Nicholas Berg: The Dots Do Not Connect

ChronWatch.com ^ | 5-13-04 | Ira Simmons

[SeenTheLight]

First off, I'll get the obligatory stuff out of the way: the videotaped beheading of 26-year-old American Nicholas Berg, now believed to have been done by al-Qaida linked terrorist Abu Musab al-Zarqawi is truly horrifying and an outrage. It confirms that we must continue to fight the War On Terror using maximum force in any place necessary to ensure that these refugees from the Middle Ages are totally defeated.

Certainly Nicholas Berg is as innocent a victim of extreme Muslim atrocities as the 3,000 Americans killed on September 11, 2001, or the victims from the March 11, 2004, Madrid train bombings. But there are many questions about Berg's fateful visit to Iraq which do not square with information given by his family or the U.S. Coalition story of what exactly happened and why he was detained.

First, what has been given as Berg's college background and how he came to run a one-man communications firm seems a little strange if not outright preposterous. It was reported that Nick Berg attended four different colleges: the last was the University of Oklahoma where it is claimed he learned to install radio towers. But Berg never received a college diploma. Media reports said his one-man company was called Prometheus Methods Tower Service Inc. Reality check: it is virtually impossible to obtain such technical work as installing radio towers without a Professional Engineering license, let alone not having a college degree!

The first reports of his life story said that Berg supported President Bush in the War on Terror and helped install communications equipment at the 2000 Republican convention in Philadelphia. But his father, Michael Berg, is a member of the off-the-charts anti-war group International ANSWER (''Act Now, Stop the War, and End Racism.'') While children occasionally do not share the politics of their parents (I didn't), you have to wonder if telling the media that his kid was a Republican was something of a ruse to direct attention from Michael Berg's (and his son's) true politics.

Then there are the two 2004 trips to Iraq. While most contractors travel directly to Baghdad, Nicholas Berg instead landed in Jordan and found his way by land into Iraq. If indeed Berg was a one-man contractor installing radio towers, it would seem difficult to get any work in Iraq without (a) initially consummating commitments while still in the United States, and (b) having a link to a larger construction company such as Bechtel or (dirty word alert) Halliburton! As yet no radio towers that Nicholas Berg may have built while in Iraq on either trip have been identified.

We know that Nick Berg was bouncing around Iraq until he was detained either by Iraqi police or the U.S. Military in Mosul on March 24. I'll give his dad the benefit of the doubt here: Nicholas was definitely being detained by the coalition for any of the following suspicions:

a) He was loaded with electronics equipment, supposedly for his work on radio communications towers. Possessing sophisticated electronic gear in a war zone without producing any paperwork to prove that he is building radio towers probably set off alarm bells.

b) It was likely that Berg was on an FBI ''watch'' list. FBI agents interviewed Berg a few years ago when they were investigating the September 11 terrorist attacks because, unbeknownst to him, Zacarias Moussaoui, the so-called 20th hijacker, had used his e-mail account when both were in Oklahoma. On Thursday Fox News reported that the FBI dismissed the link between Berg and Moussaoui as ''coincidental.''

c) Speaking on condition of anonymity in one media report, a U.S. official said Iraqi authorities detained Berg ''for his own protection'' because his behavior in Mosul seemed unusual for a Westerner. Plus Berg, who was Jewish, had in his possession texts that were considered ''anti-Semitic'' in tone. One of his friends has been quoted as saying that the Iraqi police thought Berg was an Israeli spy. To add insult to injury, Berg was also carrying some literature written in Farsi including a book about Iran.

d) On April 10, after he was released, Berg visited an Iraqi man who was once married to his aunt. Question: did his former uncle have political ties that caused any suspicions for the coalition?

e) Because he belongs to a far-left peace group and was known to authorities, Nicholas Berg's father likely raised a red flag and was a possible reason that the FBI visited the family in suburban Philadelphia at least three times during the 13 days that Berg was detained.

On April 5, Michael Berg filed a lawsuit alleging that his son was being held illegally in Iraq. Either Iraqi police or coalition authorities released Nicholas Berg the following day. From both his e-mails and interviews with friends, we know that Berg was moving around Iraq through April 10. It is unclear what happened next. On Wednesday, State Department spokeswoman Kelly Shannon claimed that the U.S. consular extended an offer to assist Berg to depart Iraq by plane to Jordan. But according to his dad, Berg refused, believing that flying out of Baghdad airport was too dangerous and instead he wanted to try driving to Kuwait. In another published report, a friend said Berg wanted to leave by riding through Jordan. Driving in Jordan or to Kuwait when offered a plane ticket home makes no sense: since the fall of Saddam, Baghdad Airport, heavily guarded by coalition forces, is probably as safe as any place in Iraq.

