American in Iraq Beheaded by Militants

[funketeer]

also I don't know if you're aware but George Bush Sr. sold all his airline stock on 9/10/2001, in case you weren't "informed"

Yup...he sold it to me, that's the part your informant left out...awww...I also bought the original Mona Lisa, I hung it in the bathroom but I think I'm going to put it on the livingroom...it's just that the humidity is ruining the canvas...what a piece of shit!

Airline stock?

[str8upcore]

First off,

Conspiracy theory's will alway's twist the reality of any situation regarding war. Because of Bush's Oil family oil backround there will alway's be a "plausable deniability factor that just exhist's there people will,want, and do assume every possible factor especially anti-war protestor's.

Botton line camera's should not be allowed into battle field's period! shit happen's, people die, casultie's of war are inevitable on both side's, this cause's even more aggression between country's and the media scenerio.

Shroomy, I agree that trade would suffer a bit in the beginning but I would think long term it would open the market further for trade once alot of the violence has ceased, I am sure trade had suffered to an extent because of the risk factor and violence involved. I would think that this war has caused a huge decline in the open trade market period.

I know this is a bit off topic but as it is trying to import,export anything out or the country is tough, custom's is seizing shit right, and left, prescription med's for people with little or no insurance who can't afford state side medical assistance, as well as many other needed item's outside the state's. Would thing's be this bad if we weren't in IRAQ? I seriously doubt it.

As far as fly by's, and other country's alliance, One of the reason's so many country's were against us was the fact that Iraq, and other's owed a tremendous amount of money. Inevitably these country's would profit from as well, paid back past debt's once thing's were stabilized trade,oil, etc. and open up an even bigger trade market between country's.

Remember this is a war on terrorism which everyone agree's should and will not be tolerated in any country. It's going to take a long time to stabilize shit over there but my any mean's the quicker the better and by whatever action neccesary.

[sobeton]

if we didn't want a PR war, then we should not have been holding daily press conferences during the initial engagement. now that the press is being a bit more aggressive, people seem to have issues with that. unfortunately or fortunately we can’t control the press. if we want the continued support of our efforts in Iraq, and additional support from other countries. then we need to be a bit clearer in our objectives, a bit more open with information, and express a willingness to share authority. we need to get our people home and soon. IMO taking some of the steps I mentioned would help to achieve that.

[shroomy]

also I don't know if you're aware but George Bush Sr. sold all his airline stock on 9/10/2001, in case you weren't "informed"

the day before the plane hit the white house omg???

[funketeer]

the day before the plane hit the white house omg???

and two days after the Pee Wee Herman assasination attempt

[tonicfamily]

[tonicfamily]

[nomembername]

Hope this video opens up somes eyes.

http://www.glennbeck.com/news/05122004-1.shtml

U.S. officials think that terrorist Abu Musab al-Zarqawi (search) may have either authorized the execution or actually performed the act himself.

The video showed five men wearing headscarves and black ski masks, standing over a bound man in an orange jumpsuit — similar to a prisoner's uniform — who identified himself as Nick Berg (search), a U.S. contractor whose body was found on a highway overpass in Baghdad on Saturday.

"My name is Nick Berg, my father's name is Michael, my mother's name is Susan," the man said on the video. "I have a brother and sister, David and Sarah. I live in ... Philadelphia."

After reading a statement, the men were seen pulling the man to his side and putting a large knife to his neck. A scream sounded as the men cut his head off, shouting "Allahu Akbar!" — "God is great." They then held the head out before the camera.

Berg's family said Tuesday they knew their son had been decapitated, but didn't know the details of the killing. When told of the video by an Associated Press reporter, Berg's father, Michael, and his two siblings hugged and cried.

"I knew he was decapitated before. That manner is preferable to a long and torturous death. But I didn't want it to become public," Michael Berg said.

----------------------------------------------------------

WE CAN THANK WHOEVER CHOSE TO LEAK THESE PICS OF U.S. SOLDIERS ABUSING IRAQI PRISONERS.

oh ok, and what was there excuse for dragging and hanging burnt american soldiers...yeah that's what I thought

[funketeer]

oh ok, and what was there excuse for dragging and hanging burnt american soldiers...yeah that's what I thought

hey...they did appologize for that one, apparently they were all drunk and had smoked some hash...a friend of them justified in their favor, sayin' hanging and burning people is "so unlike them"

well, I guess that's that...these Iraqi guys, you know them...always joking around

[marcodavalos]

Friday, May 14, 2004

A Chance Link Delayed Berg

By Shannon McCaffrey and Robert Moran

Inquirer Staff Writers

WASHINGTON - Nicholas Berg, the West Chester businessman decapitated in Iraq last weekend, was questioned repeatedly in Iraq by FBI agents who thought he might have ties to Zacarias Moussaoui, the confessed al-Qaeda member and accused Sept. 11 conspirator, government officials said yesterday.

When FBI agents questioned Berg on March 26, while he was detained at an Iraqi police station in Mosul, he was not suspected of being linked with Moussaoui, a senior Justice Department official said.

