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Sydney, Australia, May 29, 2004 Who killed Nick
Berg? Conspiracy
theories about how the kidnapped American died
in Iraq are flying around the world. Richard
Neville explores the explanations.  IRAQ
in flames, Washington an object of disgust. What to
do? At this pivotal moment, CNN and Fox News are
tipped off to a clip of an American citizen being
beheaded. The victim is a 26-year-old idealist from
Pennsylvania, Nick Berg. Despite the
perpetrators being masked, the vile deed is deemed
the work of al-Qaeda.
The clip was first "discovered" on an Islamic
website in Malaysia. Its Arabic title reads "Abu
Musab al-Zarqawi shown slaughtering an
American". al-Zarqawi is a 38-year-old Jordanian
militant who fled to Iraq in 2001 after reportedly
losing a leg in a US missile strike. al-Zarqawi's
face is widely known and he credits himself with
the deed, so why a mask? The timing of the video
was brilliant for the West. Media pundits judged
the crime a deeper evil than the systemic
torture of innocent Iraqis. But some people
sensed a rat. But if it was not al-Qaeda, who?
Surely not Uncle Sam. That's too dark, even for
the CIA. While this video shows a human body having its
head chopped off, it does not necessarily portray
an act of murder. Berg's headless body was found
dumped on a Baghdad roadside on Saturday, May
8. Three days later,
the "live beheading" clip was uploaded from London
to the Malaysian website http://www.al-ansar.biz.
The statement in the video is signed with
al-Zarqawi's name, dated May 11. After Fox News and
CNN had downloaded the video, it disappeared from
the site. As no autopsy is available, little is known
about the state of the body. No time of death, no
forensic analysis. On April 6, a month before the
discovery of the corpse, Berg had been released
from custody. But whose custody?   Dan
Senor, left,
[Website note: Hebrew
University educated] adviser to the
US Presidential Envoy in Iraq, has said Berg was
never held by the Americans. Brigadier General
Mark Kimmitt, right, the Coalition's deputy
head of operations, claimed he was in the custody
of Iraqi police from March 24 to April 6. However,
the Iraqi police chief, Major-General Mohammed
Khair al-Barhawi, told Associated Press "the
Iraqi police never arrested the slain
American".
Berg's family are certain his jailers were the
US military. His father, Michael, had been
told so by the FBI. He has produced an email from a
US consular official in Baghdad, Beth Payne,
confirming that his son was in the hands of the US.
(Later, another official said this was an error.)
On April 5 in the Philadelphia office of the US
Supreme Court, the Berg family had launched an
action against the US military for false
imprisonment. The following day, Berg was
released. The issue of custody is
significant; in his final moments on screen Berg
is wearing an orange jumpsuit of the kind
familiar from Guantánamo Bay. The
official reasons for Berg's arrest were "lack of
documentation" and "suspicious activities". He
carried sensitive electronic equipment for which
he lacked documents. In custody, he was visited
three times by the FBI. Such interviews are
bound to have been recorded but no transcripts
have been produced. After his release, Berg travelled to Baghdad and
the $30-a-night Al-Fanar Hotel. A fellow hotel
guest told Newsday that Berg recounted how Iraqi
police had quickly handed him to US authorities in
Mosul and that he had been held the entire time in
a jail where his guards were US soldiers. Berg was in Baghdad to win contracts for his
family firm, Prometheus Methods Tower Service, a
provider of communications facilities. He often
"worked at night on a tower in the neighbourhood of
Abu Ghraib", according to The New York
Times. The family last heard from him on April 9, when
he said he was planning to leave Iraq via Kuwait as
soon as it was safe. Berg was last seen walking
with his bags the following day, apparently hoping
to find his way through the turmoil engulfing the
city and make it to the border. On March 7, 2004, two weeks before his arrest in
Mosul, an "enemies list" had been posted on a
conservative website, FreeRepublic.com.
The list was compiled from signatories to an
anti-war petition, and its implied purpose was to
encourage readers to harass those it named. There was
originally placed here a diagram, but on
Monday, June 7, 2004 this website received
an email from author "Nick
Possum"
(sic) reading: "Mr Irving,
-- It has come to my notice that you have
reproduced an illustration from my
website on your
website . . . The
illustration is the one showing three
shots from the Berg execution video on a
black background with commentary in white
text.
"You will have noticed on visiting the
site that on each page there is,
prominently placed, a notice asserting
copyright. This material is, therefore,
stolen. Please remove it from your site
immediately. -- Nick
Possum." Mr Possum cannot
of course claim copyright in the three
clips from the execution video,from which
he has evidently "stolen" them, to use his
word, but we feel bound to comply with his
request. |
Berg's father was on that list, as was the
family firm, Prometheus. This information may well
have triggered the arrest of Berg in Iraq. Berg's politics are not clear. His father,
Michael, has described his son as a "staunch
supporter" of US President George Bush.
