Posted on 05/12/2004 6:52:34 PM PDT by summer
Beheaded American was arrested as a spy 'because of his Jewish name'
By Toby Harnden in Baghdad and Marcus Warren in West Chester (Filed: 13/05/2004)
Nicolas Berg, the American who was filmed being beheaded, had been previously arrested by Iraqi police and held on suspicion of being a spy because he had a Jewish name and an Israeli stamp in his passport, it emerged yesterday.
At the Al Fanar Tower Hotel in Baghdad, friends spoke fondly of a body-building adventurer who shrugged off danger, was passionate about his family and had been capitalising on the technology boom in Iraq after the fall of Saddam Hussein.
Nicholas Berg new the risks of being in Iraq "He knew who he was and he was not unaware of the risks here," said Andrew Duke, 49, a Colorado businessman who drank beer with Mr Berg, 26, at the hotel the night before he was abducted, apparently on the way to Baghdad airport.
"Nick was well-educated, articulate and confident. He didn't consider the political risks any greater than the physical risks of climbing up a radio tower. Unfortunately he was what we call OBE - overtaken by events."
There is still confusion over the circumstances of his 13-day detention in Iraq after being stopped at a checkpoint on March 24.
Dan Senor, spokesman for the US-led coalition in Iraq, insisted Mr Berg was arrested and held by Iraqi police and was never in American custody, although the FBI visited him three times and US military police checked he was being treated properly.
According to friends, Mr Berg said he had been in Iraqi custody for just a few hours before being transferred to a US military facility, where he was in a cell with Syrian and Iranian fighters.
He was released after his family filed a lawsuit in the US saying he was being held illegally by American forces.
Hugo Infante, 31, a Chilean photographer who stayed at the Al Fanar, said he had met Mr Berg around April 6 when the American returned to Baghdad two weeks after saying he was going to Mosul on business for two days.
"He said, 'They arrested me because I had a Jewish last name and an Israeli stamp in my passport.' Then the Iraqi police put him with the US military because they thought he was a spy. Nick told me all this. He wasn't mad. It was just an adventure for him. He said, 'This shit happens. It was bad luck'."
In the Arab world, any indication that someone is a Jew or has links with Israel is potentially fatal, as Daniel Pearl, the Wall Street Journal reporter who was beheaded on video in Pakistan two years ago found out to his cost.
Mr Infante said Mr Berg had told him he had visited Israel with his family several times.
Mr Duke said Mr Berg had given him a similar account of what happened in Mosul. "His attitude was that it was all a bit of fun. Inconvenient, but in the bigger picture not a big deal.
"How did it happen? All you have to do is be at a checkpoint and not take it seriously." Pointing to a large communications tower across the Tigris that Mr Berg would have seen from his balcony each morning, he said: "That tower is affectionately referred to as Saddam's dick. I know he worked on top of it.
"His business was climbing those towers and tuning those little bits of metal at the top. If it was raining or the wind was blowing he still had to be up there so he was in phenomenal physical shape."
He said Baghdad was living through a "golden age" for engineers, since so much communications equipment needed to be replaced.
Mr Berg had stayed at the $30-a-night Al Fanar about four times and preferred room 607. Mr Duke said he would pad around the hotel in the same pair of torn jeans, T-shirt and baseball cap and often wore a safety harness around his waist.
When he left for the last time on April 10, he told Mr Infante he was heading for the airport but would return. He left several barbells, which he would use to work out in his room, in the hotel lobby.
Mr Duke said he still could not believe his friend, who he estimated had been making more than £11,000 a month in Iraq, had been murdered. "He told me he had been looking forward to going sailing in Turkey and then going on home."
Mr Duke had been unable to watch the whole of the horrifying murder video. "I looked at the beginning of the pictures on the internet," he said. I had to turn my back but I listened to the sounds."
A ring around his neck, he added, showed that he had "clearly been tortured".The horror of the beheading reverberated throughout America yesterday, nowhere more so than in the town he called home in his last few words before he was murdered.
"I live in West Chester, Pennsylvania, near Philadelphia," he announced calmly before the masked executioner began his butchery.
The town is now mourning one of its more eccentric sons, an inventor and adventurer. But the killing of a local boy also shifted attention from the abuse of Iraqi prisoners by US soldiers and contractors, several from elsewhere in Pennsylvania, to something more fundamental.
"This really puts things into perspective," said Calvin DeWitt, a consultant and reservist who spent six months in Iraq last year. "There is no excusing what those soldiers did or the complete lack of leadership in those units.
"But that is nothing compared to slaughtering an innocent guy by chopping his head off."
The whole country shared in the rage at Mr Berg's fate, described as "barbaric" last night by President George W Bush. Tabloids in the north-east covered their front page with one-word headlines such as "Savages" and "Bastards", and talk show hosts screamed for vengeance.
The fury was much more personal for the friends and neighbours of the Berg family, unseen since collapsing on the lawn in grief at the news that their boy's death was now so public.
"I'm angry because this kid is like a son to me," said the Rev Bruce Hauser, who lives next door and had volunteered to be the family's spokesman.
"If you ever want to live next door to a family, the Bergs are the family you want as neighbours."
The portrait of a suburban paradise masked tension between Michael Berg, the head of the household, a retired teacher and peace activist, and his youngest son, Nicolas, who supported President Bush and the war.
Yesterday, the family expressed anger at claims by US officials in Iraq that Nicolas had never been in their custody, only detained by local police.
US sources in Baghdad also stressed that they had urged him to leave the country but he refused to follow their advice.
Mr Berg has blamed the US military for delaying his son's departure from Iraq and indirectly causing his death.
Nicolas Berg had gone to Iraq in the sincere belief that he could do good for local people, his old high school science teacher said.
"The real losers are the Iraqis. They killed their best friend. They just didn't know it," said Skip Best.
As a student, Mr Berg had been a scientific prodigy, even combining his interests in computer engineering, electronics and craftsmanship into a self-taught discipline called "Bergology", contemporaries recalled.
However, his business, Prometheus Methods Tower Service Inc, failed to take off and was still based at his parents' home. Before his death he had been looking for work in Baghdad as a freelance technician.
His body was due to arrive back in America yesterday, ready for a funeral, the next highlight of the huge media coverage of his death.
West Chester itself seemed numb as much as furious at Mr Berg's fate. The shrillest expressions of rage at his death came from elsewhere.
"Where is the outrage from all the international groups, the ICRC, the Red Crescent and all the sheikhs, imams and mullahs?" demanded Col Oliver North, best known for his role in 1980s Contras scandal.
"Where is the outrage at this being done in the name of Allah?"
I don't think so. While it's true that all 'infidels' are apt to be killed, Jews are a special case.
Islam is a Satanic parody of Judaism. Not Hinduism or what have you.
No, you ignorant boob. Being forced to wear women's panties on one's head is the worst human rights abuse imaginable. Haven't you been listening to Ted Kennedy?
Thanks summer; this is the most comprehensive reading I have seen re Nick Berg that gives some understanding to the 'how' of this tragedy.
He was an adventuresome spirit; and perhaps because of his first arrest/detention; felt somewhat immune. . .rather than more. He never saw it coming; never seemed to imagine that his life could be in jeopardy.
In that naivete; he is more typically 'American'; and it killed him.
Surely a different kind of an 'American tragedy'. . .and so very sad.
Somebody is not telling the truth here.
Sounds like a cool guy, his crazy father notwithstanding.
In Nick's own words:
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 retranslated 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 retelling the sheep story I get on my way back to Baghdad.
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.