But during the questioning, Berg volunteered that he had been questioned by the FBI once before in connection with the Moussaoui investigation, after his computer password turned up in Moussaoui's belongings, the official said.

That piqued the FBI agents' interest, and they asked that he be held while they investigated further.

The original Moussaoui link was determined in 2002 to be "a total coincidence," the official said, and FBI agents in Iraq determined that Berg should be released, indicating they also found nothing suspicious.

But the investigation delayed Berg's release long enough that he missed a flight back to the United States on March 30. By the time he returned to Baghdad on April 6, Iraq was in the grip of a bloody insurgency, with U.S. troops fighting throughout the country and foreigners being taken hostage.

Berg's father said in an interview with reporters yesterday that his son had once been questioned by the FBI because of the computer password.

Michael Berg said that when his son was a student at the University of Oklahoma, he took a course on a remote campus and had to take a bus with fellow students to get there.

"Someone asked, basically, to use his computer. And it turned out that this guy was a terrorist, and that he used my son's e-mail, amongst many other people's e-mails."

Berg said the other student "was not a friend of my son's. He was not even an acquaintance, but just a guy sitting next to him on the bus."

The FBI investigated a little over a year ago, Berg said. "Of course, my son cooperated... . This was never an issue. No one knew they were terrorists at the time. They were just students that were also taking the bus."

Nick Berg checked out of his hotel April 10 and wasn't seen again until his body was discovered by American soldiers in Baghdad on Saturday. The video of the slaying was posted on the Internet on Tuesday.

In Washington, CIA officials yesterday said a voice analysis of the video strongly indicated that the masked man who stood behind Berg, read a statement linking his murder to the abuse of Iraqi prisoners by U.S. soldiers, then killed him, was Jordanian Islamic extremist Abu Musab al-Zarqawi.

The officials said Zarqawi, who is also a suspect in the 2002 killing of a U.S. official in Jordan, heads his own terrorist organization but maintains contacts with Osama bin Laden's al-Qaeda network. The United States has offered $10 million for information leading to the capture or killing of Zarqawi.

Berg, 26, attended the University of Oklahoma for a time; Moussaoui, who was arrested in August 2001 in Minnesota when he tried to enroll in flight school, had lived in Norman, Okla., where the school is located.

The Moussaoui link added another twist to the strange story of Berg's time in Iraq. As a rare lone American not tied to a major Defense Department contractor, Berg had spent months in Iraq drumming up business as a communications-tower repairman. He often took public transportation and did not have a driver, guard or translator.

U.S. officials have denied that he was ever in U.S. custody in Iraq. But according to an e-mail that Berg's family gave the Associated Press yesterday, a State Department consular officer in Baghdad had told them Berg was "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."

State Department officials confirmed the authenticity of the April 1 e-mail from Beth A. Payne, who was the consular officer in Baghdad until mid-April. But a department spokeswoman said the e-mail was inaccurate.

Still other versions of events surfaced yesterday. A U.S. general in Mosul said Iraqi police detained Berg at the FBI's request, but the police chief of Mosul denied it. Maj. Gen. Mohammed Khair al-Barhawi said, "Such reports are baseless."

Another officer, First Lt. Sayel Abdullah, in charge of the Guzlani district, told the Washington Post that the police did detain Berg. "He seemed confused, and he was taken in by the police patrol," who placed him in Mosul's central jail and notified a local U.S. military police commander, Abdullah said.

Army Lt. Col. Joseph Piek, a military spokesman in Mosul, told the Post yesterday, "We were informed of this man being picked up by the Iraqi police, so we made sure that he got food to eat and a cot to sleep on."

Berg had gone to Mosul on what he told friends would be a two-day trip to look for new business. After he was detained, he was visited by FBI agents and monitored for his well-being by U.S. military police, U.S. officials say, but Dan Senor, spokesman for the U.S.-led coalition running Iraq, said Berg "was at no time under the jurisdiction or within the detention of coalition forces."

On Wednesday, Senor referred questions to Iraqi police in Mosul as to why Berg was arrested. "My understanding is they suspected that he was involved/engaged in suspicious activities," Senor said.

But it seemed clear that the detention wasn't happenstance. Brig Gen. Carter Ham said yesterday in Mosul that the FBI asked Iraqi police to keep Berg until his identity and purpose could be verified. Friends say Berg told them he had been held initially by Iraqi police for several hours and then was transferred to coalition custody.

Berg carried electronic equipment for his work climbing communications towers, and that may have added to suspicions, a friend said.

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.

At a news conference yesterday with fellow Pennsylvania Republican Sen. Arlen Specter, Sen. Rick Santorum said he has sent letters to the Defense Department and the Justice Department to get a chronology of events "of Mr. Berg's whereabouts and any interactions that those departments had or people from those departments had with him."

A memorial service for Nick Berg will be held today at Congregation Kesher Israel in West Chester.

------------------

Contact staff writer Robert Moran at 215-854-2405 or foreign@phillynews.com. Contributing to this report were Inquirer Washington Bureau staffers Warren Strobel and Steve Goldstein, and staff writers Sandy Bauers and Tina Moore

[marcodavalos]

Profile: Abu Musab al-Zarqawi