U.S. Officials Failed to Protect Slain Civilian, Family Says

[cb88]

May 13, 2004

THE VICTIM

U.S. Officials Failed to Protect Slain Civilian, Family Says

By RICHARD LEZIN JONES
and JILL P. CAPUZZO


excerpt:




EST 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.

<snip>

"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.

<snip>

"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.

<snip>

"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.
<snip>

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."

<snip>

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.

<snip>

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.' "

Full story: http://www.nytimes.com/2004/05/13/na...print&position=

[Woodmonkey]

Fox News covered this several times last night. Apparently, the State Department offered to fly him home and he refused. It seems that he also went places unguarded. There's conflicting stories here. Hopefully, it will be cleared up.

[kruser79]

Nope, I don't buy it. I'm very sorry that they lost a loved one, I can't imagine the pain of losing family in such a graphic way.

But he was there of his own volition, without government approval. He had no staff or hired help, not even a vehicle to get around with. He went everywhere by himself.

"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."

What? No Iraqi government? Iraqi police can't detain anyone? Evidently they haven't kept up with any of the news coming from over there.

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.

I don't get it. He's detained because he doesn't look like he belongs (remember, this is a war zone, people are being ambushed, shot, and blown up by IEDs every day). He is released and refuses help from the FBI, he goes about like he evidently had since he'd been there, walking everywhere alone, he gets picked up by militants.....and his family blames the government for not protecting him? It sounds as if the protection he needed, was from himself.
Far be it from me to desecrate the memory of the dead, but he really didn't use the best of common sense. You don't just hop a plane for Baghdad, with no plans or company, "Hoping to drum up some bidness." Thinking like that will get you killed.......

[Snowden]

There's more to this story. This was in a senior's newsletter I get; they never give source, but it does say Associated Press at some point here!

Strange. From tonight's News and Views:

Questions Surround Slain American in Iraq

BAGHDAD, Iraq - The young American decapitated on a videotape posted by an al-Qaida-linked Web site was never in U.S. custody despite claims to the contrary by his family, U.S. authorities said Wednesday.
Statements by American officials in Iraq leave many unanswered questions, including why Iraqi police jailed Nicholas Berg for nearly two weeks and why U.S. officials repeatedly questioned him in custody.
Also unknown is where and under what circumstances Berg disappeared. He was last in contact with U.S. officials in Baghdad on April 10, and his body was found Saturday in Baghdad. Staff members at the $30-a-night Al-Fanar Hotel in Baghdad told The Associated Press that Berg stayed there for several days until April 10.
Two e-mails sent by Berg to his family and friends show the 26-year-old telecommunications expert traveled widely and unguarded in areas of Iraq - a dangerous 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.
Berg 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.
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."
The young man was beheaded Tuesday on a video bearing the title "Abu Musab al-Zarqawi shown slaughtering an American," referring to an associate of Osama bin Laden believed behind a wave of suicide bombings in Iraq.
In Washington, Gen. Richard Myers, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said it was likely that al-Zarqawi himself was "the lead perpetrator." Al-Zarqawi, a Jordanian, is wanted in the killing of an American diplomat in Jordan in 2002 and is suspected of ordering many suicide bombings in Iraq.
U.S. spokesmen Dan Senor and Brig. Gen. Mark Kimmitt were quick to offer statements of condolence to his family and to draw attention to the barbarity of his death. Senor also said that "to my knowledge" Berg was not affiliated with any U.S. or coalition organization, nor was he ever in U.S. custody.
However, Senor said Iraqi police arrested Berg in Mosul on March 24 because local authorities believed he may have been involved in "suspicious activities."
Senor refused to say more, citing the sensitivity of the case. But he did confirm that the Americans were aware Berg was in custody.
"U.S. authorities were notified," he said. "The FBI visited Mr. Berg on three occasions and determined that he was not involved with any criminal or terrorist activity."
Berg was released April 6 and "was advised to leave the country," Senor added. Instead, Berg checked into the Baghdad hotel.
Senor referred questions about the reason for Berg's detention to the Iraqi police.
In Mosul, however, police told the AP they had no knowledge of the Berg case. Police official Safwan Talal said the only American arrested there in recent months was a woman who was released soon afterward.
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," Michael Berg told the AP. "Who do they think they're kidding?"
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.
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 in West Chester, Pa., a suburb of Philadelphia, on March 31 and told the family they were trying to confirm their son's identity.
On April 5, the Bergs sued the government in federal court in Philadelphia, contending that their son was being held illegally. In a writ filed April 5 in U.S. District Court in Philadelphia, the Bergs said 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 suit 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.
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."
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

[pickerfromhell]

Why do they feel we should baby-sit all the civilians in Iraq?

They sound like democrats---take care of me from cradle to grave.

The kid (Berg) sounds like a rugged individual who was striking out on his own and trying to make his own breaks---he just got sucked up by the scum.

pic

[USMC5831]

Originally Posted by Woodmonkey

Fox News covered this several times last night. Apparently, the State Department offered to fly him home and he refused. It seems that he also went places unguarded. There's conflicting stories here. Hopefully, it will be cleared up.

I heard the exact same thing. Why didn't he take it? i am sorry about the loss to the family, but in a way if he was offered a flight home and told he should go home a lot of it is his own fault. he should have known of the dangers there hell it is all over the news. I am not sure if there is any truth to this about them offering him a trip home but if there is then he was the one who was stupid enough to stay and face the dangers. Sorry If I sounded as if I was no sorry for his loss I am but I do believe he knew the dangers of being there.

[cb88]

Originally Posted by pickerfromhell

Why do they feel we should baby-sit all the civilians in Iraq?

They sound like democrats---take care of me from cradle to grave.

The kid (Berg) sounds like a rugged individual who was striking out on his own and trying to make his own breaks---he just got sucked up by the scum.

pic

Hey, Picker! Nice to see you around.

I agree with you. People who go to Iraq as civilians, even contractors, do so of their own accord. The big government contractors hire security (thus why their bids are higher than "in country" contractors...that kind of security is not cheap...i.e. Blackwater, etal)

I mean, I laugh when I'm cleaning up the newsletters here and there's a travel warning for Iraq (issued by our state deparment). But, really, because of this kind of incident, they need to issue those.

And yes, this even was a tragedy...it's disgusting, it's savage and it should not have happened, but the ultimate way to avoid this would have been for this guy to not go without properly thinking it through.

I have a sign on my desk at work (perfect for my sales guys)

"your failure to plan does not constitute an emergency on my part"