Posted on 05/27/2004 9:26:51 PM PDT by Rennes Templar
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.
"It is possible, not knowing better at this time, that Aziz was/is actually a Communist."
Aziz sounds to me like a very dangerous man. It was Aziz who said (paraphrasing here)"Berg rang me at 9 or 10 am and told me he had found a lift to Jordan with some nice people and I told him to have a nice trip..."
We only have his word for that. Aziz may be responsible for Berg's fate. Aziz had access to Berg's cell phone records? And what else? His bank account? As a business partner, I imagine that he did.
If Berg had his laptop computer with him on 'the trip' with his newfound friends, what information did that contain?
I believe there are two major factions in Iraq. The Sunni and the shia. The Sunni (arabs)held power under Saddam who was a devoted fan of Stalin. The shia are in the majority in Iraq, some 60% of the population, whom Saddam oppressed. The Sunni (and wahabbe) arabs say that the shia (followers of Ali, the son-in-law of Mohammad) are apostates and do not deserve to live.
The Ba'athist party of Saddam was basically Marxist, so yes, Saddam supporters are communist. Saddam's regime was secular until it suited him to pose otherwise just before the end, when statues began to appear showing him in religious garb. A purely opportunistic stance.
The fight between the followers of two factions of islam as to which attains the Caliphate has been going on since Mohammad died. (It may continue until islam itself dies!)
The radical Left does not take history into account. I think they believe all islam is the same...Berg should have read 'The Caliphate - It's Rise, Decline and Fall' by Sir William Muir. But History, fact or truth has never influenced the Left, has it?
We must never make the same mistake. If you go to my Page you will find a link where you can download several free books on the subject of islam, written long before the islamists had a chance to revise their history with lies.
Deception is the key to how islam operates and the Left lives on lies. The two met in Iraq. One was Berg, the other may well have been Aziz.
Who is Dylan Wrynn? I have read abut 1600 posts bt I don't recall seeing that name.
See #1482
Pete Tridish..Petridish
HOLY COW!!! Aziz COULD be Pete Tridish (petri dish)???? Is there a picture? We could compare side by side!
tridish.com......coinkidink to the nth degree!!
Thank you for the ping to your excellent research!
Post #1647
"...despite the fact that it ended so tragically."
Just as the alliance between the Left and Islam will also end our culture if we allow it. Islam swears to use our very own democracy to destroy us.
What the Left does not understand, or does not want to, is that islam means to annhilate them as well. Islam and Communism have killed more people than the plagues. If I wasn't standing in the middle, I would say they deserve each other. Both are death cults. Both have killed their own people by the hundreds of millions.
Saddam worshipped Stalin. The Mufti of Jerusalem, during WW2 was a buddy of Hitler. Muslim death squads were a great help in Hitler's 'final solution'...nice friends you have Mr Michael Moore, Mr Michael Berg and Nicholas. Insane, all of them and very very dangerous people.
No... two different people. What is important is that Aziz (who is tied to Berg and therefore Prometheus Methods Tower Service) ran a website called Tridish (which could connect him to Pete Tridish who runs Prometheus Radio Project), thereby connecting Berg with PRP.
Fred, I don't recall having come across you on FR before. My loss. You, sir, are someone who "gets it." I am pleased and proud to have "met" you today.
To ALL; Please read post 1482...it has invaluable info about prisons, Republican convention, names, aliases. A great refresher course.
Memo to Michael Moore: You are VERY VERY close to being found out.
I must second Wolfstar's compliments to you. I have not been active on this thread for a couple of days due to family commitments, but I am going to do some research tomorrow. It would take me a great deal of time, however, to come up with information as valuable as that which you have uncovered. Thanks so much!
BTW, you wrote, "LPFM is a Godd Thing. Many churches have it." Was that an intended pun or a typo? ;^)
Thanks for the kind words, maybe undeserved. I think the information posted by Nita Nupress #1482 and FL-engineer #1647 are more deserving of praise. Incredible amount of detail. Hats off to both from me.
The last investigation I was involved in was over the stolen items when Clinton left the White House. Fox news picked up on it and eventually the Clintons returned the items. It was quite satisfying to know that at least they didn't get away with that crime!
Dylan Wrynn, aka "Pete Tridish"/"Petri Dish" and head of the Prometheus Radio Project.
May 19, 1993 – Aziz al-Taee (along with 24 others) are charged in Philadelphia for establishing and maintaining two competing criminal organizations, referred to as the Belkin Crack Vial Organization and the Sigal Crack Vial Organization, in order to manufacture and distribute crack vials for use by "crack" dealers in packaging and selling "crack" cocaine.
1996 – Nick Berg graduates from Henderson High School, West Chester, Pa
Fall 1996 - Winter 1997 - Cornell
Spring 1998 Semester - Ghana (Cornell Study Abroad Program), also Kenya, and Uganda
Nick enrolled as a freshman student in the College of Engineering at Cornell in the Fall of 1996. He spent the Spring 1998 semester in Uganda through Cornell’s Study Abroad Program. He took a voluntary leave of absence from the university after completing the Fall 1998 semester.
Nick Berg is remembered by his professors and classmates at Cornell as an excellent student who made the Dean’s List every semester that he studied here. His adventuresome nature took him to Uganda, where he studied development issues. He was a serious, caring individual who expressed the desire to help people and have a positive influence in the world.
Spring 1998 Semester - Drexel University
Fall 1998 Semester - Cornell
End of Fall Semester - Voluntary leave of absence from Cornell
1999 (one semester)- University of Oklahoma, civil engineering major
Nick Berg, former Lloyd Noble Center employee and OU student during 1999-2000, has received intellectual praise from his former professors.
[Lt. Bruce] Chan said that, after receiving complaints from staffers at the Oklahoma Memorial Union that Berg was camped out there, police issued a warning and then twice arrested him for trespassing, a misdemeanor. He said the arrests were in April and May 2000, but Chan did not have exact dates.
"It appeared he had no other place to sleep," said Chan, adding that Berg was no longer a student when the misdemeanor arrests took place.
Berg arrived at the Norman campus in 1999. A friend told the Oklahoma Daily newspaper yesterday that Berg had not had a place to live "because of OU housing problems."
While attending a course at a remote campus of the University of Oklahoma near an airport, Nick Berg gave his email account and password to a student on a bus who may have been an acquaintance of Moussaoui . That email account was later used by Zacarias Moussaoui, a 911 suspect who attended flight school in Oklahoma in February 2001. Mr. Berg was unaware the person had terrorist ties.
Note: Information since this posting suggests that the e-mail address was not used by Moussaoui himself, but by the aquaintance.
The director of the The University of Oklahoma is David L. Boren, mentor of CIA director George Tenet.
April/May 2000 - Lt. Bruce Chan of the university police at the Norman, Okla., campus, said yesterday by phone that Berg was busted twice for apparently living at the student union center - after he was no longer enrolled as a student.