Friends said Nick believed he could help rebuild
Iraq "one radio tower at a time". According to
The New York Times, he was attracted to the
Hebrew concept of tikkun olam - healing the world
through social action. The first few seconds of the video shows Berg
sitting on a white plastic chair in an orange
jumpsuit. He speaks directly to the camera in a
relaxed way: "My name is Nick Berg ... I have a
brother and sister, David and Sara. I live in
Philadelphia." His white chair is identical to
those in the photographs of the Abu Ghraib prison
tortures, but such chairs are probably common in
Iraq. It is highly likely
that this segment is edited from the interrogation
of Berg during his 13 days of custody. In the next scene, Berg is sitting on the floor
with five masked figures standing behind him. We do
not see the figures enter. Berg looks lifeless,
though his body appears to make slight movements. A
man reads a lengthy Arabic statement in a
passionless monotone. He is identified as "Abu
Musab al-Zarqawi", a Jordanian associate of
Osama bin Laden who is tied to dozens of
terrorist acts. Yet a leaflet recently circulated in Falluja, by
no means a reliable source, claims that al-Zarqawi
was killed in the Sulaimaniya mountains of northern
Iraq during a US bombing. A US military report last
month has claimed al-Zarqawi was killed in the
bombing of Falluja. Also, the US Secretary of State, Colin
Powell, has said that al-Zarqawi was fitted
with a prosthetic leg in a Baghdad hospital, yet
the tape shows no evidence of a limp. CNN staff
familiar with al-Zarqawi's voice have been quoted
as saying the voice does not sound like his. Among the many curiosities raised on the web
about the fanatical five are: - They are well-fed, fidgety, and reveal
glimpses of white skin.
- Their Arabic is heavily accented (Russian,
Jordanian, Egyptian).
- An aside in Russian had been translated as
"do it quickly".
- One character wears wears bulky white tennis
shoes.
- The man on the far left stands in the
familiar "at ease" military posture.
- The men's scarves are worn and tied by
people who "haven't a clue", says conspiracy
theorist Hector Carreon, like actors in
Hollywood movies.
- There is even a voice at the end that seems
to ask in English, "How will it be done?"
[http://www.aztlan.net/nick_berg_how_done.htm]
None of this proves a grand conspiracy, but it
does raise questions. In the final segment of the
tape, Berg is thrown to the ground, but doesn't
move. During the decapitation, starting at the
front of the throat, there is little sign of blood.
The scream is wildly out of sync, sounds female,
and is obviously dubbed. Dr John Simpson, executive director for
surgical affairs at the Royal Australasian College
of Surgeons, told Ritt Goldstein of the
Asia Times, "I would have thought that all
the people in the vicinity would have been covered
in blood, in a matter of seconds ... if it [the
video] was genuine". Simpson agrees with other experts who find it
highly probable that Berg had died before his
decapitation. But there is still the problem of Berg's slight
body movements while sitting on the floor, before
the beheading. According to a blogger (internet
diarist), Nick Possum, "this footage was
subsequently modified frame by frame to make Berg's
body move very occasionally". Apparently, this can
be achieved with "commonly available software".
[http://www.brushtail.com.au/nick_berg_hypothesis.html] Possum believes "the available evidence
surrounding the case suggests that it was a 'black
operation' by US psychological warfare specialists
... to provide the media with a moral relativity
argument to counter the adverse publicity over
torture at Abu Ghraib". The use of FBI footage in
the opening sequence, if confirmed, suggests the
involvement of high-level US Government
operatives. I do not know who killed Nick Berg, or how he
died. But there's something fishy about this
video. 
A working hypothesis
and a resolution for the orange jumpsuit
mystery-
"Berg
decapitation video was filmed inside Abu Ghraib
prison"
 -
The Sunday Times
(London): Beheading of Berg - now it's a
conspiracy
-
Report: Berg was
Arrested Twice at Oklahoma University in Spring
2000
-
details
about the 9/11 hijacker's airline ticket
purchase from the OU library
-
Nick Berg's father: George
Bush never looked into my son's eyes
-
At least: Fifteen
Anomalies Surrounding Death Of Nick
Berg
-
website
of Michael P. Wright
-
US businessman Nick
Berg executed on camera | Mr Irving's
commentary
-
Expanding the Taguba report: Israel's
role in training US army in torture
techniques
|
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