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Post by tombldr on May 14, 2004 8:30:47 GMT -5
I'm going to post these pictures, but not make any comments as to what I think at this time. I'll let them speak for themselves and let you all come to your own conclusions. RP: Guessing you're zeroing in on the white plastic stackable chairs seen in #1, 2, & 5? In the one where Berg is seen sitting in one, I wish A) the pic were less blurry, so I could see if the front of the armrest has that ridge which you can see in the sharper England pic, and 2) Berg's arm were not blocking the curviture of the armrest, so I could verify that it makes the same curve. Those chairs are a dime a dozen in the States, sold at many grocery stores etc, but I have no idea how common they are in Iraq. You may also be aware of the controversy over the big gold ring on the butcher, forbidden by Islam.
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Post by Moses on May 14, 2004 8:44:05 GMT -5
Is the physique of the guards pictured (similarity) relevant?
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Post by Moses on May 14, 2004 8:49:37 GMT -5
Big gold ring: what is the analysis of the ring? What type is it? Is it a wedding ring?
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Post by RPankn on May 14, 2004 16:01:39 GMT -5
RP: Guessing you're zeroing in on the white plastic stackable chairs seen in #1, 2, & 5? In the one where Berg is seen sitting in one, I wish A) the pic were less blurry, so I could see if the front of the armrest has that ridge which you can see in the sharper England pic, and 2) Berg's arm were not blocking the curviture of the armrest, so I could verify that it makes the same curve. Those chairs are a dime a dozen in the States, sold at many grocery stores etc, but I have no idea how common they are in Iraq. You may also be aware of the controversy over the big gold ring on the butcher, forbidden by Islam. Yes, the white plastic chair is one item, which may not seem like much given the ubiquity of white plastic resin chairs. But also, note the color of the walls in the first picture compared to the color of the walls behind the "al-Qaeda terrorists." Hussein had the walls in all ministry buildings in Baghdad painted this color; of course, these buildings are now under U.S. control. Alone, either of these items might not be significant, but I think when they're put together, it suggests something very suspicious. Moreover, it would be interesting to know what color the floor is under the rug. Others have also pointed out the orange/red colored item in the left center of the first picture, compared to the jumpsuit Berg was wearing in the video.
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Post by RPankn on May 14, 2004 16:09:30 GMT -5
Is the physique of the guards pictured (similarity) relevant? Yes. In the third picture, the two men on the right are standing in a military stance known as "parade rest." Also, their physiques are not typical of those that we have seen in pictures and video of Iraqis, or even of alleged al-Qaeda "terrorists", who are usually on the thin side or slender.
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Post by RPankn on May 15, 2004 19:55:45 GMT -5
Bloggers doubt Berg execution videoBy Lawrence Smallman Friday 14 May 2004, 0:08 Makka Time, 21:08 GMT Revolting millions around the world, the video footage of an American citizen's execution has also raised numerous questions concerning its authenticity. Even at first glance, internet bloggers were asking on Thursday why Nick Berg was wearing an orange jumpsuit – just like US prisoners wear. Other net surfers point to the unlikely timing of the executioner's dubbed announcement that Berg was to die for "Iraqi prisoner abuse". Berg was last seen alive on 10 April, when his father Michael Berg believes he was killed - two weeks before the Abu Ghraib prisoner abuse scandal broke in the world's media. Some discussions focus on the timing of the video's release - guaranteed to divert attention from the outrage over US abuse of Iraqis. Video oddities There are plenty of questions raised concerning the video too. The body is completely motionless even as the knife is brought to bear – not so much as an instinctive wriggle. More graphically, some claim that cutting the throat's artery would cause a significant amount of blood to gush out. But little emerges and when the head was raised – not a drop of blood is seen to fall. "That's really what cost my son his life, the fact that the United States government saw fit to keep him in custody for 13 days without any of his due process(es) or civil rights" In a possible explanation, one discussion room member suggested that Berg was killed and then beheaded later. However, the circumstances of the video release are also strange. A Reuters journalist in Dubai first named the Muntada al-Ansar al-Islami website as the source for the video – at www.al-ansar.biz. Although the site has now been shut down, Aljazeera.net looked at the site within 90 minutes of the story breaking – and could find no such video footage.
But Fox News, CNN and the BBC were all able to download the footage from the Arabic-only website and report the story within the hour.Days before death Other questions presented by bloggers are Berg's peculiar circumstances in the weeks before his death. Why would a private Jewish American citizen choose to wander around Iraq by himself? Additionally, some have pointed out that his last email on 6 April to his family stated he wished to return home as soon as possible – yet the FBI claims he refused an offer of help to get home. In the wider press, FBI involvement has also generated much discussion as to why Berg was really arrested and detained for two weeks in Mosul. The unemployed visitor was suspicious enough for Iraqi police to arrest him – with FBI knowledge. He had only just been released from prison where he had been held for 13 days by Iraqi police for reasons he said he did not know. Family blames government A US newspaper claims an official familiar with the case knew that FBI agents had interrogated Berg, but had left him for two weeks because he was in Iraqi - not American - custody. But the official was unable to clarify the legal difference between the two, given the US occupation. On 5 April, Berg's family filed a suit in federal court in Philadelphia - contending that their son was being held illegally by the US military in Iraq. The next day, he was released and left to get himself home. The last time the family heard from him was on 9 April. His headless body was found near Mosul on 8 May. "That's really what cost my son his life, the fact that the United States government saw fit to keep him in custody for 13 days without any of his due process or civil rights," Michael Berg said. Final question Some bloggers focused on the accent of the purported executioner. Many deny the accent is either Iraqi or Jordanian - while claims the voice is Egyptian or Iranian have been made. The Jordanian accused of the beheading Berg is himself believed to have been killed in March, according to two Islamist groups. An eight-page leaflet circulated this week in Falluja said Abu Musab al-Zarqawi was killed in the Sulaimaniya mountains of northern Iraq during a US bombing. But even if it were the Jordanian, one discussion room member observes his face is so well-known that "why would he bother to cover it?" Aljazeera Link: english.aljazeera.net/NR/exeres/4FFA61A3-9C33-4597-A8D9-8079E91F2784.htm
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Post by Moses on May 16, 2004 8:15:08 GMT -5
The propagandists are saying that this murder is proof that Al Queda was in Iraq all along, thus the war was justified.
