New light on the Nick Berg case: US contractors ‘tortured’ for talking to the FBI

Occupation turf war sheds new light on the Nick Berg case
US contractors ‘tortured’ for talking to the FBI

11 April 2007

The case of Donald Vance, an American citizen secretly imprisoned by the US military in Iraq after making accusations against an Iraqi-owned security company for which he worked, has revealing parallels with the 2004 disappearance of Nick Berg, a US contractor whose murder is officially attributed to Abu Musab al-Zarqawi.

Vance was last week awarded the prestigious Ridenhour Prize for Truth-Telling at a ceremony at the National Press Club in Washington (see "My Name Used to Be 200343" by David Phinney here). The case constitutes further evidence that US military intelligence forces have secretly detained and tortured citizens of the US and probably other Western nations whom they believe may have compromised ‘unconventional operations’ in Iraq.

Vance is a US Navy veteran who signed on with an Iraqi-owned security company based in Baghdad. He and a fellow-worker, Nathan Ertel, came to suspect that the company was involved in illegal arms dealing “and other nefarious activity”.
He contends that he fell foul of the Occupation military authorities because he shared this information with the US Federal Bureau of Investigation. According to David Phinney:

Vance claims that during the months leading up to his arrest, he worked as an unpaid informant for the Federal Bureau of Investigation. Sometimes twice a day, he would share information with an agent in Chicago about the Iraqi-owned Shield Group Security, whose principals and managers appeared to be involved in weapons deals and violence against Iraqi civilians. One company employee regularly bartered alcohol with U.S. military personnel in exchange for ammunition they delivered …

Vance and Ertel barricaded themselves in their office after the Iraqi firm confiscated their ID tags. They were rescued by US soldiers and taken back to the Green Zone. There they were arrested and held, secretly, for three months. They were systematically mistreated and tortured with very loud music.

In a lawsuit now pending against former Defence Secretary Donald Rumsfeld and "other unidentified agents," Vance and Ertel accuse their U.S. government captors of subjecting them to psychological torture day and night. Lights were kept on in their cell around the clock. They endured solitary confinement. They had only thin plastic mattresses on concrete for sleeping. Meals were of powdered milk and bread or rice and chicken, but interrupted by selective deprivation of food and water. Ceaseless heavy metal and country music screamed in their ears for hours on end, their legal complaint alleges.

…

But darker allegations are included in the complaint over false imprisonment. Because he worked with the FBI, Vance contends, U.S. government officials in Iraq decided to retaliate against him and Ertel. He believes these officials conspired to jail the two not because they worked for a security company suspected of selling weapons to insurgents, but because they were sharing information with law enforcement agents outside the control of U.S. officials in Baghdad.

…

“In other words,” claims the lawsuit, “United States officials in Iraq were concerned and wanted to find out about what intelligence agents in the United States knew about their territory and their operations. The unconstitutional policies that Rumsfeld and other unidentified agents had implemented for 'enemies' provided ample cover to detain plaintiffs and interrogate them toward that end.”

If this is true, Vance and Ertel fell victim to a vicious turf war between the shadowy special operations and intelligence forces created by the Neocons and Vice President Cheney – the ‘Other Agencies’ (OAs) set up by Rumsfeld’s Office of Special Plans – and anti-Neocon forces represented by the State Department and the FBI.

This, I have long contended, is probably what happened to Nicholas Berg in April 2004. (For a full list of the material about the Nick Berg case published on my website see links below).

For those new to the case, a brief summary follows …

Nick Berg was a 26 year-old US businessman of Jewish extraction. He was a specialist in radio communications tower repair and construction. Although Berg was, by all accounts, a supporter of George Bush and the US invasion of Iraq, his father, a member of the Democracy Now! group, was an open opponent of the war.

In Iraq, Berg found a commercial partner in Aziz al-Taee, a seedy Iraqi businessman, previously resident in the US, who was an associate of the Iranian-aligned Shiite businessman, Ahmad Chalabi. Aziz had an interesting criminal record in the US but had been instrumental in organising pro-invasion rallies before the war. It is likely that Berg combined his own fledgeling business endeavours with simple commercial intelligence-gathering for others.

