Nicholas Berg
When Nicholas Berg was beheaded, there were quotes in the news articles from FBI spokespersons to the effect that Berg had been questioned by the FBI at a prior date regarding the presence of Berg's email password and address in Zacharias Mousaoui's computer. The articles were in May '04 (after the beheading). They were talking about a questioning of Berg that had occurred just after 9/11. When Coleen Rowley finally got into Mousaoui's computer, they found Nicholas Berg's name, and email password and address, in Mousaoui's computer. When the FBI had questioned Berg about it (so said the FBI in the articles in May '04), Berg told them that he had just happened to meet Mousaoui on a bus, when Berg was going to a college class. Mousaoui, a stranger, asked to use Berg's computer, and Berg complied. And apparently the FBI was satisfied with this story and didn't pursue it further.
This is, of course, the famous Mousaoui computer that Rowley was trying to get permission to enter BEFORE 9/11 (Aug. '01), and for which she could not get permission from FBI hdqtrs (prompting her famous whistleblowing letter). If she HAD gotten into the computer, she would have found Berg's name, etc.
When Berg vanished in Iraq in May '04 (he was supposedly there looking for business for the company that he and his father owned--electrical or communication line installation, maybe cell phone towers--can't recall), his parents petitioned Donald Rumsfeld to get him released. There were a lot of disinformation items about his having been detained by Iraqi police, but the Iraqi police denied it. It seems pretty clear that he was detained and interrogated by the FBI, the Defense Dept. or some US agency--held for about 10 days, as I recall--then was dumped on the street in the middle of the assault on Fallujah (had contact with his hotel), disappeared, and turned up beheaded (with video).
His beheading then became a cause celebre for Freepers and dittoheads--to counter the impact on the public of the just recently released (May '04) Abu Ghraib torture photos. These heinous monsters who behead Americans deserve everything they're getting--was the thinking.
There is something EXTREMELY SUSPICIOUS about the Nicholas Berg event--especially this business about the computer, that the name and email address of that highly publicized victim would have been lurking in the computer of the supposed 9/11 "15th hijacker," and unavailable to honest FBI investigators prior to 9/11.
One thing I can't figure out is WHY the FBI spokespeople who were quoted in the May '04 news articles would reveal their previous questioning of Berg to the news media. Possibilities: the FBI spokespeople who said these things were trying to signal the public and independent investigators to get on this; or maybe, they were just trying to explain why Berg was in US custody in Iraq (why he would have been picked up), although it doesn't really explain that. It's not known what his interrogation was about.
-------
The House Intelligence Committee investigation of the FBI in summer '01:
Remember, there was a big scandal of some kind, and an ongoing investigation? Louis Freeh was involved (then FBI head). I was aware of this because Gary Condit was a member of the House Intel Comm. and presumably had access to gov't intel. That was the summer (2001) of Chandra Levy's disappearance. I was interested in the connections between Condit and Cheney.
Condit met with Cheney on the day that Chandra Levy disappeared (May 1, 2001)--in the very window of time when she was abducted and killed. Condit released his schedule for that week--week of May 1, 2001--in June. Newsweek then permitted Cheney to plant a story about that meeting--that it was only 20 mins., with aides present--in an early August edition of Newsweek. In the planted story, Cheney aides said that neither Cheney nor anyone in his office had been questioned by anyone--not FBI, not DC police, not reporters--about that meeting with Condit during Levy's disappearance hours, not even to verify that it had taken place. I thought that was extremely odd--that no one had questioned Cheney or aides--and also that Cheney's account of the meeting would turn up in Newsweek, three months later, apropos of nothing.
It occurred to me that the FBI likely had done background on Condit (whose name had been touted on a White House appointments list), and likely knew about all of Condit's mistresses (at least three), and that Cheney likely ALSO had the dirt on Condit (when he met with him on May 1, the day Levy disappeared). Condit meanwhile is sitting on the House Intel. Comm., investigating the FBI, and privy to gov't secrets. (What a Byzantine situation!).
The result of the Cheney/Condit meeting on May 1 (apparently) was that Condit, a Democrat, voted FOR Bush's first tax cut for the rich, two days later, on May 3 (one of only ten Democrats who did so--in an extremely close vote). (--this was two days after Levy disappeared.)
There was also some odd stuff about, a) Condit calling someone in the FBI around May 7 or so, after Levy's parents had contacted Condit re: Levy seemed to be missing, and an early search of Levy's apartment without a warrant; and b) Levy had apparently applied to the FBI for a job, or wanted to do so (her Bureau of Prisons internship having been terminated early, several weeks before her disappearance).
Here's a CNN news article on what was wrong with the FBI (May 19, 2001):
http://archives.cnn.com/2001/US/05/19/keating.fix.fbi/"The FBI has taken heat for the alleged espionage of former agent Robert Hanssen and the recent discovery of thousands of pages of misplaced documents from the Oklahoma City bombing case.
"One of the four things the FBI could do to fix the 'mess' in which it now finds itself, Keating said, is to complete a thorough review of the agency's computer systems.
"Some FBI officials have said the McVeigh document glitch stemmed from outdated computers, though Freeh denied that before a congressional panel Wednesday."
-----
It's interesting that FBI computers would be mentioned as a particular problem. There was an odd bit about Chandra Levy's computer. It went to the FBI Lab (after the 2nd search of her apartment, I believe), but then it took them two months--mid-May to mid-July--to figure out where she'd gone in MapQuest searches that day. Her MapQuest searches (which, according to news reports, the FBI had only just discovered) supposedly triggered a high profile search of Rock Creek Park in late July--with lines of cadets paraded around in front page photos. Why did it take them 2 months to figure this out?
This high profile search was followed a week later by the Cheney-planted item in Newsweek.
The search of her computer also changed the window of time during which she disappeared, from mid-morning to early afternoon. Condit met with Cheney at noon on May 1, and, except for the meeting with Cheney, had a three-hour hole in his schedule from noon to 3 pm. It thus became rather important that the meeting with Cheney was only 20 mins., and with aides present--the item planted in Newsweek by Cheney aides--because the meeting had occurred DURING her disappearance hours (not afterwards).
Dick Cheney was Condit's only alibi during Chandra Levy's abduction and death--and no one questioned him or his aides about it, and there is all kinds of funny stuff about Levy's computer and how long it took to figure out her computer use that day (and even about the whereabouts of her computer--first, FBI Lab, later, a "private lab"*).
(*See:
http://www.capitolgrilling.com/cgi-bin/ubbcgi/ultimatebb.cgi/topic/3/581/4.html)
Levy's decayed body was found not far off a pathway in Rock Creek Park nine months later, post 9/11, in May '02.
I have no particular conclusions about any of this. These facts have just stuck in my brain. But I do remember thinking at the time: Wow, the DC news media have really gotten corrupt (their handling of the Levy story was a shock to me)--and things are not well in our nation's capitol.
Printer-friendly format
Email this thread to a friend
Bookmark this thread
(1000+ posts)
Send PM |
Profile |
Ignore
