Moore interviewed Berg for "Fahrenheit" [index to thread at reply #1859]

May 27, 2004 | Filmmaker Michael Moore filmed an interview with American Nicholas Berg in the course of producing his documentary film "Fahrenheit 9/11" before Berg left for Iraq, where he was taken hostage and killed, Moore confirmed to Salon in a statement Thursday. The 20 minutes of footage does not appear in the final version of "Fahrenheit 911," according to the statement.

Word of the footage reached Salon through a source unaffiliated with Moore or his film "Fahrenheit 9/11," which is reported to feature stark images of U.S. civilians and soldiers grappling with conditions in war-torn Iraq, as well as examining the relationship between President George W. Bush and the bin Laden family. It received the Palme d'Or, the Cannes Film Festival's highest honor, on Saturday.

In a statement widely circulated by Moore's people after an initial request for comment by Salon, Moore said, "We have an interview with Nick Berg. It was approximately 20 minutes long. We are not releasing it to the media. It is not in the film. We are dealing privately with the family." Moore's camp declined to comment further on any aspect of the interview. Because the footage is not in the film, a spokeswoman for Miramax Films, the production company behind "Fahrenheit 9/11," said the company had no comment.

It was not clear from Moore's statement whether footage from the interview with Berg had ever been included in early cuts of "Fahrenheit 9/11." Reports about a film industry controversy surrounding distribution of the film first hit the news on May 5, a week before Berg's death. The film officially screened for the public and the press for the first time during the Cannes festival on May 17.

The news that Moore spoke to Berg while he was still in the United States only adds to the mystery surrounding the young man's presence in Iraq and tragic death. The interview was shot before the 26-year-old Berg left for Iraq late last year as a private contractor in the hopes of helping to rebuild the ravaged country. Though it was unclear what Berg spoke about in his interview with Moore, or how the two men met, unrelated reports following his death indicate that he headed for the Middle East with plans to work to improve the country's technological infrastructure and communication abilities. He ran his own company, Prometheus Methods Tower Service, in a suburb of Philadelphia.

Berg did not find employment in Iraq, and when he attempted to return to the United States he was detained by Iraqi police and questioned by American forces. He was released after his family complained. But shortly after, he is believed to have been kidnapped by Islamic terrorists. Video of his beheading was released on an Islamist Web site on May 11. Salon was unable to reach the Berg family for comment before publication.

Moore's film chronicles the United States' military, political and business involvement in the Middle East in the years before and after the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001. His previous politically charged films, including "Roger & Me" and "Bowling for Columbine," have created controversy and won him praise (including an Oscar, for "Columbine"). "Fahrenheit 9/11" has already sparked a media storm; in early May, Miramax's parent company, Disney, announced that it would not allow Miramax to distribute the film, which is highly critical of Bush and his administration.

Miramax has yet to make a deal with a distributor, though the film's warm reception at Cannes and the publicity surrounding the film have made it a hot property that is generating a lot of interest in Hollywood. "Bowling for Columbine" grossed $21 million, making it the highest-grossing non-IMAX documentary of all time.

A source close to "Fahrenheit 9/11" said that a new distributor will be announced shortly, and that the film is expected to be released in theaters during the first week of July, as originally planned.

Source

Thursday, May 6th, 2004
Today's NY Times Editorial: "Disney's Craven Behavior"

Friends,

Below you will find today's New York Times Editorial. Please pass it around.

Thanks for all of your letters of support. No news to report today, hopefully tomorrow.

Yours,

Michael Moore

May 6, 2004 – Editorial, New York Times
Disney's Craven Behavior

Give the Walt Disney Company a gold medal for cowardice for blocking its Miramax division from distributing a film that criticizes President Bush and his family. A company that ought to be championing free expression has instead chosen to censor a documentary that clearly falls within the bounds of acceptable political commentary.

The documentary was prepared by Michael Moore, a controversial filmmaker who likes to skewer the rich and powerful. As described by Jim Rutenberg yesterday in The Times, the film, "Fahrenheit 9/11," links the Bush family with prominent Saudis, including the family of Osama bin Laden. It describes financial ties that go back three decades and explores the role of the government in evacuating relatives of Mr. bin Laden from the United States shortly after the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks. The film was financed by Miramax and was expected to be released this summer.

Mr. Moore's agent said that Michael Eisner, Disney's chief executive, had expressed concern that the film might jeopardize tax breaks granted to Disney for its theme park, hotels and other ventures in Florida, where Jeb Bush is governor. If that is the reason for Disney's move, it would underscore the dangers of allowing huge conglomerates to gobble up diverse media companies.