Berg also had Iraqi relatives resident in Mosul. It was during a visit to Mosul, on 24 April 2004 that he was arrested by the Iraqi Police at a checkpoint because his Jewish name and Israeli stamps in his passport aroused suspicion. He was reportedly carrying a Farsi phrase book and anti-Zionist literature.

The Iraqi police turned Berg over to US military custody where he was interviewed on three occasions by the FBI. Berg was already well known to the Bureau. It is a curious fact that, while briefly a student at Oklahoma University, and before the events of 11 September 2001, his computer user ID had been used by Zacarias Moussaoui. The FBI had investigated this incident but found him innocent of any wrongdoing. The 911 investigator Michael Wright unearthed evidence supporting the view that Berg was working under CIA supervision at OU, perhaps spying on some of the alleged 911 hijackers who were living nearby at the time. Whatever the truth of this, suspicion must arise that Nick Berg was a part-time CIA operative and/or FBI informant. Certainly Berg made no complaints about his treatment by the FBI while he was in US custody in Mosul.

On 5 April, Berg’s father, who had learned of his incarceration from the US Consul in Baghdad, commenced legal proceedings for his release in the US Federal Court. The circumstances suggest that the US Consulate and the FBI spoke up for him. He was quickly released and offered a flight from Baghdad to Jordan. Reportedly he didn’t take up this offer, saying that he preferred to travel by road, with persons unknown whom he had somehow met. He left the al-Fanar Hotel on 10 April and disappeared.

No credible claim has ever surfaced that ransom demands were made, although Berg would have been a valuable, high-profile captive. A month later his decapitated body was found in Baghdad. Shortly afterwards, the infamous video of his decapitation, officially attributed to al-Qaeda, appeared on the internet. For George Bush, the timing was fortuitous, because the video provided a tailor-made “moral relativity”argument to bolster the US Government just as the story of the US torture of Iraqi prisoners at Abu Ghraib broke.

It is not difficult to see what might have happened in Berg’s case.

Remember that in early 2004, it was still possible for small-time would-be entrepreneurs like Berg to move about Iraq relatively freely. But operations by the Sunni and Baathist resistance were increasing. In late May, four US mercenaries were killed in an ambush in the Fallujah, a Sunni stronghold. The subsequent US attempt to subdue the city resulted in a minor disaster for US forces. A few days later US troops raided the offices of the cleric Moqtada al-Sadr, triggering a Shiite uprising. Suddenly, US troops were being attacked by the Shiites whom the US had relied upon to remain moderately well-disposed towards the occupation or at least neutral in relation to the escalating conflict with the Sunni and Baathist resistance. At the same time, in the US mainstream media, the view that the US had been tricked into invading Iraq on behalf of Iran began to be advanced. The fortunes of Ahmad Chalabi, until then something of a favourite with US ruling circles, suddenly plunged. The whole Neocon game-plan was falling apart. Behind the scenes rampant political confusion and paranoia would have reigned.

The Neocon-aligned OAs controlling much of the action in Iraq would certainly have known of Berg’s arrest in Mosul and would have resented the FBI and the Consulate’s interference in the case. And Berg’s relationship to a businessman close to the now discredited Ahmad Chalabi would not have helped. Under the confusing circumstance of the time, Berg looked like a highly suspicious character and he was one with whom the Neocon OAs would have felt they had unfinished business. It isn’t difficult to imagine they would have wanted to have a little chat with him. Nor is it difficult to imagine he might have died “accidentally” while under interrogation. Having seized Berg after his first incarceration had become a legal issue in the United States, his captors would have been in a lot of trouble had they later released him, but his death, apparently at the hands of al-Qaeda, would have been a safe resolution.

Donald Vance was lucky he got a prisoner registration number. At the time Berg was picked up, the CIA and OAs were holding unregistered “ghost prisoners” and they may still be doing so. Vance was probably given a number because the circumstances under which he was rescued by US troops from the Iraqi security company meant that several people whose loyalty and silence could not be relied on by the OAs, knew he had been taken into custody. In Berg’s case he was probably picked, unobserved, by an OA squad.

Donald Vance and his friend Nathan Ertel were very lucky indeed. In slightly different circumstances they might have ended up featuring in an “al-Qaeda” atrocity video, or perhaps, more likely these days, in one featuring “Iranian terrorists”.

