Posted on 05/13/2004 4:50:22 PM PDT by KQQL
A CIA official said Thursday that U.S. intelligence officials have concluded that terrorist leader Abu Musab al-Zarqawi was, in "high probability," the person shown on a video beheading American Nicholas Berg, based on an analysis of the voice on the video.
The speaker on the video, now believed to be al-Zarqawi, reads a lengthy statement criticizing Islamic scholars and taunting the crusaders. Standing alongside four other militants wearing headscarves and masks to disguise themselves, al-Zarqawi then kills Berg.
Lt. Gen. Ricardo Sanchez, the top U.S. commander in Iraq, told reporters Thursday in Baghdad that it appears al-Zarqawi was responsible. The U.S. military has already posted a $10 million reward for Zarqawi for having orchestrated some of the deadliest terrorist attacks in Iraq.
Initially, Berg's murder seemed to be a case of an eccentric young American who was in the wrong place at the worst possible time -- just as the revelations of American mistreatment of iraqi prisoners were coming to light.
But CBS News National Security Correspondent David Martin reports on what is turning into a bizarre mystery with a connection to 9/11.
U.S. officials say the FBI questioned Berg in 2002 after a computer password Berg used in college turned up in the possession of Zaccarias Moussaoui, the al Qaeda operative arrested shortly before 9/11 for his suspicious activity at a flight school in Minnesota.
The bureau had already dismissed the connection between Berg and Moussaoui as nothing more than a college student who had been careless about protecting his password.
But in the wake of Berg's gruesome murder, it becomes a stranger than fiction coincidence -- an American who inadvertently gave away his computer password to one notorious al Qaeda operative is later murdered by another notorious al Qaeda operative.
Berg's body was found Saturday in Baghdad. Two e-mails he sent to his family and friends show he traveled widely and unguarded throughout Iraq, an unsafe practice rarely done by Westerners.
On Tuesday, an Islamic Web site released the video, titled "Sheikh Abu Musab al-Zarqawi slaughters an American infidel with his own hands."
Al-Zarqawi is thought to be in Iraq, operating his own terrorist network, known simply as the "Zarqawi network." A specialist in poisons, he is thought to have extensive ties across the militant Islamic movement and is considered an ally of Osama bin Laden.
As recently as March, U.S. officials said al-Zarqawi's practice was not to make taped public pronouncements or take credit for attacks. However, in the last five weeks, he has increased his public profile with at least three recordings, including Berg's beheading.
Al-Zarqawi is believed to be behind well over a dozen high-profile attacks in Iraq, and many other acts of violence, which have killed hundreds.
Martin reports that in at least one other case, a high-level al Qaeda operative has personally carried out a brutal killing. Khalid Shaikh Mohammed, the suspected Sept. 11 mastermind now in U.S. custody, is widely believed to have killed Wall Street Journal reporter Daniel Pearl.
Meanwhile Thursday, new details emerged about Berg's last weeks in Iraq — a timeline that has been contested by his family and the U.S. government.
Authorities in Baghdad denied that Berg, 26, was held in U.S. custody before he disappeared in early April, despite claims to the contrary by his family. The authorities said he had been held by Iraqi police for about two weeks and questioned by FBI agents three times.
In Baghdad, U.S. spokesmen Dan Senor said that "to my knowledge" Berg was not affiliated with any U.S. or coalition organization, nor was he ever in U.S. custody.
Iraqi police arrested Berg in Mosul on March 24 because local authorities believed he may have been involved in "suspicious activities," Senor said. He refused to elaborate, except to confirm that the Americans were aware Berg was in custody.
Berg was released April 6 and "was advised to leave the country," Senor added. Instead, Berg checked into a Baghdad hotel.
Berg had told friends he was arrested by Iraqi police in Mosul because he had an Israeli stamp in his passport. In e-mails released by his family, Berg wrote about his experiences in trying to track down and later meet an in-law in the Mosul area.
In Mosul, police chief Maj. Gen. Mohammed Khair al-Barhawi insisted Thursday that his department had never arrested Berg and maintained he had no knowledge of the case.
"The Iraqi police never arrested the slain American," al-Barhawi told reporters. "Take it from me ... that such reports are baseless."
Since Iraq remains under U.S. military occupation, it seems unlikely that the Iraqi police would have held Berg, or any other American, for such a length of time without at least the tacit approval of U.S. authorities.
"The Iraqi police do not tell the FBI what to do, the FBI tells the Iraqi police what to do," Berg's father, Michael Berg told the AP. "Who do they think they're kidding?"
The younger Berg told his family that U.S. officials took custody of him soon after his arrest and he was not allowed to make phone calls or contact a lawyer, his father said.
Kimmitt said U.S. forces kept tabs on Berg during his confinement to make sure he was being fed and properly treated because "he was an American citizen."