On the other hand, a senior Disney executive says the real reason is that Disney caters to families of all political stripes and that many of them might be alienated by the film. Those families, of course, would not have to watch the documentary.

It is hard to say which rationale for blocking distribution is more depressing. But it is clear that Disney loves its bottom line more than the freedom of political discourse.

This is where he lets out some information:

Source

Friday, May 7th, 2004
When You Wish Upon A Star… by Michael Moore

Dear Friends,

Thank you for all the incredible letters of support as my film crew and I once again slog our way through the corporate media madhouse. Does it ever end? Are we ever going to get control of our "free press" again? Can you wish upon a star?

The Disney spin machine has been working overtime dealing with this censorship debacle of theirs. I don't think they thought they would ever be outed. After all, they know that all of us are supposed to adhere to the unwritten Hollywood Code: Never tell the public how business is done here, never let them have a peek at the man behind the curtain.

Disney has been hoping for nearly a year that they could keep this thing quiet. As I promised on Wednesday, here are the details behind my sordid adventure with the Magic Kingdom:

In April of 2003, I signed a deal with Miramax, a division of the Walt Disney Co., to finance and distribute my next movie, Fahrenheit 9/11. (The original financier had backed out; I will tell that story at a later date.) In my contract it is stated that Miramax will distribute my film in the U.S. through Disney's distribution arm, Buena Vista Distribution. It also gives Miramax the rights to distribute and sell the movie around the world.

A month later, after shooting started, Michael Eisner insisted on meeting with my agent, Ari Emanuel. Eisner was furious that Miramax signed this deal with me. According to Mr. Emanuel, Eisner said he would never let my film be distributed through Disney even though Mr. Eisner had not seen any footage or even read the outline of the film. Eisner told my agent that he did not want to anger Jeb Bush, the governor of Florida. The movie, he believed, would complicate an already complicated situation with current and future Disney projects in Florida, and that many millions of dollars of tax breaks and incentives were at stake.

But Michael Eisner did not call Miramax and tell them to stop my film. Not only that, for the next year, SIX MILLION dollars of DISNEY money continued to flow into the production of making my movie. Miramax assured me that there were no distribution problems with my film.

But then, a few weeks ago when Fahrenheit 9/11 was selected to be in the Cannes Film Festival, Disney sent a low-level production executive to New York to watch the film (to this day, Michael Eisner has not seen the film). This exec was enthusiastic throughout the viewing. He laughed, he cried and at the end he thanked us. "This film is explosive," he exclaimed, and we took that as a positive sign. But “explosive” for these guys is only a good word when it comes to blowing up things in movies. OUR kind of “explosive” is what they want to run from as fast as they can.

Miramax did their best to convince Disney to go ahead as planned with our film. Disney contractually can only stop Miramax from releasing a film if it has received an NC-17 rating (ours will be rated PG-13 or R).

According to yesterday's New York Times, the issue of whether to release Fahrenheit 9/11 was discussed at Disney's board meeting last week. It was decided that Disney should not distribute our movie.

Earlier this week we got the final, official call: Disney will not put out Fahrenheit 9/11. When the story broke in the New York Times, Disney, instead of telling the truth, turned into Pinocchio.

Here are my favorite nuggets that have come out of the mouths of their spinmeisters (roughly quoted):

"Michael Moore has known for a year that we will not distribute this movie, so this is not news." Yes, that is what I thought, too, except Disney kept sending us all that money to make the movie. Miramax said there was no problem. I got the idea that everything was fine.

"It is not in the best interests of our company to distribute a partisan political film that may offend some of our customers." Hmmm. Disney doesn't distribute work that has partisan politics? Disney distributes and syndicates the Sean Hannity radio show every day? I get to listen to Rush Limbaugh every day on Disney-owned WABC. I also seem to remember that Disney distributed a very partisan political movie during a Congressional election year, 1998—a film called The Big One… by, um… ME!

"Fahrenheit 9/11 is not the Disney brand; we put out family oriented films." So true. That's why the #1 Disney film in theaters right now is a film called, KILL BILL, VOL. 2. This excellent Miramax film, along with other classics like Pulp Fiction, have all been distributed by Disney. That's why Miramax exists -- to provide an ALTERNATIVE to the usual Disney fare. And, unless they were NC-17, Disney has distributed them.