Chan said that, after receiving complaints from staffers at the Oklahoma Memorial Union that Berg was camped out there, police issued a warning and then twice arrested him for trespassing, a misdemeanor. He said the arrests were in April and May 2000, but Chan didn't have exact dates.
Summer 2000 - Reportedly, he travels across Texas in 2000 and becomes a big fan of George Bush when Bush was still Governor and works the Republican Convention back in Philadelphia the same year. He continues to support President Bush, including the war in Afghanistan and Iraq.
2000/2001 - Nick Berg is listed as a public events attendant at Lloyd Noble center at Oklahoma University
http://news.globalfreepress.com/ewing/images/bergOK1.gif
2002 - The FBI contacts Nick Berg and questions him about the incident after his computer password turned up in Moussaoui's belongings. They cleared Berg of any terrorist links.
July 29, 2002 – Prometheus Methods Tower Services, Inc. registers as corporation with a Pennsylvania address but uses a registered agent (SARA L BERG) in Virginia Beach, VA.
March 2003 - As his business grew, Mr. Berg began plotting ways to resume his work in developing nations. With the help of the American Jewish World Service, he visited Kenya for two weeks in March 2003, working on water projects and pledging to return in the summer of 2004.
March 23, 2003 - Nick Berg’s father, Michael Berg participates in an anti-war rally. Michael Berg belonged to an organization called ANSWER, or Act Now to Stop the War and End Racism.
Aziz al-Taee speaks at the Patriots Rally for America V rally the same weekend.
December 4, 2003 – Nick Berg is interviewed by Michael Moore’s production company while attending the 2nd Rebuilding Iraq Conference in Arlington, VA.
December 21 2003 - Nicholas goes to Iraq to look for work. He also travels to Mosul to visit an Iraqi who was the brother of a man who had married his late aunt.
December 22, 2003 – Nick arrives in Israel. Sends an email home on the 26th (possibly from Jordan), he indicates that he spent two days in Israel before heading for Iraq.
December 24, 2003 – The film [Fahrenheit 9/11] contains previously unseen footage of U.S. soldiers' abuse of Iraqi detainees last Christmas Eve.
"The footage was shot in Samarra in December 2003, he[Michael Moore] told BBC News Online, but did not reply when asked which military division was involved.
Jan 4 2004 - He sends an email and describes working on towers near Abu Ghraib
Jan. 4-8: Red Cross reports improvements at Abu Ghraib.
Jan. 13: Army Spc. Joseph M. Darby, an MP with the 800th at Abu Ghraib, leaves a disc with photographs of prisoner abuse on the bed of a military investigator.
Jan. 14: Army launches criminal investigation of Abu Ghraib abuses.
Jan. 14-15: Gen. John Abizaid, chief of Central Command, tells Gen. Richard Meyers, chairman of the Joint Chiefs, of the investigation and says it is a 'big deal'.
Jan. 16: Central Command issues one-paragraph news release announcing investigation of "incidents of detainee abuse" at unspecified U.S. prison in Iraq.
January 18 2004 - He sends another email where he mentions he was arrested and released.
He also states that his company had been announced as an approved subcontractor for a broadcast consortium awarded a contract for the U.S.-controlled Iraqi Media Network (Babylon Towers with Aziz al-Taee).
February 1 2004 - He leaves Iraq.
March 7 2004 - The freerepublic website provides a list of persons under the heading HERE IS THE ENEMY -- they have posted their names On that list is Michael S. Berg, Teacher, Prometheus Methods Tower Service, Inc.,
March 14 2004 - Nick travels back to Iraq to look for work for his company, Prometheus Methods Tower Service, Inc.
March 24 2004 - He contacts his parents and tells them he will return to the States on March 30th. That same day, he is arrested near a checkpoint in Mosul by Iraqi officials. They find an Israeli stamp in his passport. They also find a copy of the Koran and other literature.
March 26 2004 - The first of three FBI questionings during his detainment.
March 31 2004 - FBI agents inform Nick’s parents that their son is alive but is in jail following an arrest.
April 1 2004 - Nick’s parents receive an email stating:
““I have confirmed that your son, Nick, is being detained by the U.S. military in Mosul. He is safe. He was picked up approximately one week ago. We will try to obtain additional information regarding his detention and a contact person you can communicate with directly,””
April 5 2004 - Nick’s parents file a suit demanding the release of their son.
April 6 2004 - Nicholas is released.
He goes back to his hotel and tells a United Press International photographer about his arrest. “"Nick told me that he was held for a few hours by the police and then taken to a U.S. military base and held for almost two weeks by the U.S. military. He repeatedly said he was held in the [Coalition Provisional Authority] jail in Mosul for two weeks," Mr. Infante said.”
April 9 2004 - He contacts his parents and says he will try to come home by way of Jordan, Turkey or Kuwait.
April 10 2004 - A State Department spokeswoman said a U.S. consular official in Iraq spoke with Berg on April 10 and offered to "assist him in departing Iraq by plane" for Jordan. She said Berg declined and said he planned to travel overland to Kuwait.
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.
His family and friends do not hear from him after that date.
"Aziz said that on April 10 Berg "surprised me by calling me at 9 or 10, to say that he found some friend to travel with to Jordan." Berg said he was en route, but Aziz doesn't know who he was with or what kind of vehicle they were driving. "He said they were nice people. I told him to have a nice trip.""
April 14, 2004 – “I [Michael Moore] currently have two cameramen/reporters doing work for me in Iraq for my movie (unbeknownst to the Army).
April 19 2004 - Three calls were made from his phone — to Jordan, to the United Arab Emirates and to a local number. No confirmation of whether it was him or someone who had taken his phone (as stated by Aziz al-Taee).
May 4, 2004 - The Walt Disney Company is blocking its Miramax division from distributing a new documentary by Michael Moore that harshly criticizes President Bush, executives at both Disney and Miramax said Tuesday.
May 5, 2004 – From Michael Moore’s website: "There is much more to tell, but right now I am in the lab working on the print to take to the Cannes Film Festival next week (we have been chosen as one of the 18 films in competition)."
May 7 2004 - An email from his parents is posted on a yahoo news groups asking for anyone with information on their sons disappearance to come forward.
May 8 2004 - His body is found on a Baghdad highway overpass. “The body found on the overpass was identified as Nick Berg, 26, of West Chester, Pa., a self-employed civilian contractor. Berg's body, with signs of trauma, was found Saturday, the military said. “
May 10 2004 - His parents are informed of his death.
May 11 2004 - The news media reports the decapitation of Nicholas Berg and the posting of the video on al-ansar.biz
“The Web site said Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, a top ally of al Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden, was the man who cut off Berg's head. The statement read out before the killing was signed off with Zarqawi's name and dated May 11.”
Iraqi police have said they did not arrest Berg.
The US says they did not detain Berg but that Iraqi police did.
May 27, 2004 – Salon.com publishes article on Michael Moore interview with Nick Berg.
May 29, 2004 – Michael Moore releases the 16 minute interview with Nick Berg to the Berg family.
Thu, 25 Jul 2002 00:58:14 -0400
Greetings!