To whom is the murder being attributed? The last bit seems to imply that it is being misattributed.
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Post by RPankn on May 17, 2004 17:05:17 GMT -5
Posted on Mon, May. 17, 2004 BERG MET WITH SHADY IRAQIBy WILLIAM BUNCH bunchw@phillynews.com There's another strange new twist to the saga of Nick Berg and his final days of Iraq before his savage videotaped beheading. Berg teamed up in Baghdad with an ex-Philadelphia man who led a controversial group of Iraqi expatriates encouraged by the U.S. government - even as he faced deportation for his role in Russian-emigre crime ring selling millions of vials used for crack. [ Keep in mind, most of the Russian emigre drug trade is run through Israeli Russian immigrants and run by the Israeli mafia itself; the very people Sharon has surrounded himself with.] Aziz Kadoory Aziz, also known as Aziz al-Taee, hooked up earlier this year with the 26-year-old West Chester man to start a small company called Shirikat Abraj Babil, or Babylon Towers Co., that would install, inspect and repair telecommunications and utility towers. In interviews with several news organizations in Baghdad, Aziz claimed he may have been the last friend to speak with Berg before his kidnapping and beheading by terrorists possibly linked to the al Qaeda network. The radio-tower contractor had come back to Baghdad after a 13-day detainment in Mosul, only to disappear again on April 10. Aziz said that on April 10 Berg "surprised me by calling me at 9 or 10, to say that he found some friend to travel with to Jordan." Berg said he was en route, but Aziz doesn't know who he was with or what kind of vehicle they were driving. "He said they were nice people. I told him to have a nice trip." After living in Philadelphia for two decades, Aziz arrived in Baghdad sometime last year. A friend said he left for Iraq before the government moved on the deportation case. Here in America, Aziz was the highly visible spokesman for a group he'd founded called the Iraqi American Council and appeared frequently on major media outlets like Fox News Channel calling for the military ouster of Saddam Hussein. Aziz' outfront role also included speaking at pre-war, pro-troop rallies. It continued even after it was reported the inner-city electronic entrepreneur had pleaded guilty in the crack-vial case in 1994 and later had legal run-ins involving stolen computers and bootlegged CDs. His partnership with Berg deepens the web of intrigue surrounding Berg's time in Iraq, his detainment by U.S.-backed authorities, his disapperance and his videotaped beheading by masked thugs claiming revenge for the Abu Ghraib prisoner torture. Before traveling to Iraq twice this year, Berg had been investigated by the FBI because in 1999 - while at the University of Oklahoma - an associate of jailed Sept. 11 suspect Zacarias Moussaoui had obtained Berg's e-mail password. Attorney General John Ashcroft said Berg was cleared in that probe, but the apparent coincidence may have prolonged the Mosul detainment of Berg, who was interviewed three times by FBI agents before he was released on April 6. Officials have told the Daily News that Berg also aroused suspicion because he was an unescorted American carrying a copy of the Koran and what they called "anti-Semitic" literature. Berg, who is Jewish, also told friends that his passport contained an Israel visitor's stamp. Now, add the name of Aziz K. Aziz to Berg's strange Iraqi odyssey. Efforts to contact Aziz in Baghdad by phone and e-mail over the weekend were unsuccessful. Aziz told the Associated Press that Berg had contacted him by e-mail sometime after attending a two-day conference in Virginia on business opportunities in Iraq last December. Aziz agreed to give him some space in an office he had in Baghdad to form a partnership seeking communications work. Berg refers to Aziz in an e-mail to friends on Jan. 18. "I've found a fairly competent and reliable office manager," he wrote. "He's actually been living in Philadelphia the last 20 years and just came back - so he's similarly out of his element." Berg's first efforts to win radio-tower repair work were unsuccessful, and he was robbed on the streets of Baghdad. "I was always pressuring him to keep a low profile, but he ignored all my caution and advice," Aziz said. "Berg kept a high profile, wandering around late at night or took public transport. Sometimes he got upset, looked at me in such a way, or said, 'You're not my dad' or 'I'm an adult, I can make my own decision." " Aziz said that Berg left his equipment with him during a short trip back to the U.S. When he came back, the two spent an hour climbing tall buildings at Abu Ghraib, site of the infamous prison. Aziz said they re-recorded measurements that were in his stolen notebook. The next day, Aziz said, Berg called to say that he was going to the northern city of Mosul, where the brother of Berg's uncle lives. "He invited me to go with him, but I declined because it was dangerous," said Aziz. It's not known whether Aziz ever told Berg of his controversial past. In 1993, about a decade after fleeing Saddam's Iraq for America, Aziz was in the electronics business when he was one of 25 people charged with distributing some 100 million crack vials on the East Coat. Prosecutors said that Aziz, who lived in Northeast Philadelphia, was tied to a network run by a Soviet immigrant named Valery Sigal. Most in the ring were immigrants from Russia or the former Eastern Bloc. Aziz claimed he didn't know the vials were going to drug dealers. but he pled guilty. He was sentenced to three years of probation, fined $3,000, and forced to forfeit $17,673 in profits. He was arrested again in May 2001, on charges that the chain of electronics stores he owns in Philadelphia was selling counterfeited compact discs. A judge dismissed that case for lack of evidence last March. The Inquirer also reported he received probation in a 1997 case for selling stolen computers to undercover cops. Current records show he owns a cell-phone firm called Page One Communications with a number of outlets in Philadelphia. Aziz went by several names in Philadelphia. Sometimes called "Joe Aziz," he started calling himself Aziz al-Taee in the late 1990s, around the time he formed the Iraqi American Council. He said al-Taee was his tribal name and - in speaking out against Saddam - he was worried about relatives in Baghdad. The group has an address in Washington's Virginia suburbs and a national board of directors, but there were differing claims