"Mr. Moore is doing this as a publicity stunt." Michael Eisner reportedly said this the other day while he was at a publicity stunt cutting the ribbon for the new "Tower of Terror" ride (what a pleasant name considering what the country has gone through recently) at Disney's California Adventure Park. Let me tell you something: NO filmmaker wants to go through this kind of controversy. It does NOT sell tickets (I can cite many examples of movies who have had to change distributors at the last minute and all have failed). I made this movie so people could see it as soon as possible. This is a huge and unwanted distraction. I want people discussing the issues raised in my film, not some inside Hollywood fracas surrounding who is going to ship the prints to the theaters. Plus, I think it is fairly safe to say that Fahrenheit 9/11 has a good chance of doing just fine, considering that my last movie set a box office record and the subject matter (Bush, the War on Terror, the War in Iraq) is at the forefront of most people's minds.

So what will happen to my movie? I still don't know. What I do know is that I will make sure all of you see it by hook or crook. We are Americans. There are a lot of screwed up things about us right now, but one thing that most of us have in common is that we don't like someone telling us we can't see something. We despise censors, and the worst censors are those who would dare to limit thoughts and ideas and silence dissent. THAT is un-American. If I have to travel across the country and show it in city parks (or, as one person offered yesterday, to show it on the side of his house for the neighborhood to see), that is what I will do.

More to come, stay tuned.

Yours,
Michael Moore

I don't think I can despise a newspaper more than the New York Times or a columnist more than Frank Rich. They do just like Michael Moore and grab segments of interviews, leaving out the context and write about it.

Michael Moore's Candid Camera

Published: May 23, 2004

New York Times
Frank Rich

But why should we hear about body bags, and deaths, and how many, what day it's gonna happen, and how many this or what do you suppose? Or, I mean, it's, it's not relevant. So why should I waste my beautiful mind on something like that? And watch him suffer."
— Barbara Bush on "Good Morning America,"
March 18, 2003

SHE needn't have worried. Her son wasn't suffering. In one of the several pieces of startling video exhibited for the first time in Michael Moore's "Fahrenheit 9/11," we catch a candid glimpse of President Bush some 36 hours after his mother's breakfast TV interview — minutes before he makes his own prime-time TV address to take the nation to war in Iraq. He is sitting at his desk in the Oval Office. A makeup woman is doing his face. And Mr. Bush is having a high old time. He darts his eyes about and grins, as if he were playing a peek-a-boo game with someone just off-camera. He could be a teenager goofing with his buds to relieve the passing tedium of a haircut.

"In your wildest dreams you couldn't imagine Franklin Roosevelt behaving this way 30 seconds before declaring war, with grave decisions and their consequences at stake," said Mr. Moore in an interview before his new documentary's premiere at Cannes last Monday. "But that may be giving him credit for thinking that the decisions were grave." As we spoke, the consequences of those decisions kept coming. The premiere of "Fahrenheit 9/11" took place as news spread of the assassination of a widely admired post-Saddam Iraqi leader, Ezzedine Salim, blown up by a suicide bomber just a hundred yards from the entrance to America's "safe" headquarters, the Green Zone, in Baghdad.

"Fahrenheit 9/11" will arrive soon enough at your local cineplex — there's lots of money to be made — so discount much of the squabbling en route. Disney hasn't succeeded in censoring Mr. Moore so much as in enhancing his stature as a master provocateur and self-promoter. And the White House, which likewise hasn't a prayer of stopping this film, may yet fan the p.r. flames. "It's so outrageously false, it's not even worth comment," was last week's blustery opening salvo by Dan Bartlett, the White House communications director. New York's Daily News reported that Republican officials might even try to use the Federal Election Commission to shut the film down. That would be the best thing to happen to Michael Moore since Charlton Heston granted him an interview.

Whatever you think of Mr. Moore, there's no question he's detonating dynamite here. From a variety of sources — foreign journalists and broadcasters (like Britain's Channel Four), freelancers and sympathetic American TV workers who slipped him illicit video — he supplies war-time pictures that have been largely shielded from our view. Instead of recycling images of the planes hitting the World Trade Center on 9/11 once again, Mr. Moore can revel in extended new close-ups of the president continuing to read "My Pet Goat" to elementary school students in Florida for nearly seven long minutes after learning of the attack. Just when Abu Ghraib and the savage beheading of Nicholas Berg make us think we've seen it all, here is yet another major escalation in the nation-jolting images that have become the battleground for the war about the war.

