Michael Berg Changes Story About Nick & Moussaoui
Michael P. Wright | 31.12.2005 18:39
Don't forget that Iraqi Security Forces arrested Berg after he flew from Israel to Iraq, yet was found in possession of antisemitic literature and a Koran. A Mossad operative on his way to designing a false flag, perhaps? What happened to him after US troops secured him remains a mystery.
Michael Berg Changes Story About Nick & Moussaoui
Michael P. Wright -- Norman, Oklahoma, USA
mpwright9 (at) aol.com
In May 2004, after his son Nick was decapitated in Iraq([search]), Michael Berg told a very strange story to CNN to account for the fact that Nick's University of Oklahoma computer password had come into the possession of Al Qaeda member Zacarias Moussaoui, who spent six months in Norman in 2001. In 2005 Moussaoui pled guilty to all six counts of an indictment charging him with terrorism.
The elder Berg said that while his son Nick was an OU student in Norman, he was taking a bus ride one day, and he allowed a stranger sitting next to him to borrow his laptop computer to send an email. In this encounter the stranger acquired Nick's password. According to Berg the stranger turned out to be an associate of Moussaoui, although Nick did not know that at the time. Moussaoui was supposedly able to come into possession of Nick's password because of this. Here is the CNN story:
http://www.cnn.com/2004/US/Northeast/05/13/berg.encounter
MICHAEL BERG TELLS DIFFERENT STORY TO DELAWARE NEWSPAPER
Recently Michael Berg told a different story to The News Journal of Delaware. Berg, who is currently seeking the Green Party's nomination for Congress, was interviewed by Ryan Cormier. Relying on information from Berg, Cormier wrote:
"Nick had previously been questioned by the FBI. When he was in college in Oklahoma in 1999, someone used his computer to send an email to Zacarias Moussaoui..."
http://www.delawareonline.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20051211/LIFE
/512110363/1005
In the 2004 CNN account, there was no claim of anyone having used Nick Berg's computer to send an email to Moussaoui. Michael Berg's purpose in being interviewed by CNN was to explain how his son's password came into Moussaoui's possession. The idea that an email system will transmit the sender's password to a receiver, without the sender's authorization, is absurd.
I sent an email to reporter Cormier and linked him to the CNN article and emphasized the fact that Michael Berg had changed the story since the 2004 CNN interview. I said: "The elder Berg can't keep the story straight about how his son's information turned up on
Moussaoui's computer."
I concluded that, in all likelihood, Nick Berg had been an acquaintance of Moussaoui, but said that I was not accusing him of being a terrorist.
REPORTER SAYS "MY FAULT"
Cormier replied with this statement: "That's just a misstatement in the story. My fault. He did say that Nick let the stranger borrow his e-mail account info."
To this I responded with some questions. In view of the fact that the "stranger on the bus" incident allegedly happened in 1999, I wanted to know how Michael Berg dealt with the fact that Moussaoui did not arrive in Norman till February 2001. I pointed out that Moussaoui had no motive to steal anyone's email password. He had free anonymous hotmail accounts and, like anyone else, could walk into the OU library and use the public terminals without needing to have a userID. He also used the internet at Kinkos.
REPORTER CLAIMS FBI HAD INVESTIGATED NICK BERG AND CLEARED HIM
Cormier's response was to call me a "conspiracy theorist" and to tell me that the FBI had investigated Nick and "nothing was there."
This provided me an opportunity to inform him that the FBI, in response to a Freedom of Information Act request from me, had lied and claimed that they had never investigated Nick Berg. I had requested that they disclose to me the true nature of the relationship
between Berg and Moussaoui. Here is the letter in which they told this extraordinary lie. Readers might need to enlarge this with the mouse:
http://bellaciao.org/en/IMG/jpg/fbi.jpg
Cormier ignored this FBI lie. His final comment was sarcastic: "Have fun with your research."
NO ADMISSION OF ERROR BY THE NEWSPAPER
Since Cormier's first response was to claim that he did not quote Michael Berg properly with the story about the "stranger," I emailed him and his editors, along with Gannet publications, with this statement: "If this was truly an error by you, as you claim, then
surely by now the newspaper would have published a retraction and correction."
On December 26 I asked them to send me a link to the retraction when it was published. There has been no reply to this request.
The likely conclusion is that Cormier did not misquote Michael Berg. Berg had told him a story which differed from what he told CNN. Berg's claims to CNN made no sense either. The FBI told an enormous lie in the course of refusing to answer my question about Berg's relationship to Moussaoui. Giving Michael Berg the benefit of the doubt, he is not telling the truth because he is believing someone else's lies.
What we have in my experience with Ryan Cormier and his editors is more evidence of the lameness, incompetence, and arrogance of the American mainstream press.