We've been busy here at Prometheus Towers over the last few months. In early May we completed the long-term renovation of WNPV's (1440 AM out of Lansdale, Pennsylvania) day array. As part of this job we removed an obsolete lighting system from their towers, installed leg reinforcements, and applied coats of DTM primer and acrylic aviation paint to their towers. In late April we replaced a damaged guy wire for WDIH/WBN radio/TV in Salisbury, Maryland. This guy wire had been snagged by a construction vehicle during grading operations for the nearby US50 Bypass project and was badly kinked, endangering both a radio and television installation in addition to studio equipment.
More recently, also on the Eastern Shore, we moved an STL for WBEY radio (96.9 - Bay Country for Delmarva's Eastern Shore). The studio dish had been installed on a substandard and very short tower as a temporary measure and suffered from frequent interference and degradation of signal. We were able to install the component at 200' on a hot AM tower with a minimum of off-air time.
Meanwhile, development of our proprietary post-tensioned tower technology continues. At present we are preparing to stack the first modular post-tensioned structure of its kind as a demonstration project. Pictures to follow...
I hope this note finds everybody doing well. I'd like to thank all of you who have given us the opportunity to serve you in the last several months. For those of you who have not yet given us a try, I encourage you to find out what the Promethean difference is. As was the mythological son of a Titan, we are your patron - tomorrow, next week, night, day.
Remember - Man is more than fire tamed...
Best Wishes,
Nick Berg
President
Prometheus Towers
Fri, 29 Nov 2002 15:30:16 -0600
Prometheus Methods Tower Service, Inc.
An insured tower company based in the Delaware Valley
Greetings! I hope this letter finds everyone in good health and happy spirits. We wanted to take this opportunity to update some of you we haven't seen for a while and to remind everybody about the services we offer.
August brought an emergency situation with our friends at WILM 1450, a small AM station in Wilmington, Delaware. The 1st tier, Southeast guy wire on the station's 350' guyed Stainless tower had been accidentally snagged and severed while the field was being mowed. We had someone on site the same day to inspect the tower and we managed to replace the damaged wire and re-tension the tower the following day. All the more reason to keep your guy anchors fenced, gentlemen!!!
During September and the first half of October we were busy with two paint jobs. The first was on a 350' guyed tower owned by WLAN 96.9, a Clear Channel radio station outside of Lancaster, PA. The following week we were contracted by ABC radio in Washington, DC to complete the ongoing painting of the four 400' self-supporters which broadcast WMAL 630, a news-talk AM station in Bethesda, Md. This job was ongoing for much of September and the first half of October. Luckily, we no longer own the 1977 Dodge Tradesman (a white cargo van) we used in Texas and Oklahoma. Next time you're on the DC beltway, take a glance at this array on the outside (NW) side of the beltway about half way between the Old Georgetown Road and the River Road exits. No painting until this spring…
Since the WMAL job we've been busy with several relamp/inspections, some antenna installations and two full-tower insurance-company-type inspections. It looks like some more of the same for the foreseeable future, although we are anticipating a few medium sized new tower construction jobs in the coming months.
On the equipment front, the biggest news is the purchase of a new crew truck. No longer will some of you have the pleasure of ridiculing our 1993 Geo Metro convertible as we pull up to your tower, laden with equipment and splotched with Aviation Orange. As of Monday, 2 Dec 2002, the little trooper will be the property of the Salvation Army. Just remember - what mortal man lacks for in space, he makes up for in ingenuity… Some of our other equipment purchases include a Graco-made airless paint sprayer for large self-supporters and improved surveying equipment for more accurate measuring of tower plumb and tension.
I'd also like to take this opportunity personally to thank all of you who have given us a try. We pride ourselves on timely, quality and thoughtful service, and I hope some of the many jobs we've completed over the last six months have been a testament to those core values.
For those of you out there who haven't yet tried us, we encourage you to give us a call or send an e-mail anytime you need an estimate for an upcoming project. We want to show you the Prometheus difference.
Happy holidays, everybody!
"man is more than fire tamed…"
President, Nick Berg
Fri, 7 Mar 2003 22:37:25 -0500
Howdy, folks. Has the start of another winter week got you down? Looking for some distraction this Monday morning? We invite you to click on the attached word file to be regaled with a few (short) stories of adventure, history, Macgyver-like engineers, and melting earthworms. Short of that, we welcome your calls or e-mails any time you may have a question or concern. We pride ourselves on our quality service for the broadcast industry!
Two other business items: we've included an updated copy of references for those of you who are still on the fence. Also, please note that we now have a one million dollar umbrella insurance policy. This, in convoluted insurance-speak, means that our total coverage for liability is now two million dollars for any one occurrence.
Best wishes for a healthy and prosperous springtime.
Nick Berg
Prometheus Towers
Fri, 7 Mar 2003 22:37:25 -0500
Prometheus Methods Tower Service, Inc.
An insured tower company based in the Delaware Valley
Greetings! I hope this message finds everyone healthy and prosperous. The spring is blowing its way into our calendars, sounding of windy afternoons and smelling of defrosting earthworms and roadkill.
We've been busy here the last few months, considering the interruptions offered by the winter weather. We began in December of 2002 an ongoing program of inspection and service of the historic Chester, PA station, WPWA. This station has, at various times, served as a popular Philadelphia-area music station, most notably as WEEZ (your country cousin) in the seventies, and currently carries both foreign-language and religious programming.
During December and January, we performed some routine service for our friends at Worldcom/Intermedia out of their local office in Boyertown, PA. The sites these guys have!!! Armed with 4X4 Dodge Trucks, chains, and heavy plows, these guys keep a clear path open to some of the most remote sites we service. Also in the first week of January we were called by one of the DC-area Infinity Broadcasting engineers to do some emergency investigative work on one of his STL systems.
Another FM story came to us in the second half of February, when we replaced the two-bay WZBT antenna and parts of their transmission line. This college radio station for Gettysburg College is located about a half-mile from the historic battlefield monument outside of Gettysburg, PA.
The adventure of this young year so far has probably been our service trip to central NY. The good folks at Backyard Broadcast contracted us to relamp one of their remote FM sites, a short self-supporting tower at the top of an 1800' hill called Denmark Hill. 18" of packed snow and a smooth surface of hard ice run-off from a nearby stream rendered this normally rugged trail impenetrable by vehicle. We ended up hiking this mile and a half hill with all of our gear. Onsite, we found a sick incandescent lighting system responsible for their dark tower. We were able to secure the system with temporary wiring thanks to the ingenuity of a McGyver-like engineer and some of our time-trusted helpers: alligator leads, electrical tape and an old light bulb. At the end of the day we had a lit tower and some interesting pictures for the engineer's office…
The big story this February has been a new part-time addition to our crew. Scott Hollinger has several years experience training young soldiers with the United States Marine Corps cliff-assault unit. We welcome Scott to the team - hoorah! We're looking forward to several large painting jobs and two new tower installations poised to begin this spring and summer - Scott's experience and gung-ho attitude will be a real asset for us.
