Berg first worked in Iraq in December and January and returned in March. He was inspecting communications facilities .... and worked at night on a tower in Abu Ghraib, a site of repeated attacks on U.S. convoys. .... Nicholas’ paternal aunt, now dead, married an Iraqi man named Mudafer, who became close to Nicholas. In one of the e-mail messages, Nicholas Berg describes going to the northern city of Mosul, where he introduced himself to Mudafer’s brother, identified as Moffak Mustaffa. "We got along splendidly," Berg wrote. "We spent a few hours and I helped him establish an e-mail account." ....
In a Jan. 18 e-mail, Berg said his company had been announced as an approved subcontractor for a broadcast consortium awarded a contract for the U.S.-controlled Iraqi Media Network. ... On April 14, the consulate sent a private contractor to the Fanar Hotel to see if Berg was still there. "The people we talked to at the hotel didn’t remember him being there," Shannon said. .... But hotel staffers, speaking on condition of anonymity, said Berg had stayed in Room 602 from April 6 until April 10. One of them said Berg lived in the same room during an earlier visit, which the employee could not remember. .... "He ... liked the Internet," another hotel worker recalled. "He usually left the hotel in the morning and returned late, around 10 p.m., usually carrying a sack of beer and mineral water." .... |