- LONDON (Reuters) -- The father
of an American civilian beheaded in Iraq accused President Bush and the
U.S. media Tuesday of ignoring the "horrible face of war."
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- "People like George Bush and (U.S. Defense Secretary)
Donald Rumsfeld don't see the pain that people have to bear -- they don't
know what it feels like to have your guts ripped out," Michael Berg
told a news conference.
-
- The decapitated body of Berg's son Nick was found by
a roadside in Baghdad and a grisly video of his beheading was posted on
an Islamist Web site in May.
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- "What I'm trying to do is show to the American people
and the British people ... that war has a wretchedly horrible face,"
said Berg's father.
-
- The elder Berg was in London to speak at a demonstration
against the foreign troop presence in Iraq Wednesday, which had been scheduled
to coincide with the planned U.S. transfer of power to the Iraqi people.
-
- Nick Berg, 26, traveled to Iraq several times looking
for work in the reconstruction effort before going missing on April 9.
-
- "He thought he was supporting the Iraqi people and
the Bush administration by going over there, not with a gun but with his
engineering tools," Michael Berg said.
-
- Bush and the American media have ignored the "true
horrors," added Berg senior, who has blamed Bush and Rumsfeld for
his son's death in previous interviews. He said he believed anti-war sentiment
was now very strong in the United States.
-
- "There are 11,000 plus Iraqi citizens that are dead
and each one's family is as affected as I was, but the American media doesn't
cover these people. It doesn't cover the people who are suffering the most."
-
- Nick Berg was one of dozens of foreigners kidnapped in
early April as U.S. forces launched an offensive on the restive city of
Falluja, west of Baghdad.
-
- He was believed to have been beheaded by Abu Musab al-Zarqawi,
an al Qaeda supporter.
-
- Since his death, militants have also beheaded U.S. hostage
Paul Johnson in Saudi Arabia and South Korean Kim Sun-il in Iraq. All three
men were videotaped wearing orange jump suits similar to those worn by
prisoners in U.S. detention facilities like Guantanamo Bay.
-
- "This is not a game that people in Washington get
to play," Michael Berg said. "It affects people the way it's
affected me and my family and the families of Paul Johnson, Kim Sun-il
and the thousands of Iraqis."
-
- "Observing someone's pain just makes you think just
how can they (Bush and Blair) possibly do this. There isn't enough money
in the world that could ever make this worthwhile."
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