Between April 10 and May 8, when his decapitated body was found hanging from an overpass in Baghdad, Nicholas Berg's whereabouts are unknown. In the rambling speech seen on the grizzly video just before he was decapitated, Abu Musab al-Zarqawi indicated that he could have traded Berg for hostages being held by the coalition. If true, and believing a terrorist is always a stretch, one question arises among many: why was there no announcement through Al Jazeera, similar to other hostages, that Berg was being held?

To be sure, Nicholas Berg's brutal murder is a great tragedy that has much of the nation and the civilized world outraged. Ironically, Berg's death may do what his old man doesn't want: galvanize American resolve to win the War on Terror! Perhaps amidst the haze of statements from government officials and from a father who may have a hidden political agenda, maybe we can eventually get the real story of the curious life and tragic death of Nicholas Berg.

Ira Simmons

http://www.topthecharts.net/

[Army Air Corps]

Okay, I will throw my two centavos into the mix. We have a formula here for something that is just odd. We know that he was apparently good with electronics. We know that either he worked on comm towers or was trying to do so. Also, we know that he was attached to his computer. Lastly, Papa was heavily involved in ANSWER. It is possible that he went over there to do muckraking. he could have been looking for ways to video tape anything that could be peddled as a coalition "atrocity." Just how hard would it be for an electrincs whiz (according to reports) to rig a digital camera (especially the type that records to a DVD) in a tower and nightly post the videos to his ANSWER buddies? He may have been looking for folks who could lead him to some "horror stories." In so doing, he became part of a horror story.
Just a thought.

[Trinity_Tx]

Seems like it.
And here's an article (opens a new window) that says:

Nicholas Berg came to Iraq hoping to win a contract to help rebuild communications antennas destroyed during last year's invasion. Friends and family said he was a "free spirit" who wanted to help others - working in Ghana, in one example - and that his going to Iraq fit with that ideology. They said he supported the Iraqi war and the Bush administration.

Over the past year, the Commerce Department has conducted a three-continent campaign to promote investment and reconstruction opportunities. It was at one of those conferences that Berg was inspired to go to Baghdad, his family said. He dreamed of building radio towers in Iraq that would beam reports from a free press.

According to his family, Berg met other businessmen at the conference who asked him to inspect radio towers damaged during the war. Berg hoped to make a bid for his company, Prometheus Methods Tower Service Inc., to provide parts and repair services.

Berg's mother said she had begged him to change his mind about the trip. "We definitely did not want him to go," she said. But Berg decided the potential business was worth the risk.


With regard to his travel, it says:

After an FBI agent visited the family home to check his story and the family filed suit in a Philadelphia court to force his release, Berg was freed in Mosul on April 6. But he had missed his scheduled March 30 flight home and returned to Baghdad, telling his family he was looking for the safest way out of the country.

Iraq was seeing a wave of kidnappings of foreigners, dozens of whom were seized by the middle of the month. Berg's father said the State Department, and a private investigator hired by the family, checked at Berg's hotel in Baghdad but could find no news of him.

[Izzy Dunne]

Here's a dot that doesn't fit, for me:

On April 5, Michael Berg filed a lawsuit alleging that his son was being held illegally in Iraq. Either Iraqi police or coalition authorities released Nicholas Berg the following day.

If he filed the suit on April 5 at 9:00 AM (for example), that's 5:00 PM Baghdad time. If they released him AS A RESULT OF THE LAWSUIT, there had to be a pretty clear channel between the court in Philly and whoever was holding him in Baghdad to get it done in 31 hours (end of the "next day".

[faithincowboys]

I don't think so, but I could be wrong. I think Berg was Mossad or CIA--that's what I think. He looks like a heck of a nice kid--didn't look like a John Walker Lindh type.

[P-Marlowe]

Harris Corp is the Florida based company that won the contract to handle the Iraqi Media rebuild.

Good find. That is the type of company that would get the rebuild contracts. Not some fly by night outfit run by a 26 year old with no documented logistical experience. Harris has 10,000 employees in 90 countries. And Berg had one employee, himself and no prior experience working in Iraq. Undoubtedly Harris put up most of the towers either before or during Saddam's tenure. Berg didn't even know where they were.

