Arab linguists have said the man posing as the Jordanian Zaraqawi did not speak with a Jordanian dialect. Others have suggested the man reading the written statement may not have been a native speaker of Arabic.
Zaraqawi was missing one leg and had been outfitted with an artificial leg that did not fit or function properly. He was unable to walk or stand normally with his ill-fitting limb. No man in the group showed evidence of such an infirmity.
Numerous indigenous sources have said Zaraqawi was killed by a US helicopter attack months ago when he was unable to move quickly enough to escape the targeted house. While others managed to exit the house in time to survive, he died in the collapsed building.
Any surgeon will testify, the alleged beheading was a fake(atleast in part). A beheading would result in a tremendous amount of spurting blood. There would have been blood everywhere had an actual beheading taken place. When the executioner holds up Berg's head immediately following what is represented as an actual decapitation of a living person, there is no significant blood flow from the neck or blood splatters showing anywhere on the executioner. Furthermore, the cut was simply too neat to have been done crudely and with such amazing speed by a man wielding a knife. Anybody who has ever carved a turkey knows there is something wrong with the supposed beheading. The suspended head looks more like Berg had been neatly beheaded by a guillotine.
Another point, look at the time stamp of the video. Notice Nick's head has been cut off at 13:47:49 (1:47) Yet at 2:44 nearly an hour later he is sitting with his head intact!
In the video, the man in the middle (wearing all black) is the one who beheads Nick, but immediately when the head is held up, suddenly it changes to the man in the white mask. Now come one people, just the last two points alone should make you think...
The orange jumpsuit was standard US military issue to men in custody. It is unlikely Nick would have continuing wearing a US custodial uniform if he had been released by the military as they claim. The fact he was still wearing the suit is both anomalous and suggestive. One is forced to speculate as to whether there was an immediate transfer of Nick from the US military to unknown persons, thusly preventing Berg from discarding his US prison garb.
Several of the men in the film were fat by Iraqi standards. If they were Feyadeen or mujahadeen, they probably have been living underground since the first days of the occupation. Tens of thousands of Iraqis have been shown on news stories as they have marched and demonstrated. One would be hard pressed to point out a single fat man among these thousands.
Some men had what can only be described as pasty-white hands. Once again, one would be hard pressed to find Arab men with pasty-white hands.
The lack of spurting blood suggests Nick was already dead at the time of the alleged decapitation. It is possible Nick's dead body was displayed with his head already partially or totally severed. In any case, he almost certainly was killed before the staged beheading. If so, it suggests the captors had no stomach for an actual beheading of a living person, and they opted to fulfill their assignment quietly and with the least amount of gore.
The scream that is heard has been interpreted as a woman's scream by many viewers. Videotape cognoscenti have further said the scream was amateurishly added to the tape. A high pitched scream from a guy isnt abnormal, but it seems odd to me, as it seems others as well.
The U.S. government translation of one statement made on the film is: "Does al Qaeda need any further excuses?" This is a falsification. The actual statement urged fellow insurgents to get off their hind ends and do something. One assumes the translator being used by the US military is a native speaker of Arabic, so this cannot be explained as an innocent flub. This suggests the US government wanted to inject an alleged al- Qaeda group into the murder of Nick.
Iraqis who have seen the videotape on Arabic news broadcasts are universally saying the men in the film are not Iraqis. Are they saying this partly because the speaker does not employ an Iraqi dialect? Where does their certainty come from?
Firearms experts have stated the AK-47 carried by one man was a "Gilal." This actually is an Israeli-made weapon that improves on the famous AK- 47. Feyadeen and other insurgents almost universally use AK-47s. I happen to own two AK-47s, and members here at X-S can back me up on that. Ya, the video was not all that good, but the rifles those guys were holding were no AKs.
The man in the videotape who is purported to be Zarqawi is wearing a gold ring. This is absolutely proscribed by Islamic law.
The US military has stated that Nick was never in US custody and that he had been in custody of the Iraqi police. The Iraqi police adamantly deny he was ever in their custody. On April 1, an e-mail from Beth A. Payne, the U.S. consular officer in Iraq, was sent to the family of Nic. It stated that Ms. Payne had located Nick, and he was currently in custody of the US military. We have to conclude that either the email was bogus or the US military has been lying.
The chair that Nick was seated in during the filming was a standard issue military chair of the exact same kind as seen in a color photo taken at the Abu Ghraib Prison. The chances a terrorist cell would be using this same chair are minimal at best.