But the three FBI visits suggest American authorities were concerned about more than Berg's well-being. They may have had their own suspicions about what the young American was doing in Iraq.
Two e-mails Berg sent to his family and friends show he traveled widely and unguarded throughout Iraq, an unsafe practice rarely done by Westerners.
Shortly before Berg's disappearance, he was warned by the FBI that Iraq was too volatile a place for unprotected American civilians and that he could be harmed, a senior FBI official, speaking on condition of anonymity, said Wednesday.
Officials said the U.S. government warned Berg to leave Iraq, and offered him a flight out of the country, a month before his grisly death.
On April 10, four days after Berg was released from an Iraqi prison, an American diplomat offered to put him on a flight to Jordan, State Department spokeswoman Kelly Shannon said.
But Berg told the diplomat he "planned to travel overland to Kuwait and would call (his) family from there," Shannon said.
Michael Berg, said that although his son wanted to leave Iraq, he refused the flight offer because he thought the travel to the airport would be too dangerous.
http://www.grandforks.com/mld/grandforks/4379157.htm
The co-pilot who died in the crash of Sen. Paul Wellstone's plane played a minor role in the case of Zacarias Moussaoui, the alleged Sept. 11 conspirator who briefly attended an Eagan, Minn., flight school.
Co-pilot Michael Guess, a 1997 graduate of the UND flight school, had performed administrative work at the Pan Am International Flight Academy last year as he continued accumulating flying hours. There he met Moussaoui, the school's most infamous student.
Two former Pan Am program managers who tipped the FBI to Moussaoui's suspicious behavior at the school in August 2001 told the Star Tribune that Guess inadvertently gave Moussaoui unattended access to a computer program on flying a 747 jumbo jet.
Arkancide?
Nevermind, looks like Powell used the term 'Zarqawi Network. Maybe since binny hasn't been heard from in a while the whole of al Qaeda is no longrer the bin lAden network but is now the Zarqawi Network.
Maybe --- but I can't see reading that much in it to avoid having any speculation about this. We can still be angry at how horrible the death had to be and want to get at the truth. If you're right that will come out --- but wondering and guessing and passing around ideas is normal to do on these kinds of threads.
Fox News and several other newspaper reports.
I like that one...If your young and think you are invincible and there are millions of $ on people's heads.......but you would want a bit of backup from the military I think
I wonder how many times in this guy's life has the FBI questioned him. I haven't been questioned yet --- and I've been around longer.
I'll bet you he had some do-good naive streak and wanted to connect up with the 'Freedom Fighters.' And I'll bet you anything that his dad, in a year, is a strong conservative. He gets to see a bit of Reality in this, to bring up alongside his own 'noble Savage' thinking. It'll be interesting to watch. Kind of like Taliban John, raised by sop-brains.
Last night I suggested to my husband that this might be the case. I felt guilty for even thinking it at the time, but I did wonder why he was there, and why the FBI had questioned him. His father is signed on to ANSWER. This is all starting to make more sense.
Thanks.
Well there you have it folks. My God!
Two e-mails sent by Berg to his family and friends show the 26-year-old telecommunications expert traveled widely and unguarded throughout Iraq - an unsafe practice rarely done by Westerners.
The FBI warned Berg shortly before his disappearance that Iraq was too volatile a place for unprotected American civilians but he turned down a State Department offer to fly him home, U.S. officials said Wednesday.
Michael Berg said his son refused a U.S. offer in early April to board an outbound charter jet because he believed travel to the airport was too dangerous. American soldiers refer to the airport highway as "RPG Alley" because of frequent attacks by insurgents firing rocket-propelled grenades.
According to the State Department, Berg told an American diplomat in Baghdad that he preferred to travel on his own to Kuwait.
"At that time, the U.S. consular officer extended an offer to assist Mr. Berg to depart Iraq by plane to Jordan," said State Department spokeswoman Kelly Shannon. "We'd already discussed that possibility with his family, and we mentioned that to him, obviously, when we talked to him on the 10th."
His family said Berg had already intended to leave the country on March 30 but that his detention prevented him from doing so.
Berg first worked in Iraq in December and January and returned in March. He was inspecting communications facilities, some of which were destroyed in the war or by looters.
During his time in Iraq, he struggled with the Arabic language and worked at night on a tower in Abu Ghraib, a site of repeated attacks on U.S. convoys and the location of the notorious prison where U.S. soldiers abused Iraqi inmates.
Michael Berg told the AP that Nicholas' paternal aunt, now dead, married an Iraqi man named Mudafer, who became close to Nicholas. In one of the e-mails, Nicholas Berg describes going to the northern city of Mosul, where he introduced himself to Mudafer's brother, identified as Moffak Mustaffa.