of how many members or how much clout the group really had. In December 2002, another key member of the Iraqi American Council - a California engineer named Bassam Ridha Al-Hulsaini - was reportedly one of 15 Iraqis flown to Washington by the State Department for two days of "media training" under a project known as Future of Iraq. A couple of months later, al-Hulsaini addressed a "pro-troops" rally in San Francisco, declaring that "The Iraq people are waiting for this liberation." It's not clear whether Aziz received "media training," but the handsome, nattily dressed ex-pat, now 40, probably didn't need it. He addressed similar rallies in Valley Forge, St. Louis and Washington, where he claimed Hussein's henchmen killed both his cousin and brother-in-law. The rallies were launched by Clear Channel syndicated talk-radio host Glenn Beck, and the media giant sponsored many of them. [ This jackass is from Tampa; west central Florida seems to be a breeding ground for the propagandists of modern fascism] A friend and fellow council member - Ahmad Kuba of Florida - said yesterday that Aziz left for Baghdad last summer, before any deportation proceedings began. "There are no cell phones in Iraq," Aziz told a reporter in May 2003. "That's the way to the future." Now, Aziz is now getting publicity for monitoring the final cell-phone calls of his slain partner. He said this weekend he understands Berg's phone was used as recently as April 19, and that three calls were made that day to Jordan, to the United Arab Emirates and to a local number. "He could still have been alive." The Associated Press contributed to this report. Link: www.philly.com/mld/philly/news/8684646.htm
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Post by RPankn on May 17, 2004 18:06:39 GMT -5
More on Aziz al-Taee: al-Taee on the far right with, yes, Paul Wolfowitz at an American-Iraqi Chamber of Commerce function.Who is Aziz al-Taee?---------------------------------------------------------------- He's an 40 yo Iraqi ex-pat who's lived in the U.S. for 20 yrs, a Philadelphia entrepreneur, and founder of the Iraqi-American Council. al-Taee (AKA Aziz Kadoory Aziz and sometimes also spell al-Tahee or al-Taree, though not by al-Taee himself) made the media rounds in the lead up to the Iraq invasion, appearing as a representative of his organization and often referred to as an "expert." Remember the story of the Iraqi mother, presented with the dead body of her son and a bill from Saddam for the bullets used to murder him? She was also warned that if she mourned his death, she'd be killed too. That was a tale told by al-Taee. al-Taee addressed several issues, among them: *) He complained that not enough attention was paid to genocide in Iraq. *) He took an upbeat stance toward the FBI's plans to question 50,000 Iraqis about their ties to Saddam and Al Qaeda. *) He warned that Saddam would use Iraqis as human shields during the war. *) He siad that Saddam forced his family to house Republican Guards. *) He warned people that Saddam was providing AK47s to children to fight. *) He warned people that Saddam was kidnapping children to fight the invasion. *) He backed U.S. actions, casting it as a war for liberation, not for occupation. *) He maintained that antiwar activistis were demoralizing the Iraqi people, giving aid to Saddam. *) Insisted that the Iraqi people want nothing to do with the UN (on Michael Savage show) and that only the U.S. and the U.K. should be involved in post-war reconstruction, etc. *) He supported the U.S. claims that Saddam was developing WMD capabilities. *) He said that Saddam played footage of peace protests. Nick Berg initially met up with Aziz al-Taee when he attended an expo on business opportunities in Iraq. Berg e-mailed Aziz-al Taee in January. Aziz al-Taee claims that he was the last person to see Nick alive. He also claims to have cell phone records indicating that Berg made phone calls on April 19, ten days after his family last heard from him on April 9. www.philly.com/mld/philly/news/8684646.htm?1c INTERVIEW WITH MICHAEL SAVAGE: www.homestead.com/prosites-prs/savageinterviewwithaltaee.html MEDIA QUOTES---------------------------------------------------------------- 1]. On the same program Aziz Al-Taee an Iraqi opposition supporter and former Iraqi citizen makes the point that "Saddam is in dialog with supporters of Bin Laden… he is a thug. To Europe, he said "The Americans helped save you from Hitler." www.jhs.jordan.k12.ut.us/beetdiggerpost/publications/issue13/pr... 2]. Al-Taee: "It's not the appropriate policy because containment has been a process of slow-death for the Iraqi people. We have had sanction on us for the last 13 years in Iraq and the people are dying, the kids are dying. Saddam doesn't care about the people. He takes the money. What he does, for example, he, the United Nations pay the bill so he will get some food imported from, from Syria to the Iraqi borders. He will get the United Nations to pay for it, then he will take it to Jordan, start again and get paid for it again and again and he's doing it like a black market like that. Containment also it didn't stop his torture to the Iraqi people. They didn't stop his killing the Iraqi people. So we cannot depend on containment and have like 500,000 Iraqis die every month." www.mediaresearch.org/cyberalerts/2003/cyb20030304.asp 3]. Aziz Al-Taee, Chairman of the Iraqi-American Council, told NewsMax.com prior to his address to the gathering, that Iraqis with whom he had communicated "are very excited about liberation. They know Saddam's days are numbered. Saddam has taken them hostage for the last thirty-four years. A refugee from Saddam's torture chambers, Al-Taee described how he had been electrocuted with a high voltage, and subjected to "hanging to the ceiling with hands tied, had his hands lifted up while they whip you with a stick on the bottom of your feet. www.newsmax.com/archives/articles/2003/3/2/165001.shtml 4]. Aziz al Taee is an Iraqi-American who says Saddam Hussein must be stopped. "This dictator has ambitions of having a nuclear bomb. He already has biological and chemical weapons, so the threat is larger than Hitler and Milozovic. So, we do support force as a last resort," al Taee said. 216.239.51.104/search?q=cache:SCQHQl429poJ:www.nbc4.com/news/17... 