"Fahrenheit 9/11" is not the movie Moore watchers, fans or foes, were expecting. (If it were, the foes would find it easier to ignore.) When he first announced this project last year after his boorish Oscar-night diatribe against Mr. Bush, he described it as an exposé of the connections between the Bush and bin Laden dynasties. But that story has been so strenuously told elsewhere — most notably in Craig Unger's best seller, "House of Bush, House of Saud" — that it's no longer news. Mr. Moore settles for a brisk recap in the first of his film's two hours. And, predictably, he stirs it into an over-the-top, at times tendentious replay of a Bush hater's greatest hits: Katherine Harris, the Supreme Court, Harken Energy, AWOL in Alabama, the Carlyle Group, Halliburton, the lazy Crawford vacation of August 2001, the Patriot Act. But then the movie veers off in another direction entirely. Mr. Moore takes the same hairpin turn the country has over the past 14 months and crash-lands into the gripping story that is unfolding in real time right now.

Wasn't it just weeks ago that we were debating whether we should see the coffins of the American dead and whether Ted Koppel should read their names on "Nightline"? In "Fahrenheit 9/11," we see the actual dying, of American troops and Iraqi civilians alike, with all the ripped flesh and spilled guts that the violence of war entails. (If Steven Spielberg can simulate World War II carnage in "Saving Private Ryan," it's hard to argue that Mr. Moore should shy away from the reality in a present-day war.) We also see some of the 4,000-plus American casualties: those troops hidden away in clinics at Walter Reed and at Blanchfield Army Community Hospital in Fort Campbell, Ky., where they try to cope with nerve damage and multiple severed limbs. They are not silent. They talk about their pain and their morphine, and they talk about betrayal. "I was a Republican for quite a few years," one soldier says with an almost innocent air of bafflement, "and for some reason they conduct business in a very dishonest way."

Of course, Mr. Moore is being selective in what he chooses to include in his movie; he's a polemicist, not a journalist. But he implicitly raises the issue that much of what we've seen elsewhere during this war, often under the label of "news," has been just as subjectively edited. Perhaps the most damning sequence in "Fahrenheit 9/11" is the one showing American troops as they ridicule hooded detainees in a holding pen near Samara, Iraq, in December 2003. A male soldier touches the erection of a prisoner lying on a stretcher underneath a blanket, an intimation of the sexual humiliations that were happening at Abu Ghraib at that same time. Besides adding further corroboration to Seymour Hersh's report that the top command has sanctioned a culture of abuse not confined to a single prison or a single company or seven guards, this video raises another question: why didn't we see any of this on American TV before "60 Minutes II"?

Don Van Natta Jr. of The New York Times reported in March 2003 that we were using hooding and other inhumane techniques at C.I.A. interrogation centers in Afghanistan and elsewhere. CNN reported on Jan. 20, after the Army quietly announced its criminal investigation into prison abuses, that "U.S. soldiers reportedly posed for photographs with partially unclothed Iraqi prisoners." And there the matter stood for months, even though, as we know now, soldiers' relatives with knowledge of these incidents were repeatedly trying to alert Congress and news organizations to the full panorama of the story.

Mr. Moore says he obtained his video from an independent foreign journalist embedded with the Americans. "We've had this footage in our possession for two months," he says. "I saw it before any of the Abu Ghraib news broke. I think it's pretty embarrassing that a guy like me with a high school education and with no training in journalism can do this. What the hell is going on here? It's pathetic."

We already know that politicians in denial will dismiss the abuse sequence in Mr. Moore's film as mere partisanship. Someone will surely echo Senator James Inhofe's Abu Ghraib complaint that "humanitarian do-gooders" looking for human rights violations are maligning "our troops, our heroes" as they continue to fight and die. But Senator Inhofe and his colleagues might ask how much they are honoring soldiers who are overextended, undermanned and bereft of a coherent plan in Iraq. Last weekend The Los Angeles Times reported that for the first time three Army divisions, more than a third of its combat troops, are so depleted of equipment and skills that they are classified "unfit to fight." In contrast to Washington's neglect, much of "Fahrenheit 9/11" turns out to be a patriotic celebration of the heroic American troops who have been fighting and dying under these and other deplorable conditions since President Bush's declaration of war.

