent and accessibility of modern technology, such as digital cameras, e-mail, and the Web, which is "in the hands of our soldiers and our enemies" mean it is increasingly impossible for us to avoid the "gruesome realities" of war, whether they happen in Abu Ghraib prison, or in an Al Qaeda hideout somewhere in Iraq.
I have a chipping hammer and am looking to construct a 25 story building by myself in Mogadishu.
Could have fooled me. According to the press, there was no connection what-so-ever. This is an interesting development of rewritten history.
i've done some searching and i have been unable to find an answer or gdoa connection. there is a mike berg involved in "not in our name," but he's in south carolina. does anyone have any link that confirms such a connection?
Most people would say, get me the hell out of here on the next plane, taxi, or donkey cart. Okay, maybe that's just because I'm chicken hearted and avoid trouble.