5]. Many Iraqi residents hope coalition forces destroy Tikrit because of its history as a symbol of the excesses of the Hussein regime, according to the Journal. "I would tell the people of Tikrit they have 24 hours to get out of there and then bomb the whole city to the ground, said Aziz al-Taee, chairman of the American Iraqi Council (John Fialka, Wall Street Journal, April 9). www.nti.org/d_newswire/issues/newswires/2003_4_9.html 6]. Coalition Provisional Authority Operational Briefing Presenter: Lieutenant General Ricardo Sanchez, Commander U.S. Ground Force in Iraq August 7, 2003 <...> Q My name is Aziz Al-Taee, chairman of the Iraqi-American Council, visiting from the States. Actually, I want to take the opportunity to express the thankful feeling among the Iraqi-American community for the great jobs has been done. The question we have -- obviously, we are concerned about the casualties among the civilians, and also, among the U.S. soldiers and the coalition soldiers. How fast is in your plan to transfer the power and empower the Iraqi Governing Council and try to stabilize the security situation here? www.centcom.mil/CENTCOMNews/transcripts/20030801.htm 7]. "I spoke to my family in Baghdad yesterday. They said, 'We are waiting for freedom!' " yelled Aziz Al-Taee, chairman of the Iraqi-American Council. He then hugged an Operation Desert Storm veteran clad in his beige uniform and led the crowd in six chants of "Free Iraq now!" www.politicalposts.com/news/index.asp?id=172628 8]. "My family tells me, 'The big wedding is coming soon,'" said Aziz Al-Taee, who chairs the American-Iraqi Council, a national nonprofit for Iraqi exiles, and regularly calls his mother and sister in Baghdad. "We don't have anybody getting married, so what they mean is the liberation or something good is about to happen." Over the phone it is not just who does talk, but who doesn't, that matters. Al-Taee last spoke to his mother, his sister and one of his nieces, but his brother and brother-in-law and the other male members of his family never picked up. "They tell me the men are sleeping but I don't think that's the reason - I worry they've been taken by Saddam's military group, or used as human shields," said Al-Taee, 39, who left Iraq 20 years ago and owns electronics stores in Philadelphia. "The last three times I've called, no male members of my family have come to the phone." www.baltimoresun.com/news/nationworld/iraq/bal-te.relatives29ma... [Continued in next post]
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Post by RPankn on May 17, 2004 18:07:37 GMT -5
ARTICLES---------------------------------------------------------------- 1]. Iraqis Call for Saddam Trial www.metimes.com/2K3/issue2003-5/reg/iraqis_call_for.htm 2]. Iraqi Dissident Leader To Speak At Freeper Event Tomorrow They're Not Expecting Any Counterprotests 3/21/03 5:18:20 PM Washington, DC -- <....> www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/869829/posts 3]. Iraqi protestors misrepresented by media by marisa 28 Oct 2002 Modified: 11 Aug 2003 I spoke with Aziz Al-Tahee, one of the organizers of the Iraqi protest that is being called a "counter-protest." He gave me a copy of their press release, which contains no mention of war at all. They were calling for human rights inspectors and the trial of Saddam by an international tribunal. The major thrust of their protest according to the press release was to protest the "false amnesty" that Saddam had supposedly granted political prisoners, many of whom are still missing. Mr. Tahee also indicated that Saddam plays footage of American peace protests on Iraqi TV, claiming that our resistance to war means that we support him and his regime. Very demoralizing to Iraqis! Their purpose was to make sure we remember his crimes and take action against him, but war was not the action they were calling for. lists.mutualaid.org/pipermail/imc-dc-editorial/2002-October/002... 4]. The FReepers and MOVE-OUT also will host Aziz Al-Taee of the Iraqi-American Council as speaker. "Theirs is a voice that isn't heard in the media," Taylor complains. Aziz recently appeared on Greta van Susteren's Fox News show, Taylor said, and now he is starting to get a "few appearances." He adds that Aziz and his group publicly demean Osama bin Laden in very strong terms, something that isn't seen or heard a very rare thing in the Islamic world." He added that the two groups agree on a very fundamental issue: a peaceful solution to the Israeli-Palestinian issue. Taylor thoroughly denounced anti-Semitism, saying "We're not racist, and we don't like people who are." The FReeper leader was referring to last April's "pro-Palestinian" march in D.C., organized also by A.N.S.W.E.R. He called it a "horrific rally," saying "I saw more swastikas there than in the films of the old Nuremberg rallies." Taylor has now reported that, unlike the October rally, "C-SPAN has informed me that they will not be covering 'The Patriots Rally for America,' but they will be broadcasting www.worldnetdaily.com/news/article.asp?ARTICLE_ID=30566 (10 of 13) <1/19/2003 4:21:09 AM> mensnewsdaily.com/archive/newswire/news2004/0504/051104-saddam.... 216.239.51.104/search?q=cache:8tP1I_gNBo0J:209.157.64.200/focus... 5]. Aziz Al-Taee, chairman of the Washington, D.C.-based Iraqi-American Council, said his organization believes in cooperating with the FBI but advocates interviews based on probable cause rather than ethnicity. "Iraqi-Americans are victims of Saddam Hussein," said Al-Taee, whose group advocates democracy in Iraq. He said the U.S. government apparently plans to contact 50,000 Iraqis using a protocol initiated in Philadelphia, where about 200 people have been interviewed. Al-Taee said they were given a leaflet listing their rights, were asked about specific Iraqi individuals and were offered FBI protection against hate crimes. Al-Taee said the sessions averaged less than 10 minutes. www.bethil-online.com/news/news/march_03/fbi-03.htm 6]. Aziz Al-Taee, chairman of the Iraqi American Council, at Saturday's Patriots Rally for America: "This war is going to lead to peace." www.radioleft.com/article.php?op=Print&sid=988 7]. Aziz Al-Taee, a representative of the Iraqi-American Council who spoke to the Marines and Other Veterans, and the FreeRepublic.com groups, said none of the anti-war speakers accurately described the Iraqi dictator. "They never tell of Saddam's horrible crimes," he said. "They never want to show pictures of Halabja, but they only want to show pictures of people affected by the sanctions." Halabja was the scene of a gassing of 6,000 Kurds by Saddam Hussein in 1988. 