The original thread about the American who was beheaded was locked, but nowhere in that monkey poo did I read anything about the actual man, Nicholas Berg, and his story in the war-torn country. the original article said he was a contractor, but after reading further information, I can't tell if he was a civilian contractor or just a guy who "wanted to help build the infrastructure of Iraq." not only that, he was detained by Iraqi authorities in March for being involved in suspicious activities, visited and questioned by FBI, released in early April, then he went missing again. and his family was suing Donald Rumsfeld?(before they learned of his murder) what is the story behind this guy? as more information surfaces, I find it more and more fishy Berg had gone to Iraq to work on communication towers and had been missing since April 9. Berg was detained by Iraqi police at a checkpoint in Mosul on March 24, under suspicion of possible involvement in illegal or terrorist activities. He was released April 6. The day before his release, Berg's family filed a lawsuit against Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld and the Defense Department, saying the United States was holding its son without merit. Berg told his family he was arranging to come home before he disappeared. Senor said FBI officials met with Berg while he was in the custody of Iraqi police in Mosul. But he said Berg was never in U.S. custody and that decisions about his detention and release were up to the Iraqi police. The FBI "met with him on three occasions and made their own determination that he was not suspected of being involved in any criminal or terrorist activities. But he was at no time under the jurisdiction or within the detention of coalition forces," Senor said. The FBI issued a statement Wednesday saying that the Coalition Provisional Authority offered to give Berg "safe passage" out of Iraq, but he refused. "He also refused government offers to advise his family and friends of his status," the FBI statement said. In addition, the statement said Berg's remains were found Saturday, May 8, not Monday as previously reported. Family accuses U.S. government Berg's brother, David, told reporters outside his family's house Wednesday that the family received e-mails from Berg after his release in which he made clear he had been held by U.S. forces. In an interview with Boston radio station WBUR on Tuesday, Berg's father, Michael, said: "I still hold [Rumsfeld] responsible because if they had let him go after a more reasonable amount of time or if they had given him access to lawyers we could have gotten him out of there before the hostilities escalated. "That's really what cost my son his life was the fact that the U.S. government saw fit to keep him in custody for 13 days without any of his due process or civil rights and released him when they were good and ready." The interviewer asked, "Do you really blame Donald Rumsfeld for your son's death? And will you do anything in addition to that lawsuit you had filed?" Michael Berg responded, "It goes further than Donald Rumsfeld. It's the whole Patriot Act, it's the whole feeling of this country that rights don't matter anymore because there are terrorists about. "Well, in my opinion 'terrorist' is just another word like 'communist' or 'witch,' and it's a witch hunt, and this whole administration is just representing something that is not America, not the America I grew up in." Timeline and Link Intro: An al Qaeda-linked Web site posted video Tuesday of an American being beheaded by masked men. The man identifies himself in the video as Nicholas Berg. Berg, 26, owned a communications equipment company in Pennsylvania, according to his family, but was not a soldier or a civilian employee of the Pentagon, the State Department said. Click through for a timeline of events. Sources: CNN, The Associated Press December 2003-Early February 2004: Berg makes his first trip to Iraq. Berg's family said he wanted to help rebuild Iraq's infrastructure. March 14, 2004: Berg returns to Iraq and remains in daily contact with his parents back in Pennsylvania. He does not find work and plans to return home on March 30, according to the Associated Press. March 24, 2004: Communication between Berg and his family ends. March 30: Berg's father waits at JFK airport in New York for his son, who does not show up. March 31: The FBI tells the Berg family that Nicholas had been picked up by Iraqi police in Mosul and transferred to U.S. authority. A coalition spokesman said on May 12 that Berg was never in U.S. custody, but was detained by Iraqi policemen, who thought Berg was involved in suspicious activities. The FBI visited Berg three times while he was in detention and determined he was not involved with criminal or terrorist activities, said the spokesman. April 5: The Berg family sues Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld and the Defense Department for holding their son without merit. April 6: Berg is released from custody, and the lawsuit is abandoned. April 9: Berg disappears shortly after telling his parents he would try to leave Iraq as soon as possible. May 8: Berg's body is found by an Army patrol on a roadside near Baghdad, and his parents are informed soon after. May 11, 2004: The videotaped beheading of Nicholas Berg is posted on an al Qaeda-linked Web site.
...or if they had given him access to lawyers we could have gotten him out of there before the hostilities escalated. Think there are a lot of American lawyers over there in Iraq right now? Might take a while to get the public defender to see you if you're in an Iraqi jail.
I haven't figured this out, either. He was having a hard time finding work in Iraq... so, he's not there for the hot chicks, he's not there for the scenery, he's not there for his family or friends, he's not there as a soldier, he's not really there for his job (if he's trying to find work)... ... hello? war zone? not the best place to be hanging around for no reason note: I don't want to sound insensitive to his murder. It was terrible. My confusion lies in the fact that it seems that it could have easily been avoided. -- droxford
From what it sounds to me, he was working there, returned home and basically got bored and went back (to iraq) to find another job. Probably alot had to do with the money he was making over there and he thought he could go back and find anotehr position working on towers. It sounded liek he was trying to find employment there but I dunno. This morning on teh radio I heard 3 different agencies told him for his safety he should leave the country (since he essentially had no protection). he didn't do it. So maybe it was greed, maybe it was just a sense of adventure but something made him go back over there.
