http://www.chronwatch.com/content/contentDisplay.asp?aid=7391
First, what has been given as Berg's college background and how he came to run a one-man communications firm seems a little strange if not outright preposterous. It was reported that Nick Berg attended four different colleges: the last was the University of Oklahoma where it is claimed he learned to install radio towers. But Berg never received a college diploma. Reality check: it is virtually impossible to obtain such technical work as installing radio towers without a Professional Engineering license, let alone not having a college degree! Some later media reports have downgraded Berg's occupation to either an installer or repairer of communication towers. Big difference!

The first reports of his life story said that Berg supported President Bush in the War on Terror and helped install communications equipment at the 2000 Republican convention in Philadelphia. The statement that Nicholas Berg is a Republican came from his father Michael Berg who just so happens to be a member of the off-the-charts anti-war group International ANSWER or ''Act Now, Stop the War, and End Racism.'' While children occasionally do not share the politics of their parents (I didn't), you have to wonder if telling the media that his kid was a Republican was something of a ruse to direct attention from Michael Berg's (and his son's?) true politics. During a Thursday radio interview, Michael Berg proclaimed that ''They (Al-Qaeda) killed their best friend.'' Huh?

Media reports have identified Nicholas Berg's company as Prometheus Methods Tower Service, Inc. Perhaps it is a mere coincidence that there is another company involved in the radio business with a similar name: the Prometheus Radio Project. The company's website describes its mission as ''a media activist group ….. connected to all struggles for more democratic communications'' and it provides links to such groups as the National Lawyers Guild Committee on Democratic Communications and Americans for Radio Diversity. Neither the names of Nicholas Berg or his company are mentioned on the website and neither is International ANSWER, although the politics seem similar. Hmm!

Then there are the two 2004 trips to Iraq. While most contractors travel directly to Baghdad, Nicholas Berg instead landed in Jordan and found his way by land into Iraq. If indeed Berg was a one-man contractor installing radio towers, it would seem difficult to get any work in Iraq without (a) initially consummating commitments while still in the United States and (b) having a link to a larger construction company such as Bechtel or (dirty word alert) Halliburton! As yet no radio towers have been identified that Nicholas Berg may have built or repaired while in Iraq on either trip.

Between April 10 and May 8, when his decapitated body was found in Baghdad, Nicholas Berg's whereabouts are unknown. In the speech seen on the grizzly video just before he was decapitated, Abu Musab al-Zarqawi indicated that he could have traded Berg for hostages being held by the coalition. If true, and believing a terrorist is always a stretch, one question arises among many: why was there no announcement through Al Jazeera or other friendly Arab media, similar to other hostages, that Berg was being held?