If you go to http://nickberg.org and read his emails, you can see that he only went to Iraq to try to get business -- to make contacts, etc.
In fact, in one of the emails, he tells his friends and family that he's trying to get a business manager over there and that he's not going to be coming home the first week in January as he told him he would. He came home the end of January.
The emails seem very genuine, IMO.
So you don't think he was being offered a job as a documentary photographer by MM? Is your tinfoil coming off just when it was starting to get interesting? :o)