Nick Berg conspiracy theories

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This is a page about conspiracy theories surrounding the death of United States citizen Nick Berg in Iraq in May 2004. The United States government and Berg's family allege that Berg was seeking telecommunications work in Iraq during the U.S.-led occupation. He was captured and later beheaded, with the killing recorded and later shown as a video on the Internet. There is controversy over the identity of the alleged killers and the circumstances surrounding the killing. However, the several subsequent videos of similar beheadings dispelled most of the conspiracy theories, at least amongst the general public.

The website where the video was reported to have been posted claimed that the murder was committed by Muslim militant Abu Musab al-Zarqawi. The Bush administration as well as the mainstream media support this claim. The men in the video said that a killing was carried out to avenge abuses of Iraqi prisoners by U.S. soldiers at Abu Ghraib prison.

Shortly after the release of the Berg video, Benjamin Vanderford distributed a self-made video titled "Abu Musab al-Zarqawi slaughters an American" which mimics an al-Qaeda beheading of an American. The video was so convincing that on August 7, 2004 it was broadcast on Arab television. He had in fact made the video, in part, to bring up the question why the Nick Berg and other videos were accepted as fact before the physical evidence was found.

1 Suspicious aspects of the decapitation video
2 Other suspicious aspects of the official story
3 Audio analysis of the video
4 External links

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Suspicious aspects of the decapitation video

Al Jazeera, in an article entitled Bloggers doubt Berg execution video[1], and other websites, point out apparent inconsistencies in the video, including:

There are jumps in the video, including a discontinuity of over 11 hours in the video's time-stamp from 2:44:12 to 13:45:47 just after the knife is drawn.
Cutting a person's artery in the neck while the heart is pumping results in the release of large amounts of blood. (Consider, for example, how much blood there was at the Nicole Simpson scene.) Lack of bleeding, and lack of movement following a video jump, suggest that the decapitation of a living person did not occur. Medical experts interviewed by the Asia Times concurred [2], also adding that a person decapitated would have their body strongly shaking and jerking in response to the act.
The man said to be Nick Berg wears an orange prison jumpsuit that seems identical to the jumpsuits worn by the detainees held in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, by the United States. None of the recently kidnapped hostages in Iraq wore any uniform outfits whatsoever
The unidentified masked men in the video appear to be standing at parade rest, or more loosely in a Western-style posture.
The unidentified masked men in the video have light-coloured skin and a high body mass by Arab standards.
One of the unidentified masked men in the video is pudgy and wears very clean tennis shoes. This is unusual for an Al-Qaida fighter.
At least three of unidentified masked men in the video have Uzi (an Israeli firearm) ammunition clips.
An unidentified masked man in the video claims to be Al-Zarqawi (whose appearance is known) defeating the whole purpose of wearing a mask. He also appears to lack Al-Zarqawi's tattoos and prosthetic leg. There have also been reports that al-Zarqawi died long before Nick Berg's disappearance.[3][4].
The voice heard reading a statement, which the CIA identified as Al-Zarqawi, allegedly uses the wrong dialect to be Al-Zarqawi, and is possibly not even a native speaker of Arabic. Some familiar with al-Zarqawi's voice said the voice on the tape did not sound like him. [5] Also, because of the low quality of the video, lips cannot be seen moving.
The reader seen in the video oddly keeps flipping pages back to the same page he had just been on instead of turning to the next page. Also, the sound is not synchronised with the image, even allowing for a constant delay. It appears that the audio of the statement was dubbed into the video, rather than read live.
The wall and the chair in the video match the wall and chair seen in some of the abuse photos from Abu Ghraib prison.
When the orator hands the papers to the person on his left, the man who identified himself as Nick Berg seemed to straighten his posture slightly, which may indicate he was preparing to stand.
The man in the orange jumpsuit in the video does not look like Nick Berg.
The website at http://www.al-ansar.biz/ was shut down after news outlets like CNN and Fox News (seen as being conservative) were notified, but before Arab outlets could retrieve the video.
A person with a (U.S.?) military jacket and cap pokes into the video (frames 9306 through 9368). His neck, left ear and part of his cap and visor can be seen.
The poor video quality could be a result of deliberate downsampling (degradation) to obscure details and make the possible hoax more convincing by allowing the soundtrack and the audience's imagination to fill in details that may not exist.
The reader appears to touch his face with his left hand, to cough or make his finger wet for flipping pages. Arabs use their left hand as their sanitation hand, and use their right hand to serve and eat food.
The executioner is wearing a large gold ring on his right hand [6]. Islam prohibits men from wearing gold adornments - they are 'haram' for men [7].
According to the New York Times, "The killer on the video cuts with his right hand. . . Mr. Rababa and Mr. Abu Doma, who shared the same room with [Zarqawi] for several years, insisted that he used his right hand only for eating and shaking hands."[8]
Since many people believed that Nick is dead before the staged beheading, it's quite possible that the producers who made this video have someone else dress up like Nick. When the beheading scene started to appear, they could have taken the person out of the scene and replaced him with a dummy instead.

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Other suspicious aspects of the official story

Nick Berg visited Israel in December of the previous year, and remained there until his subsequent visit to Iraq, which lends credence to the notion that Nick Berg was a spy working for Israel.Template:Fact
He worked on the radio tower near the very prison in the center of the abuse scandal; however, his company name cannot be found on the list of approved U.S. contractors.Template:Fact
There is absolutely no record of his company, either through state records, online, or anywhere else except for one small, local radio station claiming they intended to hire him to build a tower on swampland after his return from Iraq, a Free Republic listing his father and the company as an enemy of the United States, and a American Express Corporate Credit Card account under his company name and of which he was the account holder.Template:Fact
The US officially denies holding Berg. E-mails provided by the family of Berg in early April show that he was being detained by the U.S. military.[9]
His family was not permitted to view the body after it was returned to the United States.Template:Fact
The FBI questioned Berg in 2002 after discovering Zacarias Moussaoui had used Berg's e-mail account. Moussaoui is accused of being the "20th hijacker" in connection with the September 11, 2001 Terrorist Attack. [10]
The absence of the head combined with the presence of a corpse suggests a hoax.Template:Fact

Some theories also state that President Bush vowed to raze Abu Ghraib prison in order to destroy possible evidence of the hoax and prevent future investigations on location.Template:Fact

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Audio analysis of the video

Two possible asides in foreign languages have been identified in the soundtrack of the video. These are:

A Russian voice allegedly saying 'do it quickly' [11].
At 13:46:28 by the video camera's on-screen clock, a soft voice can be heard making a comment in the background. This has variously been interpreted as an English speaker saying:
- 'It will be done' or 'Thy will be done'.
- 'I wouldn't do that'
- 'I don't believe that'
- 'How will it be done?'

Template:Fact

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