I hope to see many of you in the near future. We take this opportunity, also, to remind you that we're always available for questions, free estimates and site surveys for any of your future projects. To those of you who have given us the nod over the last few months, we thank you. To all of you who have not yet, we urge you to try the wings of Prometheus Towers!
Best Wishes,
Nick Berg , President
Subject: howdy from Nairobi
Date: Sun, 23 Mar 2003 05:46:37 -0600
Hey guys and ladies. This may be a repeat for some of you and some may have missed the original - I'm still hashing out this whole contact list feature on Hotmail. Perhaps someone could send me e-mails for David and anyone else I forgot...
This Sunday afternoon I'm waiting away here in Nairobi. We should be heading off to our project site up-country either this afternoon or tomorrow (or Tuesday). It's as usual tough to confirm details like this. Someone who's involved has always got a last minute wedding or a brother from somewhere up-country to attend to....
So I've had an interesting (at least to me) thought here. The big frustration we so-called Occidentals complain about on trying to work here is the casual and sometimes ridiculous way "business" happens here. You set an appointment with someone and he doesn't show for hours. You call and he has left the house (a good sign), alas not for our meeting but for someother elaborately planned operation. Finally frustrated and annoyed after waiting, you head off and find yourself delayed by a traffic back up or some such. Or maybe you struggle to break through this traffic on the way to an appointment. After some noble effort you break through, finding no sign of your contact. After wading through the backup once again, you find him waiting on the original side, where he's been for hours...
Anyhow, we all get frustrated about this aspect of life and business on the continent. The oppposite side, though, is the baggage we bring with us. Most of us Occys are very private/proper and that seems to foster mistrust. Also, we have weird habits and that seems to get in the way of clear communications. So, my local friends go to great lengths to accomadate my strange ways and appear to be accepting if skeptical. So I guess theres some kind of quid pro quo of our baggage. (although mine seems to bring less on the open market due to its general smelliness...)
Here's an interesting geo-political update from the only African country in which the US embassy closed due to action in Iraq (not including those who don't have US embassies). The Nation, and also the East African, the two more reputable papers in Kenya, are carrying all sorts of stories about opposition to the war and the newly elected President Kibaki strongly condemns this action of the coalition. Still, every where on the streets and from every African with whom I've talked there is incredible support of the campaign and real hatred of Hussein. (not counting the fact that many folks think I'm US DOD) The other side of that coin, though, is the Chinese influence. The several Chinese to whom I've talked seem to dislike the use of force as a tool of political change and are openly hostile towards GW. Still they are very excited to meet an American and they go to great lengths to prepare exotic, outlandish stir-fries for what they are convinced is a US Marine...
I'm still hunting for a Synagogue. I did slip up and inquire, while enroute London-Bahrain on GulfAir, if they by chance had any spare kosher meals. Luckily, the attendent was Indian and didn't understand what I asked for... There is a beautiful Mosque here, sprawling and very clean. The muezzin is very quiet and I can't hear him from where I stay on the other side of town. Ironically, the mosque is right next to another large, beautiful building with two NYC-style lions on its front steps - the American McMillan library. There's actually an American university here like the one in Beiruit, although they're currently on break.
So I'm actually staying at a YMCA hostel. It's clean and they offer boiled water service to their guests. Works out that I get a 20 Ksh /day discount (about 30 cents) owing to my special status in the YMCA organization. Still, I don't want to hear anything about the Village People song. With the addition of the 45 Kg punching bag I made yesterday, it's become a very manly place, oo-rah!
So now for the obligatory language exchange:
Habari ya (si mbaya)/jioni? How is (the morning)/the evening?
(Nzuri...)/Pole pole... (It's good...)/It's OK.
Check your letters from 1998, folks. The Luganda phrase mpola n'pola means "slowly by slowly" or "so-so." So you can see some of the similarities between Swahili and Luganda, both Bantu-language based.
Asanti! Thanks!
Karimbu... You're welcome (also, you're welcome here)
More to come just as soon as I can learn it...
OK. I hope everybody's well and enjoying the spring.
Take it easy from Nairobi (for now)
Nick Berg
Prometheus Towers
1646
5 April 2003
Lazards @ Simmers
Kenyatta Avenue, Nairobi
Howdy folks. I hope this message find you all enjoying the spring if and when it shows its face. I’m so used to being constantly bombarded (literally, for those AM customers out there) with “hour’s latest, most up-to-date, weather and traffic reports” that I am a bit shocked to not even know what the weather is like in my beloved Delaware Valley. At least I have been bombarded with the latest, most popular song around Nairobi sufficiently – “Bomba Train” – on average once every fifteen minutes or so while working on local radio station towers. For the time I’ve spent on local TV station towers I think I have the “CNN” logo permanently branded on my leg, right along-side the Uchumi slogan (recall from last week’s letter about the East African Wal-Mart) and perhaps the occasional “Yeh Ssebo” beer bottle (Uganda horse-swill roughly translated as “yes sir!” Anyhow, I hope everybody’s doing well. For those on this list who are at NAB in Las Vegas I hope you give all of your money to the casino swine and come back with little more than a sun-burn and more confusion about Ibiquity and Digital AM. Las Vegas in April… (Sorry, inside broadcast engineer’s joke…)
So the last week I’ve been pretty involved with business for Prometheus Towers, quickly becoming the largest and most popular revenue-free tower service company in all of East Africa. We’ve been to see the Managing Directors, Technical Directors and even some Charimen of just about all of the Kenyan broadcast organizations. Some of these are multi-country companies, too, so we’ve touched on the Kampala (Uganda) market and even the Dar es Saalam (Tanzania) market. Mostly I’ve run into considerable interest about upcoming expansions and new stations to be built. With the departure of what’s-his-name Arap Moi, Kenya’s 25-year popularly selected president, the airwaves have opened considerably and now look more to me like the wild-west days of the early 1900’s in the USA. It was only in 1997 and 1998 that the first two private radio stations were allowed licenses – until then and even now KBC was the sole (legal) voice and picture of the country. Now, there are about 10 commercial radio around Nairobi and something like 5-6 commercial TV. There are also several non-profit type or religious stations which broadcast locally. Still, the up-county market is still largely dominated by KBC and so this is where most of the large media companies are focusing – we have requests-for-proposals to build at least ten new stations or repeater stations in areas ranging from Kisumu to Mombasa . Some of these RFQs are to be taken lightly as the request comes from an organization which probably can’t support the expansion, but I’m very confident that four of these ten requests are genuine and will result in actual projects. That said, there are other competing companies who attempt to do tower work and there are also two reasonably established engineering outfits who do a good job of the transmitter/antenna design and sub-contract the tower work. It’s probably a 50-50 chance that we’ll land at least one of these projects. I’ve seen my rates to be competitive for engineering and even for tower work but not, obviously, for mobilization and logistics.