This is so completely tasteless that even I am offended by it. Have you seen this man have his head *sawed* off yet? I suggest you watch the video. You would have a little more respect for this man, and the family that now mourns his gruesome death, if you were to view it. Berg was over there to help Iraqis live a better life. You disgust me.
there are lots of people over there as volunteers. there was a story about some local folks going over there for that very reason...certainly lots of Red Cross/Crescent volunteers.
Even 'you' are offended lol by the way your also pathetic. Osama and his buddies are also disgusted by me so you are in good company. Yes i've seen the video and it's disgusting and deplorable. My heart goes out to his family and friends. Weather Mr Berg was there to help iraqis or himself he certainly did not deserve what happened to him. However i'll save my greatest sympathy for the dead soldiers who had much fewer options.
wait a second?? i'm not trying to knock the american solider. but these guys weren't drafted. they volunteered...many looking for adventure...some looking just to get college paid for. but no one forced them to join the military.
It's been reported that Berg was a big supporter of the Administration. My guess is that money was part, but not all of the equation. To me, it looks like he was a true believer who bought into the all the rhetoric being offered up and went over there primarily to take part in something that he thought would ultimately turn out the way it had been described to him. Regardless of why he went there in the first place, his story once he got over there does leave a lot of questions.
Have you viewed the video? Seriously. You can't wait a week before calling this innocent victim a money-grubbing dupe? This was a tragedy, and here you are trying to rationalize it and portray a victim in a bad light. It's gross and tasteless and disrespectful. What does it matter what his motivations for going to Iraq were? This is an American who lost his life at the hands of brutal savages. While the rest of us mourn his loss, you are here minimizing it with your arrogance and pomposity. Disgusting. Typical liberal.
It only took you 13 minutes from the initial post in the last thread about this guy getting killed to turn it into a partisan issue. You're slipping T_J.
Whatever he was doing in Iraq, I think the way he was murdered was deplorable. I hesitate to pass judgement on his character because, honestly, it really shouldn't lessen the outrage over the way he was killed.
Nope! rimrocker beat me to it with his ho-hum reaction to the savagery. Certainly, rimrocker was capable of much more after watching his beratement of US troops after the Abu Ghraib nudie images hit the airwaves. Additionally, this thread is not about playing partisan politics. It's about respecting fallen heroes. rimrocker disgustingly refers to Berg as something tantamount to a money-grubbing dupe. This is perhaps a new low for him.
You are right some are looking for adventure. But for how many was the army the best, if not the only option to improve there lives.
That's fine and well...but let's not pretend they didn't have a choice. The guys I know in the military say, "I WANT to be there!" I don't want those guys to get hurt...but they know the risks of joining the armed forces. They've assumed that risk.
Back to the adult conversation... some interesting stuff in this article as a little more about the guy... __________ U.S. Officials Failed to Protect Slain Civilian, Family Says By RICHARD LEZIN JONES and JILL P. CAPUZZO NYTimes WEST WHITELAND, Pa., May 12 — The family of Nicholas E. Berg challenged American military officials on Wednesday, insisting that the man beheaded by Islamic terrorists in Iraq had earlier been in the custody of federal officials who should have done more to protect him. Mr. Berg's brother, David, emerged from the family's split-level house in this Philadelphia suburb with a four-page e-mail message that he said his younger brother, Nicholas, had sent hours after being freed on April 6 from a jail in Mosul, Iraq. The Iraqi police took Nicholas Berg, 26, into custody on March 24 and held him in a jail that he described in the message as managed by Iraqis with oversight from United States Military Police forces. He wrote that federal agents had questioned his reasons for being in Iraq, whether he had ever built a pipe bomb or had been in Iran. "They can detain him and deny him his basic civil rights of a lawyer, a phone call or even a charge for 13 days, but they can't get him" on a plane, David Berg said. Apparently in a response to the accusations that the actions of the military in Iraq exposed their son to worsening danger, the F.B.I. released a statement saying that Nicholas Berg had not heeded warnings and that he had declined assistance in leaving Iraq. The conflicting accounts continued to swirl around Mr. Berg's detention and release. In Baghdad, a senior adviser for the Coalition Provisional Authority, Dan Senor, repeated that Mr. Berg had never been in military custody. "My understanding," Mr. Senor said of the Iraqi police, "is that they suspected that he was involved/engaged in suspicious activities. U.S. authorities were notified. The F.B.I. visited with Mr. Berg on three occasions when he was in Iraqi police detention and determined that he was not involved with any criminal or terrorist activities. Mr. Berg was released on April 6, and it is my understanding he was advised to leave the country." That position prompted the family's decision to read Mr. Berg's e-mail message to The New York Times. In it, he described the presence of American military police officers, as well as the federal agents' visits, to the Mosul jail. "The Iraqi police is mentioned frequently, which is, of course, absurd, because there is no Iraqi government right now," David