[Diplomat]

Maybe Berg was in deeper, actually aiding Zarqawi kill Americans. We got wise and had the new Iraqi police nab and hold him. Berg stays defiant while in custody. After a couple weeks we tell the Iraqi police to let him go. He finds his way back to Zarqawi and tells him what happened. Zarqawi realizing immediately that Berg is no longer useful but a huge liability decides to use him for their despicable video. Did they run with Berg and then kill him, or did they murder him and then run?

How successful has Zarqawi been in killing Americans? If the hundreds I have read on other articles is true, isn't he the worst of the worst? Getting Zarqawi is a must.

What is really going on here? The ANSWER-Al Queda link.

Just a theory, no evidence whatsoever to support it and I too was deeply distressed by the photos I saw on one of the threads a few days ago, I also do not mean to make light of his gruesome killing nor suggest that he was in any way responsible for his death.

[Izzy Dunne]

Just how hard would it be for an electrincs whiz (according to reports) to rig a digital camera (especially the type that records to a DVD) in a tower and nightly post the videos to his ANSWER buddies?

It's the "nightly post" part that seems hardest - I don't think AOL covers Baghdad, and the military is not likely to leave a hot spot open for the public. So unless he had a portable satellite dish and his own bird channel, I don't see how he could get that done.

[razorback-bert]

He was wandering around in the dark "acting suspicious". So he was looking for work in the dark?

Cruising, no mention of a girl friend as yet?

[SeenTheLight]

I think Berg was Mossad or CIA

Could be. But wouldn't it be kind of stupid for either agency to use an obviously Jewish (name, visited Israel on his passport) undercover agent in an Arab country? Talk about asking for trouble...

[Trinity_Tx]

"She's wrong. A buddy of mine, no college degree, is with a group of soldiers of fortune types who travel the globe, installing radio comm. towers and gear. Last, in Africa."

I had a feeling... I think this article, at least, has a lot more smoke than fire.

I have just barely made a dent in the giant thread about him & Maussoui, tho, so maybe there is some weirdness I have yet to clue onto.

[Travis McGee]

More likely he would peddle the base imagery to AQ for targeting info.

"See when the convoys are forming up, get your teams/IEDs ready".

But I don't think any such James Bond stuff was his motive. I think he was trying to be an ANSWER-AQ liason, and the tower work was cover for action.

[Henk]

Notice that Mr. Berg (father) felt comfortable signing the ANSWER petition including the name of he and his son's company.

If he had such diverse political views than his son, why would he do that?

Why was Nick so quickly painted as supportive of the war? I am skeptical of that characterization.

[P-Marlowe]

I think Berg was Mossad or CIA--that's what I think. He looks like a heck of a nice kid--didn't look like a John Walker Lindh type.

Most of our speculation here revolves around the theory that Berg was not looking for contract work on towers, but had something else up his sleeve. The really weird thing, though, is the fact that he shared an e-mail account with Zaccarias Moussoui.

Plus if Berg was CIA, he probably would have had a more solid cover. He probably would have gone in with credentials from an established company. Not some fly-by-night work-from-home operation. If he was a spy, he was a cheap one. But it is possible that his killers thought he was a spy or even a double agent.

[Travis McGee]

Baghdad Int'l was the safe route out.

[Trinity_Tx]

Fresh article just published:

http://msnbc.msn.com/id/4973713/

[faithincowboys]

Are you sure?? I hope that isn't the case.

[Travis McGee]

But no matter what Berg's ideological motivations were, no matter how sincerely he intended to pitch ANSWER's help for AQ, they would suspect him of being an agent for Mossad and or the CIA. They would figure he had trackers or beacons planted in his body. They would not trust this "walk on" in a million years.

[faithincowboys]

You're right!!! This is really weird!!

[Travis McGee]

If the CIA is sending Jewish college dropouts (a "Berg" no less) with Israel-stamped passports into Iraq to infiltrate Al Queda, we are are well and truly FUBAR.

[Trinity_Tx]

Yeah. I don't know why he didn't take it. But if you look at the article i just posted above, it looks like he was further along in his business than we thought.

So, maybe he just didn't want to go home at all. Everyone had been telling him he was nuts to even go there months ago, and he ignored their warnings. He might have just been dawdling/buying time.

I honestly don't know, and I should prolly withhold further comment since I haven't read the other thread yet.

It's just that from what I have read and am hearing "here" from someone who has been on top of it... I think it's no more a stretch to think he was simply stubborn and reckless than to assume he was involved in something sinister.