In particular, the movie's second hour is carried by the wrenching story of Lila Lipscomb, a flag-waving, self-described "conservative Democrat" from Mr. Moore's hometown of Flint, Mich., whose son, Sgt. Michael Pedersen, was killed in Iraq. We watch Mrs. Lipscomb, who by her own account "always hated" antiwar protesters, come undone with grief and rage. As her extended family gathers around her in the living room, she clutches her son's last letter home and reads it aloud, her shaking voice and hand contrasting with his precise handwriting on lined notebook paper. A good son, Sergeant Pedersen thanks his mother for sending "the bible and books and candy," but not before writing of the president: "He got us out here for nothing whatsoever. I am so furious right now, Mama."

By this point, Mr. Moore's jokes, some of them sub-par retreads of Jon Stewart's riffs about the coalition of the willing, have vanished from "Fahrenheit 9/11." So, pretty much, has Michael Moore himself. He told me that Harvey Weinstein of Miramax had wanted him to insert more of himself into the film — "you're the star they're coming to see" — but for once he exercised self-control, getting out of the way of a story that is bigger than he is. "It doesn't need me running around with my exclamation points," he said. He can't resist underlining one moral at the end, but by then the audience, crushed by the needlessness of Mrs. Lipscomb's loss, is ready to listen. Speaking of America's volunteer army, Mr. Moore concludes: "They serve so that we don't have to. They offer to give up their lives so that we can be free. It is, remarkably, their gift to us. And all they ask for in return is that we never send them into harm's way unless it is absolutely necessary. Will they ever trust us again?"

"Fahrenheit 9/11" doesn't push any Vietnam analogies, but you may find one in a montage at the start, in which a number of administration luminaries (Cheney, Rice, Ashcroft, Powell) in addition to the president are seen being made up for TV appearances. It's reminiscent of Richard Avedon's photographic portrait of the Mission Council, the American diplomats and military figures running the war in Saigon in 1971. But at least those subjects were dignified. In Mr. Moore's candid-camera portraits, a particularly unappetizing spectacle is provided by Paul Wolfowitz, the architect of both the administration's Iraqi fixation and its doctrine of "preventive" war. We watch him stick his comb in his mouth until it is wet with spit, after which he runs it through his hair. This is not the image we usually see of the deputy defense secretary, who has been ritualistically presented in the press as the most refined of intellectuals — a guy with, as Barbara Bush would have it, a beautiful mind.

Like Mrs. Bush, Mr. Wolfowitz hasn't let that mind be overly sullied by body bags and such — to the point where he underestimated the number of American deaths in Iraq by more than 200 in public last month. No one would ever accuse Michael Moore of having a beautiful mind. Subtleties and fine distinctions are not his thing. That matters very little, it turns out, when you have a story this ugly and this powerful to tell.

http://www.michaelmoore.com/words/latestnews/index.php?id=18

http://www.nytimes.com/2004/05/23/arts/23RICH.html

Last message prior to the release of the Nick Berg revelation:

Source

Sunday, May 23rd, 2004
Fahrenheit 9/11 Wins Top Prize in Cannes

Friends,

Hello from Cannes! I’m sure by now many of you have heard the good news—“Fahrenheit 9/11” has won the top prize at the Cannes Film Festival. It is the first time in nearly 50 years a documentary has won the Palme d’Or (the Golden Palm).

Myself and twenty-six members of our crew are here in Cannes and we are in a state of shock. None of us expected this. First came the critics’ reviews on Monday (The New York Times called it my best film ever), then the audience reaction at our premiere (a 20-minute standing ovation, a new all-time record for the festival), the International Federation of Film Critics Award on Friday, and then the best film prize last night. It’s all been an incredible week for us and I can’t wait to get back home and show you all this wonderfully powerful film we’ve made.

No, we still don’t have a distributor in America as I write this but after winning the world’s top film prize I’d give it about one more day (if that) before we have someone brave enough (and smart enough) to show Americans what the world can already see (Albania, this week, became the final country—other than the U.S.—to sign on with a distributor).

I am still hoping for a July release (4th of July weekend?) both in the U.S. and around the world.

I fully expect the right wing and the Republican Party to come at me and this film with everything they’ve got. They will try, as they have unsuccessfully in the past, to attack me personally because they cannot win the debate on the issues the film raises—namely, that they are a pack of liars and the American people are on to them. And, if the early screenings of “Fahrenheit 9/11” are any indication, those who see this movie will never view the Bush administration in the same way again. Even if you already can’t stomach George W. Bush & Co., I think this movie will take you to places you haven’t gone before, with laughter and with tears.