Berg said. "And if you think about it, to be detained by the Iraqi police without the U.S. government's knowing would be tantamount to kidnapping." Officials did acknowledge the presence of the military police at the jail but said their sole function was to "monitor his treatment." To the family, the oversight question is paramount because they say not only that his detention was unlawful, but also that it further threatened his safety. The Bergs have said the detention prevented him from leaving Iraq before the violence grew in Baghdad and Falluja. The F.B.I. statement, though, said that coalition authorities had offered "to facilitate his safe passage out of Iraq," but that Mr. Berg refused their help. Recalling his brother's independent personality, David Berg said such a refusal would not surprise his family, although he said he had no way of knowing whether Nicholas Berg had declined help. He had traveled to Iraq, in part, to generate business for his fledgling telecommunications company, which specializes in servicing radio towers. After an earlier visit, Mr. Berg returned to Iraq on March 14. In the message dated April 6, addressed to his parents, brother and sister, Mr. Berg described the 13 days that he spent in the Shirdta Iraqiyah station near Mosul, an Iraqi detention center where, he said, the United States Military Police supervised and trained the Iraqi officers. "The M.P.'s were a little surprised to see an American in civilian clothing, and I think out of formality and boredom they decided to do a background check, which involved C.I.D.," he wrote, referring to the Army Criminal Investigation Division. The next morning, Mr. Berg described F.B.I. agents' questioning as amicable, but pointed. Among the questions asked, he wrote, were: "Why was I in Iraq? Did I ever make a pipe bomb? Why was I in Iran?" He conjectured that their questions arose from some Farsi literature and a book about Iran that he had. Mr. Berg wrote that after four days he was transferred to a cellblock that included prisoners charged with petty offenses and suspected "war criminals." "Word had spread due to the presence of certain items amongst my stuff that I was Israeli," Mr. Berg wrote. "So I felt a bit like Arlo Guthrie walking into a jail full of mother rapers and father stabbers as an accused litterbug." The American military police, in fact, "were pretty stand-up," he wrote. "They heard the chants of Yehudien, Israelein, and told the I.P. prison staff to put me in my own cell." "I did get on much friendlier terms with the other prisoners after they discovered I could speak a little Arabic and verified I didn't have horns or anything," Mr. Berg said. He described the conditions for other prisoners and their treatment, depending sometimes on nationality. The others, he wrote, were behind closed cell doors and had no time outdoors. Some prisoners, considered political or suspected war criminals from India, Pakistan, Afghanistan and Iran "had been in custody for 40 days without a single interpreter interrogation, just waiting as they still do today, and the Iraqi guards treat these poor fellows — especially the Hindis among them — as real dogs.' Mr. Berg was released on April 6, a day after his family filed a suit against the United States government seeking to have him freed. "I hope to catch an opening on the next available Royal Jordanian flight out of Amman this Thursday as long as my ticket is still transferable," he wrote in the message. "Dad, Mom I will e-mail or call you with exact itinerary as soon as I have it." He was seen by friends immediately after leaving the jail. In Baghdad, one friend, Andrew Robert Duke, who stayed at Al Fanar Tower Hotel, where he met Mr. Berg last month, recalled how much he was anticipating returning home when they had their last beer together on April 9. "We talked about how he was looking forward to having children with a woman that he had not discovered yet," Mr. Duke, 49, said. "But with the money he was going to make here, he would be able to afford a family." The men sat at a round glass-top coffee table on the sixth floor of the hotel. Mr. Berg told Mr. Duke that he was planning to go on a holiday to Turkey and maybe do some sailing. They finished their drinks, and Mr. Berg rose to go. "I walked him to my door," Mr. Duke said. "Watched him open his door. I said: `Good luck, my friend. Stay in touch.' He said, `I am looking forward to it.' " Mr. Berg was often seen socializing in the dining room or at the computers next to the lobby. Of muscular build, he often wore a baseball cap, a T-shirt cut off at the shoulders and tattered blue jeans. "He came and went by himself," said a hotel office manager who gave first name as Ahmed. The hotel staff cleared out his room, 602, and stowed a set of weights that Mr. Berg had left. Red-haired and charming, he was described as friendly with workers and guests, chatting about subjects like Aerosmith and Philadelphia museums. "He never talked about the war or said anything bad about Iraqis," Hugo Infante, a Chilean who works for United Press International, said. "Just yesterday we realized he was killed," Mr. Infante said. "I saw his name on the Web site. When I saw the name, I said it was not possible it is Nick. Then I saw the face. He looked skinnier and paler." Mr. Berg's friends and acquaintances at the hotel said he was working on communications towers for some Baghdad hotels. Mr. Infante said he last saw Mr. Berg on April 10, writing an e-mail message to his family. "I saw him there," he said, gesturing to the Internet cafe. "I said, `Hello, how are you?' "And he said, `I want to go home.' "
I was thinking the same thing...I saw somewhere that he was just looking for work...That is very dangerous with no support system or lead...very scary... I think he had good intentions for going out there helping, but mostly to make money...