"We got along splendidly," Berg wrote. "We spent a few hours and I helped him establish an e-mail account."
Berg notes that "my presence ... made him more concerned (about his own safety and probably mine too) than I've been the entire time I've been here."
And despite that in the other thread it's been explained a bunch of times and that is not a COMPLETE quote, you've judged him guilty.
The rest of the quote goes something like "he was there to help the people of Iraq rebuild" or something.
Puts the entire line in a different context, but one that has been ignored over and over by those who'd prefer to believe Berg was a terrorist sympathizer.
During his time in Iraq, he struggled with the Arabic language and worked at night on a tower in Abu Ghraib, a site of repeated attacks on U.S. convoys and the location of the notorious prison where U.S. soldiers abused Iraqi inmates.
His father, Michael Berg, told the AP that Michael's sister, now dead, married an Iraqi man named Mudafer, who became close to Nicholas. In one of the e-mails, Nicholas Berg describes going to the northern city of Mosul, where he introduced himself to Mudafer's brother, identified as Moffak Mustaffa. "We got along splendidly," Berg wrote. "We spent a few hours and I helped him establish an e-mail account."
Berg notes that "my presence ... made him more concerned (about his own safety and probably mine too) than I've been the entire time I've been here."
****************
In another article the father mentioned that he had a number of old friends and contacts in Iraq and the father said something along the lines of asking them for newsa bout his son. My impression was that he had known them for years.
Did Saddam Hussein and his hyperactive internal security apparatus let just any Americans and just any Iraqis do a lot of chatting? How many Iraqis could do that without fear?
That's my question, too.
But the three FBI visits suggest American authorities were concerned about more than Berg's well-being. They may have had their own suspicions about what the young American was doing in Iraq.
During a briefing Wednesday, Senor confirmed that Berg had registered with the U.S. Consulate in Baghdad but insisted he "was not a U.S. government employee, he has no affiliation with the coalition and to our knowledge he has no affiliation with any Coalition Provisional Authority contractor."
He also stated that Berg "was at no time under the jurisdiction or detention of coalition forces."
However, in a Jan. 18 e-mail, Berg said his company had been announced as an approved subcontractor for a broadcast consortium awarded a contract for the U.S.-controlled Iraqi Media Network.
"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 Iraqi Media Network," he wrote, referring to the network as "something like NPR in the U.S."
It was unclear whether the contract was revoked.
FBI agents visited Berg's parents March 31 and told the family they were trying to confirm their son's identity.
On April 5, the Bergs sued the government in U.S. District Court in Philadelphia, contending that their son was being held illegally. The Bergs claimed the State Department told them their son "is currently detained in Mosul, Iraq, by the United States military" and that American diplomats "no longer" had "any authority or power to intervene" on his behalf.
Berg was released the day after the lawsuit was filed. His family said he told them he had not been mistreated. They did not hear from him after April 9 - when violence flared in Iraq because of the U.S. Marine siege of Fallujah and a Shiite uprising in the south.
Several days later, however, diplomats received an e-mail from Berg's family that "noted he had not been in contact," Shannon said.
On April 14, the consulate sent a private contractor to the Al-Fanar Hotel in Baghdad, where Berg was believed to be staying, to see if he was still there.
"The people we talked to at the hotel didn't remember him being there," Shannon said.
Diplomats then alerted the U.S. military to be on the lookout for him.
But hotel staffers, speaking on condition of anonymity, said Berg stayed in room 602 from April 6 until April 10. One of them said Berg lived in the same room during an earlier visit, which the employee could not remember.
An employee described Berg as a "nice guy" who "always smiled and said hello," unlike other foreign guests. "Once he told me, 'I'd like to learn Arabic.'"
"He was very sportive - had muscles - and liked the Internet," another hotel worker recalled. "He usually left the hotel in the morning and returned late, around 10 p.m., usually carrying a sack of beer and mineral water."
It could be that his having met Moussawi was one of the factors that influenced him to try and do good in Iraq.
But he couldn't wait 2 more weeks to go back, and go to the wedding first? Made more sense to pop over to Iraq for 2 weeks, then pop back to Pennsylvania for the wedding? That sort of schedule might make sense for a bazillionaire jet-setter, but it hardly makes sense for a small time businessman trying to earn a living repairing communications towers.
This statement is quite revealing. The FBI can evidently access any password, anytime and connect it with a specific individual and question them about it. Since passwords are presumed to be encrypted 'secrets' that's pretty eye-opening, ain't it?
NOTHING! Is really secret on any computer. Everything you enter, including passwords, and do on any computer can be recorded, mirrored and played back to your chagrin later on. Passwords only protect users from other users (provided the user protects their password). Sysadmin types, on all kinds of operating systems, are little gods.
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