There’s no question that we’re one of only two quality tower service outfits in town (excepting the ex-pat firms which are brought in from time to time by the mobile phone market, something we aren’t really exploring.) There is one local company called Webb Industries which is a very competent, capable design-purchase-build firm that handles a good majority of the mobile business. Still, they don’t really specialize in broadcast and I think our experience and knowledge about broadcast leaves us on the same footing. So we’ll see…
Interestingly, we just missed a good opportunity to dive right into the shit and build a small tower in Mogadishu for a Voice of America affiliate. Because this project was for an affiliate and thus not an IBB-run outfit, we did not have an opportunity to bid this through normal US government means. I met the regional operator for VOA and it seems they have a few projects like this in the works – a stand alone FM in Kampala and one in Addis Ababa, Eithiopia. I think he’s a good guy to know because he is friendly with and helps wherever possible all of the VOA affiliates in East-Central Africa just like the good folks at ESPN Sports or PA Radio Network help (usually) their local affiliates…
Anyhow, that’s business. We’ve done a few complementary inspections and perhaps two revenue inspection/repair jobs this coming week (in all reality probably not so likely). We’re also heading to Mombasa on Tuesday to inspect a large array operated by the Department of Meteorology who has regional responsibility to provide weather information broadcasts to the entire Central African, Indian Ocean coast region. As of right now they maintain sizable SW, HF and some VHF and point-to-point services. Like everyone else they are attempting to mechanize and transition to satellite, but meanwhile they still have hundreds of towers in the air and a burning stick to their butt owing to the recent collapse of a few…
Otherwise, things here are cool. We went to Meshanani again this last Tuesday for a full day – it’s about a 3.5 hour drive each way but we saved the expenses of hiring a tent and all that. We got in a good six hours on-site and accomplished quite a lot towards revising the well project. It’s looking like our best option is going to be using a hand-powered drilling machine rather than attempting to dig a large-diameter hole by hand. This will substantially reduce the time needed to hit the basement and hopefully still train local folks sufficiently to repeat the process without outside influence.
We (me and three of the guys from MERC) also met Anya Guyer, the program officer for AJWS, on Friday afternoon. She happens to be in Nairobi for some work with other NGO’s with which AJWS is involved. It was strange but very pleasant to meet someone with such similar ideas after weeks of “Mzungu buy me bread” and of my Maasai friends shaking their heads humorously as I mangled their language. Mahta enya maali…
So last night was the first Friday in months when I was actually in-town (i.e. not on a job-site) and new where the synagogue was. There is a beautiful Orthodox synagogue in Nairobi, apparently built or at least sanctioned by one of the Governors of the East African Protectorate in something like 1912 (read off one of the cornerstones). It’s a good size building in a well-fenced compound which serves a small (50 permanent) Jewish population in Kenya. It’s also orthodox meaning I was totally clueless without the grammatical transliteration I use at “cheater” services for us who can’t read Hebrew. It was still extremely nice to visit and I met some very interesting people. I was actually the (unexpected) tenth adult male when I showed up and so, I guess, the only reason the heart of the service could proceed. I felt kind of phony though, because I was greeted with a sort of relieved “finally/let’s get on with it/soups on” handshake as my jean-clad figure crossed the Mezuzah (sp?)…
Otherwise we’re planning to go to Mombasa Tuesday and Wednesday to do some inspection repairs and we’ll probably swing by Meshanani one more time if my new toy arrives. I have this strong desire to visit this new station in Mogadishu and am very tempted since the bus ride only costs about US$25 each way and there isn’t, needless to say, a very strong visa-contigent at the Somali border right now. We’ll see. It’s apparently very stable right now and the VOA guy I met had just returned when I saw him with all ten fingers. I may leave my kippah behind…
Here’s a brief list of mixed Kiswahili and Maa phrases:
Kiswahili:
Hapanafanya It’s not working
Haifanyi Don’t do it
Ibiniyini What’s this? Anti? Pardon? (same in Luganda)
Aya… Yes, uh-huh
Akuna matata There’s no problem.
Tulia… Keep it cool, calm down
Ny yako? and you?
Haraka Quickly
Twa zienda We are going (in Nairobi slang, dancing)
Kupewa tunapewa We have been given
(These last three taken from the smash hit Bomba Train, a dance song mostly in Kiswahili. There’s even some rapping in Kiswahili. Alas, the author died two weeks ago in a car accident, another one-hit-wonder.)
Tafjadhali piga maji baada ya haja ndogo aukubwa. I’m not so sure about this one, but based on context I think it’s roughly equivalent to “If you sprinkle when you tinkle be a sweety and wipe the seaty…)
Maa:
Mahta enya maali there’s no problem
Kakuyia sopa Formal respectful greeting to a real elder (i.e. older than everybody else)
Eiro sopa There’s no consensus on this one.
Jacque, Motto Tours secretary and my most reliable source for spelling and pronunciation says it’s a general hello to someone in your age group but not in your village. The idea is that you are gently putting them down by acting as if you are not sure they’ve been circumcised (i.e. passed through the warrior ceremony) and therefore they’re something like a grown child. I think. Other people tell me it’s just if you truly don’t know and only for folks younger than you or your own age. Whatever – it’s definitely not appropriate for someone older than you.
OK, I’ve got to vacate this computer and head back out onto the Saturday streets. The favorite past-time of many of the market hawkers has been to figure out my occupation. They started as “hey John” assuming I was USMC. Then one day they saw me in my lifting boots still slathered with paint from WMAL and they moved to “hey John, you are a painter, sawo, you paint very well, sawo.” Today I only had my green notebook and I think they took me for a student. It’s a shame that my Kiswahili is not up to conveying sarcasm just yet. It’s not really beyond a “Hi, goodbye, where’s the toilet, let’s go (home, not let’s go to the toilet) “ level. I have secured a short book of Maa proverbs (some hauntingly familiar to certain Yiddish expressions I can remember reading) and am going to concentrate my language learning efforts on Maa when I return.
Best wishes and howdy from Nairobi. See everybody soon…
Nick Berg
Prometheus Towers
Date: Fri, 26 Dec 2003 11:57:52 -0600
Subject: Prometheus Towers/Nick howdy from the Middle East
Hi folks -
Knowing in advance that most of you will madly delete this message due to its generic form-letter quality, I submit this brief summary of my travels thus far.
If you would like me to remove you from the receive list, or want to add someone, please let me know. Sorry to clog the boxes of those who are uninterested...
So I flew El-Al, just barely, on the 22nd (Monday). They were not able to check my equipment on the same check, meaning I arrived at Ben-Gurion with some climbing rope, my notebook, and a jacket. I did manage to scrape together some olive leaves for rigging, but not much in the way of change of clothes or anything. After a rather lengthy interrogation courtesy of the Israeli Airport Police and then Internal Security, I set off to City Center and found my way in to my first real gyp of the trip. Being tired and anxious to set down my 200' climbing rope (wrapped around my head in a manner suggestive of certain Palestinian tribes), I wimped out and got a room at a "regular" establishment, rather than a C-W or C-H Motel as those of you familiar with Prometheus Towers SOP whilst traveling, will understand. Anyhow, I ended up at the beautiful Metropolitan Hotel nearly on the Mediterranean just south of City Center and (I found out the next morning while running) adjacent to the US Embassy. It really was a nice place and for the 300 some Shekels it cost I really rammed them for almost two days worth of service and several free gallons of tap water. Grandpop/mom Berg would have been proud... My conclusion after about 24 hours on the waterfront there is: coastal Tel-Aviv is sort of like Atlantic City, only backwards, and not as much Yiddish.