Oh, and the Iraqi security company for which they worked is still in business, but under a slightly different name, and is still receiving US funds.

The Nick Berg case on the Nick Possum Home Page
WARNING: some articles contain disturbing images

The Nicholas Berg execution:
A working hypothesis and a resolution for the orange jumpsuit mystery
23 May 2004
Why was Nick Berg wearing a US prison "jumpsuit" when he was apparently executed on video by what are claimed to be al-Qaeda-linked terrorists? Something fishy there, but there was an elegant explanation. This was my first work on the case, later elaborated by …

New evidence and observations on the Berg case
18 July 2004
A close comparison of frames from the Berg video and pictures from Abu Ghraib prison reveals more evidence that the execution video was recorded in the notorious prison complex. Also, a refinement on the issue of the orange jumpsuit, which was actually a two-piece US prison uniform. And for an "off camera" view of a videotaped interrogation like the one seen in the opening 13 seconds of the Berg execution video, see the postscript to this piece. WARNING: disturbing images.

Nick Berg: the missing month
1 June 2004
A lot of people would like to know what happened to Nicholas Berg after he walked out of Baghdad’s Fanar Hotel on 10 April. They say the 26 year-old American contractor was looking for a taxi when he walked off down the street and into history.

Nagging questions about Nicholas Berg's last days:
An open letter to Beth A. Payne, US Consul, Baghdad, Iraq
9 June 2004
Millions want to know the truth about the last days of the young American contractor murdered in Iraq. Was he seized a second time by US forces? The US Consul in Baghdad should tell us all she knows.

Our man in Kabul:
Torturing Afghanis with Fox News' celebrity mercenary
1 August 2004
The fascinating case of Jonathan Keith Idema a mercenary headhunter and one of Donald Rumsfeld's OA boys until he fell foul of the US State Department and the Afghan regime.

Supreme Court Rules Against Whistle-Blower

Court Rules Against Whistle-Blower

Tuesday March 27, 2007 4:46 PM

By MARK SHERMAN

Associated Press Writer

WASHINGTON (AP) - The Supreme Court made it harder Tuesday for whistle-blowers to share in the proceeds from fraud lawsuits against government contractors.

The court ruled 6-2 that James Stone, an 81-year-old retired engineer, may not collect a penny for his role in exposing fraud at the now-closed Rocky Flats nuclear weapons plant northwest of Denver.

Writing for the court, Justice Antonin Scalia said Stone was not an original source of the information that resulted in Rockwell International, now part of aerospace giant Boeing Co., being ordered to pay the government nearly $4.2 million for fraud connected with environmental cleanup at the Rocky Flats plant.

Rockwell must pay the entire penalty anyway. The only question before the court was whether Stone would get his cut.

The company, backed by defense, energy and pharmaceutical interests, wanted the justices to restrict when an individual can collect for suing on the government's behalf.

The Bush administration sided with Stone, arguing that it was in the government's interest to encourage whistle-blowers, even though the government keeps more money now that Stone has lost.

The False Claims Act allows individuals, acting on the government's behalf, to file fraud suits against companies that do business with the government. If they prevail, they receive a portion of what the contractor must pay the government. Lower federal courts ruled in Stone's favor.

The case turned on whether Stone provided information that a jury eventually used to find fraudulent claims.

Once allegations are disclosed publicly, often by the media, individuals face a higher hurdle in bringing fraud suits on the government's behalf. Otherwise, people could read a newspaper account or an indictment and then rush to the courthouse to file suit.

The major exception to this rule is if an individual is an original source of the information, which Stone said he was.

The company said his claim was implausible, since Stone was laid off the year before Rockwell began submitting false claims saying it was meeting goals of treating low-level radioactive wastes at the former atomic weapons plant.

Scalia agreed. ``Stone did not have direct and independent knowledge of the information upon which his allegations were based,'' he said.

Justice John Paul Stevens, in a dissent joined by Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, said whistle-blowers should have to show only that their information led the government to the fraud, not that the claims ultimately proved to a jury must also have come from them. Justice Stephen Breyer did not take part in the case.

The lower courts said Stone demonstrated that he provided information on which the allegations of fraud were based.

