this from The Washington Post
The persistent violence contrasts sharply with U.S. officials' optimistic calls for private companies to invest in Iraq. Over the past year, the Commerce Department has conducted a three-continent campaign to promote investment and reconstruction opportunities.
It was at one of those conferences that Berg was inspired to go to Baghdad, his family said. He dreamed of building radio towers in Iraq that would beam reports from a free press.
According to his family, Berg met businessmen at the conference who asked him to inspect radio towers damaged in the war. Berg hoped to make a bid for his company, Prometheus Methods Tower Service Inc., to provide parts and repair services.
Berg's mother said she had begged him to change his mind about the trip.
But Berg, whose family described him as a bit of a rebel, decided that the potential business was worth the risk. He took a flight from New York to Amman, Jordan, on March 14 and then traveled on to Iraq. He did not have a security guard, translator or driver lined up, his mother said, and he decided to stay at smaller hotels not frequented by foreigners
Commentary from a non-Iraqi living in Iraq on the conditions there:
"Of course, no one deserves to have their head cut off, nor on camara above all.
But anyone wandering around as described above in Iraq, given the news post Summer 2003 was in horrific danger. I recently had to tell some idealistic kid here, an American engineer, fresh graduate, who wanted to hop a taxi from Amman to Baghdad to look for work that if he did so, he should write a will. Clueless Americans waltzing around like do-gooders in Kansas. Wake up, Dorothy, there are a good (if minority) number of cold people who are far too happy to cap your innocent, "oh I'm an American and we do good" butt."
What did he do wrong?
First, he obviously did not speak the langauge, did not know the region. But the good old US of A was bringing democracy and all that, time to teach the natives. Wonderful idealism. But this is not Kansas, this is a dangerous region, and it is not for amateur hour to wander around a country you don't know, that you have no support in, and that you don't know people in, that you have no connections to keep you safe. Bloody hell, staying in low-end hotels, no connections, no saftey.
I can do this sort of thing, but I know the place, and I also know that you need to get protection. Good Lord, what kind of clueless git does this? And in March?
What is it, does no one in the States have a clue that, hey, guess what, being an American does not get you the love nowadays, and you should, before wandering into a war zone, have some support?
Bloody hell, I just got an offer to go to Baghdad for some consulting with a Fund there, and while for the right money I might do it, I would not take a taxi from Amman, and not have any support.
Emblematic of the utter cluelessness that is American engagement with the Middle East."
I do think the young man met his death in a brave and dignified way. It's very sad. His parents were opposed to the whole war and had filed a lawsuit against the feds, etc. It's all so sad and a waste of life.