209.157.64.200/focus/f-news/825313/posts 8]. Berg e-mailed Aziz Taee, Philadelphia director of a group called the American-Iraqi Council, and said he wanted to do some business in Iraq. Aziz agreed to give him some space in an office he had in Baghdad; they would form a partnership, seeking communications work. And in January, he went to Iraq. www.fox23news.com/news/world/story.aspx?content_id=EC7AA970-1DB ... 9]. Aziz al-Taee, chairman of the Iraqi-American Council, relates some of the atrocities he has seen. He tells of how his cousin was tortured and murdered by Iraqi officials after which his mutilated body was returned to his mother with a bill for the bullets used to kill him. She was threatened with execution if she held a funeral service for her son. gopusa.com/news/2003/march/0310_torture.shtml PRESS RELEASES---------------------------------------------------------------- January 25th , 2003 United Nations Security Council To: Whom It May Concern Dear Sir/Madam We in the Iraqi-American Council (IAC) , like millions worldwide , have watched on all TV screens,with shock and sadness, the UN inspectors in Baghdad giving up an Iraqi individual seeking to meet with them to provide with some information that could be useful to their work in Iraq. We condemn the behavior of the UN! inspectors for refusing to help this oppressed Iraqi Citizen who tried to seek refuge in the UN Property screaming " Save me! . ..Rescue Me!" as he was holding with his both arms a thick file of documents. The screams of this brave Iraqi represent the voice of all the oppressed Iraqi people who have been suffering for the last 34 years under the regime of Saddam Hussein. <....> Sincerely , Aziz Al-Taee ( Chairman) cc: GENVA, SWITZERLAND FAX: 0041227397377 www.barzan.com/upcoming_events43.html ---------------------------------------------------------------- Iraqi-American Council (IAC) 1220 L Street NW, Suite #100-262 Washington DC, 20005-4018 Tel: 800-416-8684 Fax: 877-803-1800 Web site: www.iraqiamericans.org e-mail: iraq@al-iraq.org ON Al-Jazeera:Iraqi-Americans ask Saddam to step down from power to prevent the War WASHINGTON (03-15-03): Iraqi-Americans made a last minute demand for Saddam to step down from power to prevent a possible War in Iraq. Aziz Al-Taee Chairman of the Iraqi-American Council IAC told his host Hafiz Al-Mirazi that "at this point it is totally up to Saddam to prevent the War by stepping Down from power and going to exile" " I am not pro war" Al-Taee said" Actully, I want to stop Saddam's Continuing War on the Iraqi People during which he has killed 2 million Iraqis, gassed with chemicals against them, poisoned some and murdered the women and children." <...> groups.yahoo.com/group/IRAQIAMERICANS/message/2301 ORGANIZATIONS---------------------------------------------------------------- www.iraqiamericans.com (defunct) www.al-iraq.org/contactus.htm www.amstristate.com/ams/officers.htm www.aicc.us/About%20Us.htm
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Post by RPankn on May 18, 2004 4:02:20 GMT -5
Doom awaited stranger in a strange land
BAGHDAD (AP) — It was morning, around 7 or 7:30, when the young American checked out of the Hotel Fanar, the receptionist recalls. "Inshallah, I will be back in a few days," he said — God willing, he would return to the shabby, $30 a night hotel on Abu Nawas Street, with its stained carpets and noisy generator.
The American walked out the glass door. He had three or four bags; a member of the hotel staff put them on a cart, and together they walked a few hundred yards to Saadoun Street. But the U.S. Army had blocked the busy thoroughfare, and a soldier turned the porter away. (Related gallery: American civilian's tragic death)
"I dumped the bags and turned back," the porter says. The American walked on, toting his luggage, embarking upon the last stage of a naive and doomed odyssey through a nightmarish land.
The people who loved Nicholas Berg — who treasured his quirky enthusiasms, his quixotic drive to explore and understand faraway places, his wide-eyed intelligence — would never see him alive again. They would see, instead, his last, hellish moments captured by a video camera and displayed for all the world to watch on the Internet.
Only his murderers know what happened between April 10, when Berg walked out of the Hotel Fanar, and May 8, when his headless body was discovered near a highway overpass in western Baghdad. But even before he vanished, the last days and weeks of Berg's Iraqi misadventure remain clouded — because officials in Washington and Iraq have provided contradictory accounts, and because Berg's own freewheeling and fearless ways make it difficult to track his path.
It is telling, for example, that Berg walked away from the hotel to look for a taxi. In today's Iraq, foreigners engage drivers. Using Iraqi taxis is a risk; you never know who's driving, or whether this stranger behind the wheel would come to your aid or even report the incident if anything bad happens.
"He never called us, he was always in a hurry," says Adel Qatea, a driver at the hotel. "He wasn't balanced. When we called out 'taxi' to him, he didn't reply."
But Berg, says his friend Andrew Robert Duke, was "a tower guy." He had come to Iraq to help fix a war-torn country's communications system, and he thought nothing of propelling his muscular body up colossal ironwork to make some repairs.
"He didn't have any fears," says Duke, a 50-year-old businessman who has been in Iraq since last July. "He's 26 years old. Eager. ... If you climb a structure like a monkey and with a piece of screw in your hand — how much fear do you fear?"
The answer, it is clear, is "not enough."
He had always been that way. As a youth, he built a radio tower in his family's backyard in West Chester, Pa. "That thing was taller than the trees," says a neighbor, Bruce Hauser. He would climb it in the rain, Hauser said, because "when you are working on towers you can't predict what the weather is going to be."
Nor had he ever shown fear of other cultures. He interrupted a peripatetic college career — he attended Cornell, Drexel, the University of Oklahoma and University of Pennsylvania — to go to Africa, where he taught villagers how to make bricks, and came home thinner because he shared his food stipend with five members of a family with whom he lived, according to his family.
Outgoing and gregarious, he also was gifted at electronics. He had "an incredible ability to take a tin can and a string and make a communications tower," says Edwin Bukont, a radio engineer in Baltimore who was his friend and colleague.
His company was called Prometheus Methods Tower Service. He worked hard, 60 or 70 hours a week, with Led Zeppelin or other hard rock playing in the background.
