The family and friends of Berg are really angry with the US government for denying he was in their custody in Iraq.
Berg was missing from 24 March until his release on 6 April, when he told his parents he had been detained by Iraqi police in Mosul. He disappeared again on 9 April after telling his parents he was looking for a safe way out.
The family wanted to know why he had been held by Iraqi police for about two weeks and questioned by FBI agents three times.
“The Iraqi police do not tell the FBI what to do, the FBI tells the Iraqi police what to do. Who do they think they’re kidding?” Berg’s father, Michael, told reporters.
The intelligence agency said its agents emphasized the dangerous environment in Iraq and encouraged Berg to accept an offer from the Coalition Provisional Authority (CPA) in Iraq to facilitate his safe passage out of the country.
“Mr. Berg refused these offers,” the FBI statement said. “He also refused government offers to advise his family and friends of his status”. A family spokesman, however, rejected the suggestion that the 26-year-old Berg turned down a US offer to get him out of the country: “The idea that they offered to get Nic out and he turned them down, knowing his life was in danger, I don’t believe that,” neighbor Bruce Hauser said.
“I still hold him (Rumsfeld) responsible because if they had let him go after a reasonable time or given access to a lawyer we could have gotten him out of there before the hostilities escalated,” Michael Berg told a US radio station.
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