I will let you all know—as soon as we have a distributor—the date the film is opening. Until then, check out some of the articles that have been written, and check out the awards ceremony from Cannes.

Thanks everyone for your support.

Yours,
Michael Moore
mmflint@aol.com
www.michaelmoore.com

P.S. When you hear the wackos on Fox News and elsewhere refer to this prize as coming from “the French,” please know that of the nine members of the Festival jury, only ONE was French. Nearly half the jury (four) were Americans and the President of the jury was an American (Quentin Tarantino). But this fact won’t stop the O’Reillys or the Lenos or the Limbaughs from attacking the French and me because, well, that’s how their simple minds function.

Make sure to send Mike cards, letters, and emails. I'm sure he'll talk to O'Reilly about this incident and probably provide the "lost" footage as well.

This is the interview with Barbara Bush & former President Bush on March 18, 2003. I don't see where Barbara Bush says what Michael Moore and Frank Rich of the New York Times claims she said. What am I missing?

Family Affair
Bush Parents Say American Support Is Strong for President’s Position on Iraq

C O L L E G E S T A T I O N, Texas, March 18 — While the world remains divided over President Bush's ultimatum to Saddam Hussein, the president's parents say U.S. support is strong and they're touched by the number of American people telling them their son has their support.

"Thank God the American people seem to be supporting him in large numbers, large numbers," said former President George Bush on ABCNEWS' Good Morning America.

"And so the consequences, he'll figure it out. He'll figure out what's right. But sometimes you've got to do things that people overseas might not think is great, and you know, to some degree, we went through that in Desert Storm, the French at first were reluctant," said the former president.

When George H. W. Bush, the 41st president, decided to overturn Iraq's 1990 invasion of Kuwait, he rallied the United Nations, the U.S. people, and Congress before sending in 425,000 American troops.

His son, on the other hand, doesn't have the support of the U.N. Security Council, but the Bushes argue that behind-the-scenes support is strong.

"But a lot of people come up to us and say, 'Our son or our daughter joined the service to support your son, left college and joined.' I'm sort of amazed and touched, and they say, 'We support your son 100 percent. We think he's wonderful,' " Barbara Bush said.

"So of course they're worried and we're worried, but it's — there's a general feeling of sometimes things just have to be done," she said.

‘Support the President Without Reservation’

The president's father says he's seen a lot of support for his son's "rock-solid approach" to the Iraqi situation, and he says the very vocal opposition will disappear when it becomes clear that his son was right all along.

"What I say is I support the president without reservation," the elder Bush said. "But I've been around, I'm old enough now to know that what seems like the crisis of the day might not be tomorrow, and so the president has to do what he thinks is right."

In his prime-time speech Monday, the president compared the Iraqi threat to those behind acts of genocide in the last century. "In this century, when evil men plot chemical, biological and nuclear terror, a policy of appeasement could bring destruction of a kind never before seen on this earth," he said.

"Responding to such enemies only after they have struck first is not self-defense, it is suicide," he said. "The security of the world requires disarming Saddam Hussein now."

A Turn in Public Opinion?

In an ABCNEWS/Washington Post poll conducted after the president set a two-day deadline for Saddam Hussein to leave Iraq, 71 percent said they would support war, up a dozen points from a week ago, and 64 percent approved of the president's work on the confrontation with Iraq, the highest number in six months.

Meanwhile, the level of opposition outside of the United States has remained the same. Several world leaders spoke out against the president's ultimatum Monday night. Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder of Germany said the threat posed by Iraq's dictator does not justify killing innocent people. French President Jacques Chirac said war without the support of the United Nations would undermine future efforts at peaceful disarmament.

Mexican President Vicente Fox says he doesn't believe all diplomatic efforts have been exhausted, but he said his view wouldn't affect U.S.-Mexico relations.

Leaders in Australia and Japan say they support the U.S. position.

Former President Bush says words of opposition from the other side of the political fence are nothing new when it comes to the conflict with Iraq. Although he received a great degree of support from Americans and from leaders around the world during the Gulf War, he says those who opposed his actions then are expressing the same opinions today.

In last week's Sunday issue of the New York Times, former President Jimmy Carter wrote that the United States is nowhere near the point of a justified war with Iraq.

"But now, with our own national security not directly threatened and despite the overwhelming opposition of most people and governments in the world, the United States seems determined to carry out military and diplomatic action that is almost unprecedented in the history of civilized nations," Carter, who won last year's Nobel Peace Prize, wrote in his editorial titled "Just War — or a Just War?"