Anyhow - those of you who recently consulted in the great clothes-buying epidemic of December 2003 will be horrified to hear – rather than spending my first (and last, for a little while) full day in Israel in the Negev looking for a good rock to climb, I found myself in the common market buying clothes. I left there looking rather dapper, I must say. Olive green slacks and a khaki vest, sure to say "I might be a westerner but I won't admit it" right away. On my way to Jordan I got several comments from the many border guards I saw, so I am confident my mission succeeded.
OK – I'll summarize here. This anecdote will necessarily leave off before my current location, so don't anyone get wise on me and pick up a map. I left Tel-Aviv for the Jordan Valley Border Crossing, passing some beautiful land and a large prison on the way. The crossing was not as involved as I expected but still very lengthy. I had no problem leaving Israel and only a little suspicion entering Jordan. At the time my combined Hebrew vocabulary consisted of about five words, though, so I was in a weird way happy to leave and get back into good ole' Arab-speaking lands (seeing as how my pre-trip Arabi vocab sported at least 15-20 words). Five minutes into the 150 km-long taxi ride to Amman, though (it was too late for the public bus I tried to catch), I realized how different the East African/Swahili accent and the "true" Arabi are. I'm just now realizing that, although I can write words and expressions for a number of occasions, and say them, too, my pronunciation is so off that I must sound to these guys like a Texan Mexican does to a Peruvian or Spaniard.
So I safely reached Amman and found a really cool place called Firas Palace which featured an Elevator and a tape recorded sound track reminiscent of the Havana Inn in Kampala, circa 1998. (Michael Jackson, over and over again). Other than several beautiful Minirets and a good 600' tower, I can't say much about Amman.
I will give more detail on my next message. For the stockholders out there – we've made some contacts and I am seeing some opportunities here. Bear with me and I promise dividends. For the mean time I hope everyone had a safe and happy holiday of whatever form you chose. Feel free to respond anytime you like…
Sincerely
Nick Berg Prometheus Towers
Date: Sun, 04 Jan 2004 11:43:44 -0600
Subject: Howdy from Prometheus Towers/Nick in Mosul
1935
4 Jan 2004
"Raya Net" internet services; Shara Ejammual Mosul, Iraq
Hello Folks. I hope everyone is well and enjoyed an excellent holiday season. For those who celebrated – happy whatever... I apologize in advance for sending one message only – the e-mail is very slow and this will take several hours to send. It's just too much of a time drag to send several. Please alert me if you would like to be removed from my list.
I am well here in Iraq – for the last two days I have been in and around Mosul (Northern Iraq, on the outskirts of Kurdistan) which is a welcome break from the smog and crowds of Baghdad. Of course Mosul, Iraq's second largest city, is crowded and smoggy too, but at least we're only 20 kilometers from some bonafide hills and open space. I think this country is as crowded as California, and very similar in some ways. There are large parts of California which are un-populated, just as here – but along the rivers and in the north Iraq is chock full of people. There is also a great diversity of land type here – from the border in Jordan it is very arid desert, sand and rock and this. But along the Tigris, it's sort of half tropical (still not very humid) with palm trees and plenty of agriculture. Up here, it's more mountainous and even to the east, on the border with Iran, there are some good size hills and more temperate, even cold, steppe-type lands. Enough geography, I guess everybody wants to hear about the towers and the people. For those of you who don't care about the business side of things – the tower stuff is first, followed by the people stuff.
In the last two days I have inspected two surviving towers for the IMN (state run broadcast media). IMN is now being "managed" or overseen by the CPA, through a contract with an American consulting company who does not specialize in broadcast, telecommunications or anything nearly so specific. They are possessed of some excellent, very experienced staff, though, and they seem to have recruited some excellent engineers. I finally made my way to the head broadcast engineer on this project (Lou Brown, a former VOA guy, for you radio engineers) and gave him the hard sell. He has a huge number of damaged and down sites, most of them victims of the looting following the fall of the regime. Anyhow, since I was planning to go to Mosul, I offered to inspect a few tower's of his choice so that I could show him what sort of experience and knowledge we have. Saturday I got onto a really over-engineered 328 meter tower just on the edge of Mosul, currently supporting Channel 7, a 20 kW VHF television station around here. The tower was fabricated in Iraq and has more steel per vertical foot than any tower I've ever been on, the 2000' kings down in Texas included. It's a four-legged guyed tower (with three guy alleys – do the math on that one) and has legs made of four 4"X4"X1/2" angles. Everything is bolted – everything. It probably took a crew a week to assemble one twenty foot section – I stopped counting bolts at 100 per vertical foot! So anyhow, this massive tower is home to a cantilevered, on-air VHF antenna and a 6-1/8" flexible transmission line. That's it. No lights, no lightning arrester, no grounding, nothing else. WARNING TO CASUAL READERS, TECHNICAL STUFF AHEAD: Of course the antenna matching unit (it's a 48 panel - 12X4 - C&S manufacture antenna) is all shot up and has four kinked feed lines, no weatherproofing, and a VSWR of around 1.4. Plus, Uncle Sam now overseas an 1100' lightning rod about two miles from a very active airfield and ten miles from a civilian airport – no lights. So I hope we can get involved in this work.
Sunday we went out to a site called Al Khayzer, which used to house an AM broadcast site on 607 kHz or so. What's left is the 150 meter tower, guyed, with 1" guy wires, sitting on the biggest base insulator I've ever seen – probably 4 feet high and three feet in diameter. The whole tower was looted, including some of the diagonals on the first 50' and the lighting system. These have been replaced, but it was kind of un-nerving to inspect this thing with so many incongruities. Monster guy wires, with monster Johnny-ball insulators, but little 1/2" stainless hardware at the guy takeoff points. And there were fox-holes dug all around the tower, which was right on the edge of Kurdish-controlled territory. Still, it was beautiful, a really superb piece of engineering nestled on a beautiful riverside. It was much more peaceful there and I would have taken a good long hike in the hills if I had not hopped a ride with the ultra gung ho contract security guys. Tomorrow (Monday) I'll inspect a site in Sinjar (west of Mosul, towards the Syrian frontier and as close as I'll ever come to Syria). Then I'm back to Baghdad to hire our local business manager and hopefully get on two 1000' towers outside of Baghdad at Abu Ghreb (the site of a notorious prison for Army and political prisoners). So I am reasonably confident we can score some work out of this. It's treacherous, though – there are so many parties involved in this work and they all sub-contract to people and none of them are specialists like us. It's unheard of for a company to actually have skilled specialists here – I think this gives us an advantage, but we have to get past the "I have a friend" stage. I'm hoping a good business manager will move this along.