See these posts for more information from my Nick Berg investigation:
Nick Berg Cover-Up
http://bellaciao.org/en/article.php3?id_article=7393
Enormous FBI Lie about Nick Berg:
http://bellaciao.org/en/article.php3?id_article=7715
More evidence of FBI Lie About Berg
http://bellaciao.org/en/article.php3?id_article=7808
Michael P. Wright -- Norman, Oklahoma, USA
mpwright9 (at) aol.com
In May 2004, after his son Nick was decapitated in Iraq([search]), Michael Berg told a very strange story to CNN to account for the fact that Nick's University of Oklahoma computer password had come into the possession of Al Qaeda member Zacarias Moussaoui, who spent six months in Norman in 2001. In 2005 Moussaoui pled guilty to all six counts of an indictment charging him with terrorism.
The elder Berg said that while his son Nick was an OU student in Norman, he was taking a bus ride one day, and he allowed a stranger sitting next to him to borrow his laptop computer to send an email. In this encounter the stranger acquired Nick's password. According to Berg the stranger turned out to be an associate of Moussaoui, although Nick did not know that at the time. Moussaoui was supposedly able to come into possession of Nick's password because of this. Here is the CNN story:
http://www.cnn.com/2004/US/Northeast/05/13/berg.encounter MICHAEL BERG TELLS DIFFERENT STORY TO DELAWARE NEWSPAPER
Recently Michael Berg told a different story to The News Journal of Delaware. Berg, who is currently seeking the Green Party's nomination for Congress, was interviewed by Ryan Cormier. Relying on information from Berg, Cormier wrote:
"Nick had previously been questioned by the FBI. When he was in college in Oklahoma in 1999, someone used his computer to send an email to Zacarias Moussaoui..."
http://www.delawareonline.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20051211/LIFE /512110363/1005
In the 2004 CNN account, there was no claim of anyone having used Nick Berg's computer to send an email to Moussaoui. Michael Berg's purpose in being interviewed by CNN was to explain how his son's password came into Moussaoui's possession. The idea that an email system will transmit the sender's password to a receiver, without the sender's authorization, is absurd.
I sent an email to reporter Cormier and linked him to the CNN article and emphasized the fact that Michael Berg had changed the story since the 2004 CNN interview. I said: "The elder Berg can't keep the story straight about how his son's information turned up on
Moussaoui's computer."
I concluded that, in all likelihood, Nick Berg had been an acquaintance of Moussaoui, but said that I was not accusing him of being a terrorist.
REPORTER SAYS "MY FAULT"
Cormier replied with this statement: "That's just a misstatement in the story. My fault. He did say that Nick let the stranger borrow his e-mail account info."
To this I responded with some questions. In view of the fact that the "stranger on the bus" incident allegedly happened in 1999, I wanted to know how Michael Berg dealt with the fact that Moussaoui did not arrive in Norman till February 2001. I pointed out that Moussaoui had no motive to steal anyone's email password. He had free anonymous hotmail accounts and, like anyone else, could walk into the OU library and use the public terminals without needing to have a userID. He also used the internet at Kinkos.
REPORTER CLAIMS FBI HAD INVESTIGATED NICK BERG AND CLEARED HIM
Cormier's response was to call me a "conspiracy theorist" and to tell me that the FBI had investigated Nick and "nothing was there."
This provided me an opportunity to inform him that the FBI, in response to a Freedom of Information Act request from me, had lied and claimed that they had never investigated Nick Berg. I had requested that they disclose to me the true nature of the relationship
between Berg and Moussaoui. Here is the letter in which they told this extraordinary lie. Readers might need to enlarge this with the mouse:
http://bellaciao.org/en/IMG/jpg/fbi.jpg Cormier ignored this FBI lie. His final comment was sarcastic: "Have fun with your research."
NO ADMISSION OF ERROR BY THE NEWSPAPER
Since Cormier's first response was to claim that he did not quote Michael Berg properly with the story about the "stranger," I emailed him and his editors, along with Gannet publications, with this statement: "If this was truly an error by you, as you claim, then
surely by now the newspaper would have published a retraction and correction."
On December 26 I asked them to send me a link to the retraction when it was published. There has been no reply to this request.
The likely conclusion is that Cormier did not misquote Michael Berg. Berg had told him a story which differed from what he told CNN. Berg's claims to CNN made no sense either. The FBI told an enormous lie in the course of refusing to answer my question about Berg's relationship to Moussaoui. Giving Michael Berg the benefit of the doubt, he is not telling the truth because he is believing someone else's lies.
What we have in my experience with Ryan Cormier and his editors is more evidence of the lameness, incompetence, and arrogance of the American mainstream press.
See these posts for more information from my Nick Berg investigation:
Nick Berg Cover-Up
http://bellaciao.org/en/article.php3?id_article=7393 Enormous FBI Lie about Nick Berg:
http://bellaciao.org/en/article.php3?id_article=7715 More evidence of FBI Lie About Berg
http://bellaciao.org/en/article.php3?id_article=7808
Michael P. Wright
