イラク戦争

Berg was a small-business owner who went to Iraq as an independent businessman to help rebuild communication antennas, his family said Tuesday. Friends and family said he was a ''free spirit'' who wanted to help others - working in Ghana, in one example - and that his going to Iraq fit with that ideology. They said he supported the Iraqi war and the Bush administration.

U.S. officials had feared the shocking photographs of U.S. soldiers abusing and humiliating Iraqis at Abu Ghraib prison west of Baghdad would endanger the lives of American troops and civilians.

Also, Berg's killing happened amid a climate of anti-Western sentiment, which flared in Iraq after last month's crackdown on Shiite extremists and the three-week Marine siege of Fallujah west of Baghdad. Anger at the United States swelled with the publication of the Abu Ghraib photographs, which continue to stir rage throughout the Arab world.

In the video, five men wearing headscarves and black ski masks stood over a bound man in an orange jumpsuit similar to prison uniforms.



''My name is Nick Berg. My father's name is Michael. My mother's name is Suzanne,'' the man, seated in a chair, said on the video. ''I have a brother and sister, David and Sara. I live in ... Philadelphia.''

The video then cut to Berg sitting on the floor, his hands tied behind his back, as a statement was read in Arabic. Berg sat still during the statement, facing the camera, occasionally raising his shoulders.