END OF (MOST) OF THE TOWER STUFF
Otherwise, I came to Mosul to meet Moffak Mustaffa Yasin, Mudafer's (my paternal uncle) brother. It was very easy to find his office (it took about one hour of broken Arabic and a few family-tree sketches). Unfortunately, I had missed him Saturday morning while I was on business, and he doesn't keep afternoon hours. So today, after I got back from Al Khayzer, I went again and had missed him again. This time I had the afternoon to devote to it, and through the much appreciated assistance of one of his colleagues and many hours of questing, we finally arrived at his home off of Sharaa Soma in Mosul. Again, he wasn't home, although I did meet his son Faras (about 20) and caught a glimpse of his wife (name unknown). Moyser (Moffak's brother) doesn't live at the same house. I still don't know where he is. Back to the Ninaveh Palace (where I'm staying tonight) I went, and I see a man gesturing at the desk with one of my cards. Ever the opportunist, I put on my best Arabic and introduced myself as "Bodgne Berg" (tower guy). Of course that was Moffak and got along splendidly. We spent a few hours and I helped him establish an e-mail account. The bank account is still waiting as he claims none of the Mosul banks will do international wires – I'll probably have to open in Baghdad. It was a very interesting time and I noticed again that there is a huge disconnect with relationships here. My presence near Moffak made him more concerned (about his own safety and probably mine too) than I've been the entire time I've been here. Mosul is very calm – except for the Army convoys and check-points, you can't really tell there is an occupation. Baghdad every night you here IEDs and such, but here I've yet to here or see anything except a few aged craters.
Still, there is obviously quite a difference to someone who lives here and will face the same people and situations day in and day out. The funny thing about this experience is that it's very hard not to have opinions about the Arabs I meet. Most of the Saharan and nomadic people I've met or worked with (like the Maasai) have some very culture-peculiar characteristics that can be un-seemly to Westerners. Like the Arabs, they are very rude when waiting in lines, driving, buying things, etc...Same goes here – one thousand times. There really is no line waiting, even when you are half-way into a transaction and have dinars waving and such. Same with driving, although in their defense, a lot of the roads are strangely laid out or have been detoured due to checkpoints and such. Another thing that's off-setting to the westerner is it's very hard to get details. This is another characteristic for which I was somewhat prepared, but not to the extent I've found. The Maasai will give directions like this – " Go down the road (there is only one road so no need to name it), pass the tree (same) and you'll find such and such near the wadi – creek." At least in a dry, almost desert-like place there are very few landmarks so when you find one it's obvious.
Here, the directions are something like: "Pass to Sharaa Soma, the shop is near the University." Of course there are thousands of shops along the Ejammual (University) street, all of them near the University. So anywhere I'm looking, the guy did OK. But to find the place? Anyhow, I find myself walking the usual fine line between the other Americans I meet who have next to know contact with the "average" Arab, and still have very advanced opinions, and the local contacts I have, who are mostly Arab, a few Kurds, and exhibit these and more characteristics that can be frustrating to a Westerner. Another thing that's tough for me is the language – in Bantu languages the accents are easier to pick up and there are more vowels. Arab is a very intricate language with very fine accents and tons of consonants. So as much as I know the right words and can understand some of them being spoken, I can't say them worth a damn to the fellow who doesn't understand English (about 95% of the people I meet). It's actually quite a bit like Maa (the language of the Maasai) which is big on inflection and short on syllables).
So that's it for now. One more day to play in the hills, then back to Baghdad and hopefully some contract signing. I will not be returning on 8 Jan, as originally scheduled. The way I see it, we're this far in (time and money) – I've got to stay the course to see some of these opportunities to fruition.
Best Wishes to all!
Nick Berg Prometheus Towers
From: Nick Berg [mailto:climbing_hand@hotmail.com]
Sent: Sunday, January 18, 2004 11:36 AM
To:
Subject: The long-awaited, wordy, impersonal e-mail log from Prometheus Towers/Berg Subject: The long-awaited, wordy, impersonal e-mail log from Prometheus Towers/Berg
Hello folks. I hope everyone is staying warm over there. From what I've been able to pick up on shortwave, it's ridiculous cold in the Northeast. I guess I shouldn't say that it's been averaging around 17 (Celsius) over here, and this last week I was in Diwaniya (in the South-Central) where it probably broke 25 (Celsius). We did have a wicked sand storm last Tuesday, probably about three hours of really intense dust blowing around everywhere.
I was in Baghdad at the time so I wasn't able to get the best view of it. The night before, while on a 328 meter tower near Abu Gharib (see below), it went from the usual dead calm to a pretty stout 20 knot blow from the West.
That night it rained pretty heavy, and the whole next day was pretty windy. Other than that there's been essentially no weather.
TOWER STUFF FOLLOWS:
I guess it's been a busy time since my trip to Mosul and the great quest to locate Uncle-In-Law Moffak. The week of 4 Jan 2004 was very busy as there were several RFQ's (requests for quotations) due by the end of the week, most only announced Monday. This gave us little time to respond to some very appropriate bid requests. The other big news was the announcement Friday morning (9 Jan 2004) that the Harris/Al-Fawares/Lebanon Broadcast Company consortium had finally been awarded the new IMN contract. With out getting too technical, this is a one year (at least) contract to operate and rehabilitate the former Ministry of Information, Minister Naji's turf.
The reason this is good news is that we were announced as Harris's approved tower sub-contractor about two days before the award, and we have been working with Al-Fawares since I met one of their guys in early December.
Practically, this means we should be involved with quite a bit of tower work as part of the reconstruction, repair and new construction of the statewide Iraqi Media Network (something like PBS/NPR in the US). There are other private broadcasters being licensed, and there are folks like the VOice of America and the CPA operating small stations, but when it comes to existing broadcast, IMN is it. So we're fairly happy about this development.
Following this news, I set out to expand my knowledge of as many of the existing tower sites as possible. So between the 11th January and the time of writing, I have been on six major sites, inspecting towers and cataloging the extent of looting/sabotage damage. Most of the destruction was intentional looting or even sabotage on the numerous (at one time twenty-six) tall towers in Iraq. There are twenty-two left, and at least ten have some major problems. The worst site I have been on was the Abu Gharib I tower, a 320 meter (1040') guyed tower in the main broadcast complex for Baghdad, near the Abu Gharib political prisons. This complex had 26 towers in it for everything from Microwave to Shortwave to FM and VHF. There are two tall towers (I & II) and the shorter of the two (I), is ready to come down. These are massive structures with 10' faces, 1-1/2" guy wires, and 12"X12"X1" angle legs. Abu Gharib I is missing a guy wire, has three frayed guys, and has had most of the diagonal bracing at the base removed, by torch and by shear force (i.e. Land Rover and cable). The missing guy wire was probably due to nearby shelling, the rest is due to looting. While the two main broadcast antennas are intact (probably the looters got tired of climbing) the main transmission lines (mostly 6-1/8" flexible coax) have been stolen.