He was a supporter of the U.S. war against Saddam Hussein; his brother David believes he was the only member of the family who voted for George W. Bush. In December, he attended a two-day conference in Arlington, Va., on business opportunities in Iraq.
Berg e-mailed Aziz Taee, Philadelphia director of a group called the American-Iraqi Council, and said he wanted to do some business in Iraq. Aziz agreed to give him some space in an office he had in Baghdad; they would form a partnership, seeking communications work.
And in January, he went to Iraq.
He sent e-mail messages to friends and family. They represent a kind of techie travelogue, full of details about towers he had repaired, interrupted by accounts of his travels and encounters with the Iraqis.
He writes of a "wicked sand storm last Tuesday, probably about three hours of really intense dust blowing around everywhere." He tells of being picked up in Diwaniya by Iraqi police, suspicious of a stranger walking around after dark with the equivalent of $20 in his pocket. He writes about the culture, about what he sees as rudeness: "There is no line waiting, even when you are halfway into a transaction and have dinars waving and such."
He describes climbing to the top of a tower in Shomali, in south central Iraq, and watching farmers and donkeys from aloft.
"The air is clean(er), and when I'm climbing these towers I even get to go a few hours without some awkward 'Americai?' question. (The answer to which is usually 'Sawa' — as you like," he writes.) "I have been taken for 'Turkiye' a few times, and this can be very handy as it shuts people up real quick, most Iraqis not speaking Turkish."
Aziz says Berg traveled the country, examining and measuring towers and seeking subcontracts — unsuccessfully.
"He was very good, had a lot of confidence in what he did. When he realized he didn't get a subcontract he decided to go back to the United States" in February, Aziz says.
But one night before he left, as he walked down Saadoun Street, he was robbed. His notebook was in the bag that was stolen, along with all the measurements he had taken of the towers.
[Continued in next post]
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Post by RPankn on May 18, 2004 4:03:07 GMT -5
"I was always pressuring him to keep a low profile, but he ignored all my caution and advice," Aziz says. "Berg kept a high profile, wandering around late at night or took public transport. Sometimes he got upset — looked at me in such a way, or said, 'You're not my dad' or 'I'm an adult, I can make my own decision.'" The mugging did not deter him. He intended to come back. He left some of his tools with Aziz and departed for home. He returned in March. He stopped in to see Aziz, picked up his tools, and the two spent an hour climbing tall buildings at Abu Ghraib, site of the infamous prison. They re-recorded measurements that were in the stolen notebook. The next day, Aziz says, Berg called to say that he was going to the northern city of Mosul, where the brother of Berg's uncle lives. "He invited me to go with him, but I declined because it was dangerous," Aziz says. What happened next is unclear. The Iraqi police chief has denied that his forces in Mosul took Berg into custody; a U.S. consular official at first told Berg's family that he was in U.S. custody, but officials in Washington later said she was misinformed. According to Berg's own account, in an e-mail sent to his family April 6, Iraqi police arrested him on March 24, and took him to see American military police. They said they would perform a background check on Berg; a day later, they returned and said they had no interest, but that the FBI would want to check him out. The exact timing is not known. He was placed in an Iraqi police cell block with 70 petty criminals and what he called accused "war criminals." Still, he found humor in it, later citing in an e-mail to his family the song "Alice's Restaurant": "I felt a bit like Arlo Guthrie walking into a cell full of mother rapers and father stabbers as an accused litter bug." Word had spread that he was an Israeli due to "certain items in my stuff" — probably his tallit or Jewish prayer shawl, and perhaps his passport, which revealed an Israeli entry stamp. Savvy travelers in the Arab world ask Israeli border officials not to stamp their passports. "American MPs were pretty stand up about the whole thing though. They heard the chants of Yehudien and Israelian and told the IP staff to put me in my own cell," which turned out to be the toilet, Berg writes. The Americans, according to Berg, "had day-to-day control over me before they transferred me" to the Iraqi police cell. The military would deny it: "The military police did have contact with young Berg," Brig. Gen. Mark Kimmitt said at a briefing Friday. "They found out that he was in there. Being good, compassionate Americans, they checked in on him every once in a while and said, Do you need a toothbrush? Do you need some soap? Anything we can do to help you?" A U.S. official, speaking on condition of anonymity, would later say that the Iraqis had detained Berg "for his own protection" because his behavior as a Westerner traveling alone had seemed unusual. The official said this Jewish young man had in his possession texts that were "anti-Semitic" in tone; Berg told his parents FBI agents had asked him about Iran because he was carrying some literature in Farsi and a book on Iran. Berg told his family federal agents questioned him about whether he had ever built a pipe bomb or had been in Iran. American officials said FBI agents saw Berg three times, and urged him to leave Iraq. It was too dangerous for him, they said. He was released on April 6. U.S. officials said they offered him a flight to Jordan, but he refused it; he would tell friends and family that the route to the airport was too dangerous. He went back to Baghdad and checked into room 602. Perhaps he was becoming more wary. He called Aziz and warned him to keep a low profile, surprising his cautious colleague. The evening of April 9, he had a few beers with his friend Duke. "He did talk about his plans ... that he was a young man, he was single, hoping to find a young woman with whom he could have a child," Duke recalls. He spoke of going to Turkey and doing some sailing there before returning home. The next day, he vanished. Aziz, though, says he heard from Berg one more time. The morning he disappeared, Berg "surprised me by calling me at 9 or 10, to say that he found some friend to travel with to Jordan," he says. Berg said he was en route; Aziz doesn't know who he was with or what kind of vehicle they were driving. "He said they were nice people. I told him to have a nice trip." Aziz says he understands Berg's phone was used as recently as April 19, and that three calls were made that day — to Jordan, to the United Arab Emirates and to a local number. "He could still have been alive." Berg's family, citing a reference on the videotape of Berg's death, wants to know if the government had received an offer to trade Iraqi prisoners for their son and brother. Deeply distrustful of the Bush administration even before all of this, the Bergs suggest U.S. officials bear some responsibility for what happened. And while they acknowledge that Nicholas Berg put himself in harm's way, they cannot blame him. "I'm sure that he only saw the good in his captors up until the last second of his life," said his father, Michael. "He was not disrespectful of danger, he just didn't recognize danger in people." ------------------------------------------------------------------------ Copyright 2004 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed. Link: www.usatoday.com/news/world/iraq/2004-05-16-berg-last-days_x.htm
