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/

[TheSpottedOwl]

Boy I hope not. I'm feeling very badly for this mislead young man. If in fact Prometheus Methods Tower Service is a code for something, I'll smack myself for giving a shit :-(

[faithincowboys]

Well, who would have thought that a tart like Joe Wilson's wife would have been CIA right out of collge?

I assure you, she's been in a lot of places where the bad guys are. Let's face it, our spies go where Al Qaeda is, not where it isn't.

He doesn't have the mug--this kid berg doesn't have the mug. I've seen a million kids like him and this kid doesn't look like a bastard like Padilla or Lindh.

He looks like a good kid. I don't think he was their IED maker. I just have problems with that.

You seem to think that this kid is a world class terrorist. Remember. Lindh was a Catholic. A kid like Berg--a jew-- I just can't see him joining Al Qaeda. It makes no sense to me at all.

[Travis McGee]

We're all just speculating. And he didn't deserve to die like that.

[faithincowboys]

ANSWER sending a jew like Berg to become the IED guru for the insurgency. I doubt it--I doubt it!!

[txrangerette]

FReepmail

[Travis McGee]

We may never find out the truth. Who killed Vince Foster?

[eastforker]

It doesn't make sense that his dads sister would marry an Iraqi either.

[faithincowboys]

He does all of that publically.

Let's put it this way, if he were planting IED's all over Iraq to kill our people in the name of ANSWER--whatever he got, he deserved, but I don't think he was. My mind isn't letting me believe that just yet.

I think the ANSWER thing is a red herring.

[eastforker]

Has anyone come across the name of his dead aunt?

[MediaMole]

There is a group promoting low-power, left-wing broadcasting called the Prometheus radio project.

http://www.prometheusradio.org/

The only reference I could find regarding anyone who had hired Nicholas Berg was in York, PA. His company painted the tower of a local radio station. Not very high-tech work, just dangerous.

http://ydr.com/story/war/24820/

Here is a question posted to a board in 2002 asking if anyone had any experience with Berg's company.

http://www.broadcast.net/pipermail/radio-tech/2002-April/115822.html

[hobson]

Heather, FoxNews, interviewed a guy in Baghdad who was supposedly a friend of Berg. He said his understanding was Nic was going to go leave through Turkey and go sailing for a couple of days. So now we have 3 exit routes, Jordan, Kuwait and Turkey.

[faithincowboys]

Isn't Mosul primarily Kurdish, with a Sunni arab minority??

Also how did his Dad's sister die?

[El Gato]

Undoubtedly Harris put up most of the towers either before or during Saddam's tenure

Possible, but unlikely. All the plum contracts went to French or German companies. Or Red Chinese, and earlier the Soviets. For example, the Iraqi Air Force used French and Soviet (or other "East Block" aircraft, except for a few Boeing transports/airliners. The Chinese were said to have installed the underground fiber optic network for the Iraqi Integrated Air Defense System.

[eastforker]

His dads sister may be a key to this. I sure wish I had her name.

[texasflower]

Yes, it has been

[Southack]

"He looks like a good kid. I don't think he was their IED maker. I just have problems with that."

That's flawed reasoning.

The kid met Moussoui in 1999 and was working at the RNC convention in 2000. Our guys were *not* working the RNC convention. CIA is barred from domestic ops, that would be run by the FBI, and the FBI knows their own people (i.e. wouldn't need to visit him in 2002 or visit his parents 3 times last month).

So forget how he looks. He wasn't CIA. Nor would the Mossad care about our political conventions.

Who would care, though? Some organizations on this planet would care a *lot* about having access to our political figures who hang out at such conventions.

He was in Kenya in 1998. Our embassy got bombed there around that time. He was also in Islamic Uganda.

Our CIA and the Israeli Mossad aren't sending a Jewish agent to Kenya, Uganda, Jordan, and Iraq with a passport that has a Jewish name and a Jewish visa stamp on it.

It would be interesting to see if he started reading the Koran and wearing an Islamic beard, though.

[faithincowboys]

Yeah, her and her Iraqi husband are interesting pieces in this puzzle.


Can anyone make out what is on his blue shirt in the picture??

[Barlowmaker]

Mosul is an Arab city in a Kurdish "region". You might be thinking of Kirkuk, which is primarily Kurdish, with a Turkeman minority.

Incidentally, most all Kurds in Iraq are Sunni Muslims.

[Trinity_Tx]

"Are you buying all these conspiracy theories yet?"

No. And it's hard for me because I'm torn between ideas of people I greatly admire and respect.

"I admit that he's starting to show up like Forest Gump amazingly close to certain AQ-related events, but there are also completely plausible explanations for all this so far."

I agree. And that being the case, I feel obligated to err on the side of safety and defend him. Because if he was indeed just an idealistic kid, then ...

"It would not be suprising for a kind and idealistic kid from a wealthy US Jewish family to try and befriend Muslim or M.E. students while in college, kumbaya and all that. Idealistic kids can be quite gullible and attracted to noble causes, and he seems to have a pattern of such with his going to Africa and Iraq."

Not only is it not surprising, but I know one extremely conservative Jew who fits your description to a perfect T. He did the same thing, except for the Africa trip, lol. He thought he could get thru, too.

"Plus some of the things his dad have said seem to be taken way out of context/proportion, with a ridiculous amount of things being read into those statements. If the guy and his dad were really in on some complicated AQ plot, would his dad be so careless as to say "He was AQ's best friend?" and blow 'X' years of hard work?

Actually all the parents have said and done, while quite wrong and harmful, are fully consistent with what one could expect from grieving parents in shock naturally blaming a President whom they so vehemently have opposed in the past."

I agree. Aside from the computer thing, I think we're still acting as tho there are inconsistencies where there are none. Between Occam's razor and erring on the side of not disgracing the image of a victim such as he, I can't say anything differently than I have. Even tho it pains me to disagree with my respected friends.

[Southack]

"Heather, FoxNews, interviewed a guy in Baghdad who was supposedly a friend of Berg. He said his understanding was Nic was going to go leave through Turkey and go sailing for a couple of days. So now we have 3 exit routes, Jordan, Kuwait and Turkey."

Too many cover stories for a pro. He simply didn't want people to have *any* clue why he was staying in Iraq (and went about it all wrong).