Former President Bush said he wasn't surprised by one word of Carter's article.

"[It's] exactly the same position he had in 1991, exactly, and he wrote members of the Security Council to that effect. This is history repeating itself," he said.

The elder Bushes say they try to stay out of the limelight, except for when it comes to promoting their volunteerism charity fund, the Points of Light Foundation, but it becomes very difficult to stay silent when they're asked questions about their son.

"We keep saying we're not going to do interviews or talk about Iraq," the former president said.

But Barbara Bush says there is a clear distinction between political talk and what they have to say.

"We're not talking about Iraq. We're talking about our son," she said.

http://abcnews.go.com/sections/GMA/Living/Iraq_GMA030318_BushFamily.html

Maybe I'm being a little odd, but I went to the web site that you linked. And, considering his odd comment about "being back where they are speaking Arab," I did a little more research.

He seems to end his emails with "man is more than fire tamed." That may just be some weird catch phrase for evolutionists, I guess. But, I typed in the keywords, with Koran...and came up with this:

(12) Dominating Nature

Islam has openly proclaimed that man's true worth lies in the measure he has conquered nature and tamed it. The 20th verse of the 31st sura reads as follows: "Have you not seen that Allah has subjected to your (use) everything, all things in the heavens and on the earth and has made His bouties flow to you in exceeding measure, (both) seen and unseen ?..."

Moreover verses 32-34 of the 14th sura have the following wording:

"It is Allah who has created the heavens and the earth, sent down water from the sky, brought out fruits therewith to feed you; rendered ships to your service that they may sail through the sea according to His will and He subjected streams and rivers to you."

And He has subjected sun and moon to you, both diligently pursuing their courses. And the day and the night has He subjected to you and He has given you all that you ask for. And if you count the favours of Allah, you won't be able to number them. Verily, man is unjust and ungrateful."

These verses and many others point to the possibility of man to dominate nature. Fourteen centuries ago man had progressed only so far as to control sheep and cattle, camel and elephant. He had learnt to use their milk and meat and hide, ride them or bear his cargo on their backs. He had learnt to conquer somehow the restless sea, ride its billows in small or large vessels and cross that seas with his merchandise. He had also learnt to harness turbulent rivers and by building dams or channelling off their angry waters drive them to serene orchards and fields.

But did man always have control of such things? There was a time when even such paltry things were beyond his reach. On the contrary, fearing all or some of them, he could not muster courage to face them.

In the course of time he came to learn that he had no reason to fear them and casting off his irrational fear, his inner faculties opened up and in the light of labour and thought, he conquered and came to master them.

Now the Koran inspires man to consider his area of influence wider. Let man know that day and night, the sun, moon and stars and in a word Nature in all its majesty is awaiting his conquest, on condition that he does justice to himself and does not give in to ignorance and lust, on condition that he does not strike the wrong path but chooses the straight road which God has set before him and that he be not thankless to his Creator.

Like I said, I may be paranoid. But, you commented on his flowery speech patterns...and I agree. It seems codelike...or maybe he was just a bit strange. I thought I would post my finds...for whatever it's worth.

"And I notice this Washington Post article doesn't mention email addresses being stolen, nor Ashcroft indicating that was the case:"

Cyn, if you'll click the link I gave you with the cite, you will see that it goes to http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A28087-2004May14.html

Here is as much of the text as I dare post without messing with copyright - you can click the link for the rest.

FBI Questioned Berg on 9/11 Link
Suspect in Attacks Stole Computer ID From Iraq Victim
By Sewell Chan and Dan Eggen
Washington Post Foreign Service
Saturday, May 15, 2004; Page A17

BAGHDAD, May 14 -- Nicholas Berg, *snip* was interviewed by FBI agents in the United States in 2002 because of a tangential connection to the case of alleged al Qaeda member Zacarias Moussaoui, U.S. officials said Friday.

The link between Berg, whom FBI agents in Iraq questioned three times shortly before he disappeared, and Moussaoui, who is accused of conspiracy in the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, was confirmed by Attorney General John D. Ashcroft.

Ashcroft emphasized that FBI agents had cleared Berg of any suspicious activity. "We did not develop any interest in Mr. Berg or determine in any way that he had any relationship to any activities of terror," Ashcroft said in Washington.

"The suggestion that Mr. Berg was in some way involved in terrorist activity . . . is a suggestion that we do not have any ability to support and we do not believe is a valid one."