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Post by RPankn on May 18, 2004 4:10:59 GMT -5
The war over the peaceThe Pentagon, the State Department and the U.N. are fighting over who controls postwar Iraq. It's a battle that could be more critical than the military campaign. - - - - - - - - - - - - By Michelle Goldberg April 14, 2003 | The bloody fighting on the ground in Iraq may be drawing to a close, but in offices and back rooms in Washington, London, New York and Kuwait, the battle to control the country's reconstruction rages. Three groups are vying for dominance -- the Pentagon and its neocon proxies, with their grand dreams of a new Middle East, the State Department realists, who fear Iraq could become a new Lebanon, and the United Nations, fighting the Pentagon's efforts to marginalize it. Which group prevails will determine, in part, what the next government of Iraq looks like, and whether the liberal democracy many exiles dream of is born and whether it survives. Ultimately, there will be elections, so no group will be able to simply install Iraq's new leaders. But there are important open questions about when those elections will take place, under what kind of constitutional system, and who will rule the country in the interim. Whoever is running the country while the groundwork for democracy is being laid will be able to place Iraqis in temporary positions where they can consolidate power. According to Aziz Al-Taee, chairman of the Iraqi American Council, 36 exiles, handpicked by Deputy Secretary of Defense Paul Wolfowitz, have spent the past four weeks in Virginia training for prospective roles in a transitional Iraqi government. Whoever ultimately has the power to fill such roles will have the power, at least in the short term, to shape Iraqi politics. On Friday, Wolfowitz told the Senate Armed Services Committee that Iraq's transition to democracy would happen in three stages. America's Office of Reconstruction and Humanitarian Assistance will run the country in the immediate aftermath of the war. Meanwhile, Gen. Tommy Franks will hold meetings across the country to identify potential local leaders who can join Iraqi exiles in an interim authority. Once basic services are up and running in the country, Iraq's administration will be turned over to the Iraqi authority, which will govern until elections can be held. Most publicized planning indicates the elections will be held under some sort of federal parliamentary system, which grants a measure of autonomy to Iraq's Kurdish, Sunni and Shiite regions. How much autonomy is up for debate. So are most other facets of the transition to Iraqi self-rule. "There are many parties outside and inside Iraq who would like to have democracy," says Judith Kipper, director of the Middle East Forum at the Council on Foreign Relations. "What form of democracy, and how a country emerging out of Stalinism becomes a democracy, all those things have to be worked out. The wrangling between the State Department and the Pentagon is built into the American system. The reason it continues is the president has yet to declare himself about who wins." Among most liberals, the conventional wisdom is that U.N. oversight is preferable, State Department control tolerable and Pentagon dominance disastrous. Yet among the Iraqi liberals who sympathize with the Iraqi National Congress, the poles are reversed. They believe only the hawks with an ideological passion for this war will show the necessarily zeal to create the right kind of peace. The State Department, they say, values stability over democracy, and factions of the U.N. want to sabotage the whole project. One of the major Kurdish groups, the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan, also trusts the Pentagon to safeguard Kurdish interests, and even some experts who advocate a broad U.N. role acknowledge that the international body is likely to give short shrift to Kurdish aspirations. On the other hand, other experts say that only the U.N. can provide international legitimacy to the rebuilding process in Iraq. As for the State Department, some see its incremental approach to democracy as the best hope of staving off sectarian warfare. "There is no easy answer," says Judith Yaphe, a senior research fellow at the National Defense University who spent 20 years as a senior Middle East analyst for the CIA. "None of these people comes out looking really squeaky clean and heroic. Maybe that's a reflection of what Iraqi politics has looked like forever. It's a scary and often violent business and these people are often swimming in dangerous waters." A look at the factions involved, each with their own tricky mix of self-interest and competing ideals, suggests why easy answers are so hard to come by. The Pentagon and the Iraqi National Congress Many observers sneer at the Iraqi National Congress. After all, the group's head, Ahmed Chalabi, was convicted of bank fraud in Jordan and only escaped his 20-year sentence by fleeing the country. The INC is backed by the neoconservative hawks at the Pentagon and at far-right think tanks like the American Enterprise Institute, and the group's cordial attitude toward Israel and Chalabi's close ties with American supporters of Ariel Sharon lead some to think of it as a stooge for Israel's right-wing Likud party. The CIA grew disillusioned with the INC in 1996, after the group launched a failed coup against the Iraqi regime, and recently circulated a classified report about the group's lack of support inside Iraq. A UPI story quoted a former U.S. intelligence official who'd read the report as saying, "They basically say that every time you mention Chalabi's name to an Iraqi, they want to puke." Yet there are uncertainties surrounding Chalabi's conviction. His defenders insist it resulted from pressure Saddam put on the king of Jordan, not from any criminality on Chalabi's part. In any case, both the State Department and the CIA supported Chalabi for years after his banking scandal. According to Chalabi's supporters, when the State Department and the CIA finally did turn on the opposition leader, it was not because of ethical lapses on his part, but because his broad democratic aspirations were at odds with their preferred post-Saddam scenario of a more pliant military government. Whatever one thinks of Chalabi and his backers, his group also contains some of the most passionate, sincere Iraqi liberals, people whose values mirror those of the Pentagon's fiercest domestic opponents. The INC's theoretician, Kanan Makiya, is the primary chronicler of Saddam's atrocities, and he's deeply respected by many observers across the political spectrum. A liberal humanist, Makiya is also no supporter of the Likud: in "Cruelty and Silence," his devastating indictment of Arab intellectuals' failure to condemn Saddam's