Rocky Flats is designated by the Environmental Protection Agency as a Superfund cleanup site. It is an Energy Department-owned cleanup and closure site.

In nearly four decades, some 70,000 plutonium triggers for nuclear bombs were made at Rocky Flats. Production was halted in 1989 because of chronic safety problems, prompting a raid by FBI agents. The Cold War ended before production could resume. In 1993, the Energy Department announced that the facility's mission was over.

State and federal regulators signed an agreement in 1996 on the cleanup, including demolition of what was termed ``the most dangerous building in America'' because of leaks, spills and a fire that drove radiation levels off the charts.

The case is Rockwell International v. U.S., ex rel Stone, 05-1272.

Picking on Halliburton: The problem is bigger than you think

March 21, 2007

Philip Giraldi

Halliburton's move from Houston to Dubai has aroused predictable concerns about security. Halliburton is known to be a major defense contractor, and the rulers of Dubai are undeniably Arabs, albeit Arabs who are demonstrably among America's closest allies. On one level, the announcement appears to have unleashed emotional Arab-bashing based on the same reservoir of bigotry and fear that scuppered the Dubai Ports World deal in February 2006. On yet another level, however, the concerns appear to be misguided regarding which Halliburton businesses will actually move to the Middle East. Halliburton subsidiary Kellogg Brown and Root, or KBR, is the part of the company that deals with military contracting, and it is Halliburton's stated intention to spin KBR off from the parent company. If that actually occurs, it would mean that the Halliburton operating in Dubai would be primarily in the business of oil industry support, not Defense Department contracting. That Halliburton might be moving to escape taxes, regulation, or potential liability issues is a more relevant criticism, but the company does not differ substantially from other corporate bad citizens in that regard, seeking the cheapest and most trouble-free environment in which to conduct its business. Halliburton has emerged as the poster child for much of what is wrong with the Bush administration because of its links to former CEO and current vice president of the United States Dick Cheney and because of KBR's incompetence and overbilling on defense-related projects in Iraq and elsewhere. KBR obtained a sweetheart $10 billion non-compete Pentagon contract for Iraq, and reports suggest that it assiduously overbilled and underperformed on the work it did, though it was far from unique in either regard. It has already paid the government some compensation for overbilling, and it reportedly continues to be the target of numerous government auditors who wonder where all the billions of dollars went. But Halliburton and KBR are only symptoms of a much broader and deeper corruption that threatens more than the Pentagon's overgrown budget. In 1961, President Dwight D. Eisenhower, himself a former general, warned about the threat to the American Republic from what he described as the growing "military industrial complex." He deserves to be quoted at length: "This conjunction of an immense military establishment and a large arms industry is new in the American experience. The total influence – economic, political, even spiritual – is felt in every city, every state house, every office of the federal government. We recognize the imperative need for this development. Yet we must not fail to comprehend its grave implications. Our toil, resources, and livelihood are all involved; so is the very structure of our society. "In the councils of government, we must guard against the acquisition of unwarranted influence, whether sought or unsought, by the military industrial complex. The potential for the disastrous rise of misplaced power exists and will persist. "We must never let the weight of this combination endanger our liberties or democratic processes. We should take nothing for granted. Only an alert and knowledgeable citizenry can compel the proper meshing of the huge industrial and military machinery of defense with our peaceful methods and goals, so that security and liberty may prosper together." Eisenhower saw the development of a symbiotic relationship between the Department of Defense and the defense contractors and politicians that would substantially alter the very nature of the United States, turning it from a country that went to war only reluctantly, where ploughshares could be beaten into swords and then back into ploughshares, to a country in which the political and social system would be in permanent thrall to a war economy and mentality. Eisenhower clearly understood that at a certain point, the defense contracting and the distinct economy that it fosters would gain control of the political process and would be able to dictate how the American people work and live. This process has come to fruition, and it has positively bloomed under the Bush administration, which now is speaking confidently of a "long war" that will last for generations. But not even Eisenhower could have predicted how that military industrial complex would eventually form strategic alliances with foreign countries, support advocacy groups promoting perpetual war, and eventually bring about the downfall of the foreign policy consensus