Moussaoui and an acquaintance used an e-mail address or other computer identification traced to Berg, Justice Department officials said. The FBI concluded that Berg had been one of numerous victims of scam artists who were stealing e-mail addresses and passwords at the main campus of the University of Oklahoma, where Berg had been a student, several officials said.

Berg, 26, never met Moussaoui, who attended the school later, officials said.

Ashcroft said the theft of Berg's e-mail address was unremarkable. "It is not uncommon for individuals from time to time to allow . . . computer use by other individuals in university settings," Ashcroft said.

*snip*

Eggen reported from Washington.
© 2004 The Washington Post Company

Now, I wasn't even going to answer your last, #1193, but now that I'm back in this for the moment... you said:

..."I was referring the Washington Post making a flat statement of what the FBI concluded.
...As to Nick's father, he was completely on the record now, not being anonymously quoted and not claiming faulty memory from two years ago. "

The Washington Post cite I gave you in that post just said the FBI concluded that Nick was among many who had their e-mail accounts stolen.
The article you challenged me to answer has Michael Berg saying the same thing:

"...amongst many other people's e-mail who he did the same thing to," Berg said."

So I'm at a loss for why you're still after me. lol
You started off accusing me of having no source. I gave it. Is it one source's word against the other? Yes.

I'm not here "zealously debunking a conspiracy". I'm answering questions directed to me since this afternoon.

I'm with you - we just want to focus on the best info we have available, and finding more. I have not decided one way or the other either. There is plenty of weirdness about this case even if Ashcroft is right.

>>What does Berg's dad do for a living? Do I recall correctly it some kind of communications, like his son?

this thread from May 8th's Philly.com (the same day Nick was beheaded) said this about Michael, the father: He [NICK] usually called home once a day and e-mailed several times; Michael Berg is his [Nick's] business manager, and they needed to stay in touch.

[by the way, I too, find it odd there were no stories about NB's disappearance until the day of his beheading]

And here's another oddity... One of NB's good friends in Iraq was a supposed Chilean freelance journalist Hugo Infante, and it was Infante that made the heresay statement, after the beheading, that Americans had detained Nick the first time.

But it is odd that Hugo Infante has no history as a journalist prior to his two stints as a photographer in Iraq after the war.

In May 2003 he sold a number of pro-coalition photos (numbers 1 thru 11) to UPI. But then Hugo apparently left Iraq, only to return the following year, at the SAME TIME AS NICK.

Note: Nick had been in Iraq the first time, Dec 2003 to Feb 2004, and had been mostly unsuccessful in finding work per CNN. And in the same brief timeframe where Nick was back in the U.S.A, so was this 'Chilean' journalist Hugo Infante. Infante sold photo #69 to UPI, captioned: "Azamat Begg, father of one of the prisoners of war ... walks around the White House protesting for the human rights of the prisoners, on March 8, 2004 in Washington"

Then Nick went to Iraq a 2nd time on March 14th, and apparently, so did Hugo Infante. Hugo sells the now less-flattering Baghdad photos, (numbers 68 thru 50) on March 17, 18, 19, 20, and 21, to UPI.

Infante sold NO photos March 22, 23, 24, or 25th. Comparing those blackout dates to Nick's sightings, and you'll see Nick traveled to the northern city of Mosul, supposedly to visit his 'Yassin' relative, and checked into a southern Mosul hotel at 6:30pm on the 23rd, (while carrying Jordanian, Iranian, AND Iraqi currency, which the clerk found very odd). He said he would be visiting 'family' the next day, and he was arrested near his hotel at 9pm on the 24th.

Infante again sold Baghdad photos taken on the 26th, 29th, 30th, and 31st. (no photos April 1, 2, or 3). Infante was in Kufa, 100km south of Baghdad on April 4th (photo 19). No photos April 5, 6, 7 or 8th. (and NB was released April 6th). By April 9th, Infante had returned again to Baghdad (photos 12 thru 18). Infante never sold another photo after April 9th, which was also the last day friends saw Nick Berg.

Hotel staff said he left at 7pm on the 10th, left behind several of his things, including his exercise weights and his work-contact business cards, and would hopefully return 'in a few days'.

Infante was also close enough to Berg to be able to trace Nick's cell-phone useage on April 19.

SO... my conclusion to all this, is that IF Nick Berg was sent to Iraq to spy for Michael Moore, then it seems that Hugo Infante may have been his 'partner'.

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