regime, he blasts the Israeli occupation. Other members of the group talk about human rights and democratic institutions the way George Bush talks about Jesus. It's one of many ironies of the moment that the most illiberal forces in America are allied with the most liberal of the exiles. Mansour Farhang, a professor of international relations and Middle Eastern politics at Bennington College, was revolutionary Iran's first ambassador to the United Nations and a mediator during the early months of the Iran-Iraq war. An opponent of the war in Iraq and a proponent of U.N. oversight of the reconstruction, he nevertheless admires Makiya, an old friend of his. "I know Kanan Makiya and I deeply respect his humanity and his liberalism," he says. "He has a solid commitment to liberalism and democracy and human rights." That commitment is evident in the INC's dream for Iraq. Makiya knows that elections in the absence of civil society often lead to tyranny, and the INC has thus called for strong protections of individual rights, a federal system that will give a large degree of autonomy to Kurdish, Shiite and Sunni regions, the strong separation of mosque and state and a drastically reduced military, with elections to follow once these safeguards are in place. In other words, Makiya wants for Iraq all the things that American progressives want for their country. "I love Kanan Makiya," says Yaphe. "Kanan's got a beautiful vision in his brain. He has a lot of credibility and he's under heavy fire from unfair quarters." Unfortunately, Yaphe says, "Visions are one thing, reality is something else." And the reality is that to achieve his vision, Makiya and the INC have tied themselves to the Pentagon hawks. "The INC doesn't have its own army. The INC has the Defense Department," says Farhang. The group is beloved by the neocons partly because it is sympathetic to Israel, but also because it is rooted in the values of the West. As Michael Lind has noted, the American Enterprise Institute crowd shaping Bush's foreign policy are ideologues, not opportunists. Espousing classical liberalism, the INC's message resonates with the neocons' messianic faith in exporting America's political system. Joshua Muravchik, an American Enterprise Institute scholar who describes himself as a Chalabi fan, says his admiration lies in Chalabi's commitment to ideals they share. "When I first met him during the Gulf War in 1991, he was advocating democracy then, and he's advocated it for a dozen years," Muravchik says. "I do take the point that when you're not in power its easy to advocate. The only thing that I would say on the other side, as someone who has been a democracy advocate worldwide, is that over a couple of decades I've worked with lots of exile opposition groups in lots of countries, and even though it might cost them nothing to advocate democracy, I haven't met many who advocated it as consistently as Chalabi has." Continued here: www.salon.com/news/feature/2003/04/14/reconstruction/
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Post by RPankn on May 18, 2004 4:19:04 GMT -5
Outspoken Philadelphia Man From Iraq Defends PastAziz Al-Taee Pleaded Guilty To Making Plastic Envelopes Used For CocainePOSTED: 3:08 p.m. EDT April 8, 2003 UPDATED: 12:17 a.m. EDT April 9, 2003 PHILADELPHIA -- Since the start of the war in Iraq, NBC 10 News has been airing stories from a unique perspective -- an Iraqi man living in Philadelphia. But now, NBC 10 has learned that Aziz Al-Taee has a criminal record and could be deported next year. Al-Taee has also been interviewed in major newspapers, cable news operations and other public news outlets. Al-Taee told about how he had been in danger when he lived in Iraq and how concerned he is for his family who still lived under Saddam Hussein's thumb. However, some recent reports have challenged Al-Taee's motives and for what they say is a questionable background. On Tuesday, the Philadelphia Inquirer reported that some Arabs suggest that Al-Taeez may not be setting a good example. He is not a U.S. citizen, but a permanent resident who could be deported. Al-Taee pleaded guilty in the 1990s to selling empty plastic envelopes commonly used to package crack. He also pleaded guilty to buying stolen computers. He was sentenced to three years of probation, fined $3,000, and forced to forfeit $17,673 in profits. He was arrested again in May 2001, on charges that the chain of electronics stores he owns in Philadelphia was selling counterfeit compact discs. A judge dismissed that case for lack of evidence on March 4. Al-Taee blamed the compact disc counterfeiting case on unscrupulous employees, who he said had acted without his approval. By law, permanent residents with certain criminal records can be deported. It is all up to a judge, and some Arabs in America say that Al-Taee does not represent them. They claim the Iraqi-American Council is simply a Web site and a phone number designed to benefit Al-Taee. "He doesn't represent anyone except himself," said Tawfiq Barqawi, a spokesman for the Philadelphia chapter of the American-Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee, which has opposed the U.S. invasion. "What we are all trying to do is change the image of Arab-Americans, and he is going to undo all of our work." But Muhannad Eshaiker, a spokesman for the Iraqi Forum for Democracy, said he has known Al-Taee as an activist for years and feels that his efforts are sincere. "I have no question about his motive. His motive is that he wants to expose the atrocities of Saddam," Eshaiker said. Al-Taee has portrayed himself as a leader in the Iraqi-American Council -- a group designed to help Iraqis in America improve their lives. NBC 10 News reporter Tim Lake went to the source and asked Al-Taee about the allegations. Lake asked him about the opinion of some Arabs that he is only speaking out to help himself, not for Iraqi-Americans. "That is false. I get calls from Iraqi-Americans every second. And, we have almost one spokesman in every major city," Al-Taee said. Al-Taee owns a small chain of electronic stores and lives very comfortably in Philadelphia. Lake asked him about the criminal convictions that led to his deportation hearing, scheduled for August 2004. "I own the business and most of the time I'm not there. Senior managers (take care of it). But as the owner, I'm responsible for employees and that's why I pleaded guilty (to the drug charges)," Al-Taee said. "My motive is, I'm a free man and I want to help in the freedom of Iraqi people and that is my only motive." Al-Taee said that he still wants to return to Iraq to see his family. He said that going home would be worth the risk of not being able to return to the United States once he leaves. Born in Baghdad, Al-Taee first came to the United States in 1983. He became a permanent legal resident of the United States in 1990. Al-Taee, who said he began using his tribal last name rather than his paternal surname, Aziz, to protect his family in Baghdad, said he is confident he will not be deported. Apparently, Al-Taee's legal troubles aren't causing problems with some of his TV appearances. He said he had two more scheduled for Tuesday night. Link: www.nbc10.com/news/2098489/detail.html
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