The father of Nick Berg, the American beheaded in Iraq, directly blamed US President George W. Bush and Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld on Thursday for his son's death.
"My son died for the sins of George Bush and Donald Rums-feld. This administration did this," Berg said in an interview with radio station KYW-AM two days after a video showing the execution of his son was shown on an Islamist Web site.
In the interview from outside his home in West Chester, Pennsylvania, a seething Michael Berg also said his 26-year-old son, a civilian contractor, probably would have felt positive, even about his executioners, until the last minute.
"I am sure that he only saw the good in his captors until the last second of his life," Berg said. "They did not know what they were doing. They killed their best friend."
Michael Berg's criticism came amid finger-pointing between Berg's family, US military officials and Iraqi police over the young businessman's imprisonment before his execution.
Berg rejected US government claims that his son had never been held by US authorities in Iraq. The Iraqi police chief in the city of Mosul has also contradicted statements by the US-led coalition concerning the younger Berg's detention.
The US intelligence community on Thursday said Berg was likely slain by the hand of the most-wanted terrorist in Iraq, Abu Musab al-Zarqawi.
The CIA said Thursday that a technical analysis has been made of the voice of the attacker in the video. The agency "assesses with high probability" that the speaker was al-Zarqawi.
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