This is a common MO, these guys would cut out a long section of hanging transmission line and let it fall to the ground. One out of three would get caught up in the tower (where they remain today) looking like a hundred foot coax-pretzel. We're going to have our hands full just getting these sections free of the tower.
LESS TOWER STUFF:
At any rate, I've also been in the South a little, two sites near the small farm towns of Ash Shomali and Al-Diwaniya. For those interested, these are about 180 kilometers, (115 miles) south of Baghdad, along the main road to Basra and Kuwait. My three days in the SouthCentral was by far the most pleasant time I've spent in Iraq. The Shomali site is one of tallest towers in-country, and sit's out in the middle of a fairly peaceful, flat, irrigated farming area. From the top of that tower (which is in excellent shape and currently broadcasts on UHF) I sat and watched a few farmers with donkeys, the little town area of Shomali (about four blocks long and mostly dedicated to Petrol/Benzine stations) and mostly a lot of open space.
The air was clean (er), and when I'm climbing these towers I even get to go a few hours without some awkward "Americai?" question. (The answer to which is usually "Sawa" - as you like). I have been taken for "Turkiye" a few times, and this can be very handy as it shuts people up real quick, most Iraqis not speaking Turkish.
So Shomali was nice, and I managed to rescue some of the light-bulbs from the top beacon of the tower, which hadn't been replaced since 1997. I guess the no-fly zones in the North led all the broadcast engineers here to forget about tower-lighting for a while. We feel this is a big problem, now, as there are hundreds of tall and medium-height towers in some very flat places, many of which are frequented by the usually-low-flying helicopters of the Coalition. Just last week a Coalition helicopter ran into a short utility tower in the North near Mosul, knocking out one of the main 400 kV lines.
The other site I visited in the South was Diwaniya, a larger town with some big grain silos and two universities. It's also home to Camp Santo Domingo, one of the many non-US military bases. I actually had to meet An American CPA guy who worked there and so I got into the base - it was full of Dominican soldiers. So here, in the heart of Babil Province in the biblical land of Babil, where most CPA guys don't speak Arabic or Spanish, and none of the Dominican's seemed to speak English, and most of the rural Iraqis of the area don't speak English (and none speak Spanish), we were all truly confounded. It was really a very humorous situation in fairly calm area of the country. The other interesting thing about this area is that, for some reason, there are supposedly a good deal of Iranian spies who wander over and sneak about. This actually became quite relevant to my stay in Diwaniya. Isn't this starting to read like a mystery novel...
So this last Thursday afternoon I had the bright idea of running down to Diwaniya to inspect this temporary tower which was built by the former FPS (something like the Secret Service). This is one of many portable sites which were set up in strategic areas to beam the message out. Most have been abandoned, but the tower in this case is still in good shape. SO anyhow, Thursday about 1200 I left Baghdad and enjoyed a beautiful sunny afternoon and a peaceful bus-ride to Diwaniya (about two and a half hours).
I get off the bus in this little town and set out to find this site, on the outskirts of town. As usual, the directions are something like - go to Diwaniya and get on the main highway. On the way out of town, there is a tower. It's across from Al-Qadisiyah (which turned out to be a University and thus a good landmark. Without knowing too much Arabic, though, one can't tell what Al Qadisiyah is - a street, a house, a person, a sheep...).
So I finally find the site at around 1900, it's dark and I can barely make out the tower. But I found it and learned what I needed to know. I make my way back to the Garage Baghdad (which is where the service-taxis leave periodically throughout the day). By this time I had missed the last public service-taxi to Baghdad, so I started to negotiate with a throng of taxi drivers (none of whom had a car - that's kind of an afterthought to actually winning the negotiations). I've got one down to 30,000 ID (about $20 at the time) when the IP (Iraqi National Police) swings by on patrol. It seems they had reports about unknown Iranian people infiltrating their town, and at night they can't see much of my face. Anyhow, the story ends in a rather anti-climatic fashion - the police collect me and take me off to the Lieutenant who is more worried for my safety than about me being an Iranian spy. By the time the story get's told and re-translated a few times, they've got me being picked up at the sheep market amidst a bunch of Turkish truck drivers. So I am invited to spend the night in Diwaniya (which I do) and the next morning after hours of waiting and re-telling the sheep story I get on my way back to Baghdad. The sad part is I didn't really have a great desire to return to Baghdad - it's so much nicer out in the country.
But I didn't come prepared to stay in Diwaniya and I had a meeting I needed to attend.
Other than that, we're trying to wrap up our preparations here so I can get back to the US. I think our interests will be well taken care of while I'm gone. I've found a very competent and fairly reliable commercial Manager here. He's actually been living in Philadelphia the last twenty years and just came back - so he's similarly a bit out of his element. Imagine coming home to a country so different form where you grew up. We're right now at an office near the sporting club where he played European Football as a kid.
Since then it's been destroyed, rebuilt, run by Oday, son of Hussein, and finally privatized. The fact alone that he and I are just now sitting in a free and open internet shop is unbeliveable to most Iraqis. Even a year ago he would have been arrested upon his return. Neither of us would be seeing the un-restricted internet. At any rate, Aziz will do us well I think, and I'm happy I finally found someone I can strategize with.
So I'll be back soon and I hope everybody's doing well. Take care to all.
Sincerely
Nick Berg
Prometheus Towers
Mudafer Uncle (Paternal uncle, brother of Moffak Mustaffa Yasin) Moffak Mustaffa Yasin (brother of Paternal Uncle) Faras (son of Moffak Mustaffa Yasin) Moyser (Moffak's brother)Are Yassin and Yasin interchangeable? Nowhere is Yassin used.
And then there is the following early news report:
"The observers drew attention to the fact that Berg’s aunt is an American married to an Iraqi by the name of Mustafa al-Muzfar residing in the city of Mosul, in the north of Iraq, and that Berg enjoyed a very good relationship with his aunt’s husband. It is also worth pointing out that Berg was opposed to the US occupation of Iraq, a reason that would have been sufficient for the Iraqi resistance to release him if he had actually been captured by resistance men. "Asia Africa Intelligence Wire, May 19, 2004 pNA
"Iraqi observers" claim US "staged" Berg execution - Quds press.
Full Text: COPYRIGHT 2004 Financial Times Ltd.
(From BBC Monitoring International Reports)
Source: Quds Press news agency, London, in Arabic 19 May 04
Note: I accessed the above article from the Public Library online service, therefore I cannot provide a link.
Excellent point. My opinion the left understands radical islam and sees it as a tool to bring down modern western(i.e Judeo-Christian) civilization.
But the starry eyed dimwits don't see that they will also be consumed by islam.
If they were to succeed with using radical isalm as a tool, they will meet the same fate as Trotsky.
Berg yes, but when did Aziz get to Iraq?
This is silly and truly a coincidence, but because she inserted herself in the news again, it occurred to me reading this dateline how weird that Alexandra Polier (intern who allegedly had an affair with Kerry) lives in Nairobi.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.