that has guided the United States since 1945. Nor would he have predicted just how the new order led by the so-called neoconservatives, largely funded by the defense industries, would be able to gain control of the federal government's decision-making process and lead the United States into a series of catastrophic wars, seemingly without end. There is nothing benign about the arms industry. Companies that make armaments need war to be profitable. Constant war is even better, producing an unending flow of money. President George W. Bush's 2002 National Security Strategy [.pdf] is best of all – with its embrace of a vaguely defined preemptive war doctrine and the promise of a series of unilateral wars. To that end, the industry lobbies politicians to increase defense spending and supports ideologues with bellicose worldviews. Thus, the contractors who place full-page ads in leading newspapers featuring warriors using their weapons profit from the injury and death of American soldiers. If the national interest actually lies in peace, harmony, and international amity, as was envisioned by America's Founding Fathers, then the arms merchants are the enemy, however much they wrap themselves in the flag and proclaim themselves the arsenal of freedom. The intentions of the defense contractors are clearly demonstrated by how they spend U.S. taxpayers' money. Few can doubt that think tanks and advocacy groups such as the American Enterprise Institute, the Project for a New American Century, the Hudson Institute, the Center for Security Policy, the Jewish Institute for National Security Affairs, and the National Institute for Public Policy led the rush to war against Iraq and are eager to do the same to Iran. Many of these think tanks receive funds from the five leading defense contractors – Boeing, Lockheed Martin, Northrop Grumman, Raytheon, and General Dynamics. On an individual level, many well-known neoconservatives have moved seamlessly between the contractors and the think tanks, filling their bank accounts along the way. They include all-too-familiar names such as William Kristol, Stephen Bryen, Richard Perle, Dov Zakheim, Robert Joseph, Douglas Feith, Paul Wolfowitz, and Frederick Kagan. Vice President (and former Secretary of Defense) Dick Cheney and former Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld have done the revolving door one better, moving from senior government posts to senior executive positions with the defense contractors, where they made millions of dollars before moving back into government at the highest levels. All told, at least 43 former employees, board members, or advisers for defense contractors are currently serving or have recently served in policy-making positions in the Bush administration. And there are also the international interests of the defense contractors, concentrated primarily in Israel. Former Undersecretary of Defense for Policy Douglas Feith's law firm, Feith & Zell, represented Lockheed Martin and Northrop Grumman, while Richard Perle's connection with Trireme Partners provided business connections for U.S. and Israeli defense contractors, enriching Feith and Perle in the process. Both Feith and Perle have worked as lobbyists for Turkey, a major recipient of U.S.-made weapons. The multilateral relationship involving U.S. contractors, Israel's defense industry, and former U.S. and Israeli government officials is both incestuous and apparently frequently beyond the rules that govern international arms sales. FBI whistleblower Sibel Edmonds has recently said that unsealing the Bureau's investigative reports on Perle, Feith, and former State Department number three Marc Grossman would reveal that they all engaged in what she describes as treasonous activity reportedly linked to illegal weapons sales. The military industrial complex also sustains and feeds off the Bush administration's so-called "global war on terror," or GWOT. Most experts on terrorism would agree that the GWOT is largely a fiction created to simplify a multifaceted problem and heighten fear so that the flow of taxpayer money will continue unabated. Fighting terrorism worldwide, even where it does not exist, isn't cheap, particularly as the increasing reliance on contractors is much more expensive per man-hour than using full-time government employees. The $160 billion increase in the Pentagon budget since 2001 is dedicated to counter-terrorism (this number does not include Iraq and Afghanistan, which have been funded by separate appropriations). Add to that at least half of the intelligence budget ($20 billion) and at least half of the Department of Homeland Security budget ($20 billion). This means the astonishing sum of $200 billion, which does not include Iraq and Afghanistan, is being spent by the United States annually to deal with terrorism. No other country attacks terrorism in such a disproportionate fashion, and many of America's allies have successfully combated it using police and intelligence resources. If there are 5,000 active terrorists worldwide, and there are probably less than that, it would mean that the GWOT is costing the U.S. taxpayer $40 million per terrorist per year, with no end in sight. That's using an elephant to squash a fly. Considering that the fly can move a lot faster than the elephant, no victory is likely to happen soon, apart from the odd "Mission Accomplished" banner here and there.