More than a year ago, America's strategists attacked the Iraq of despot Saddam Hussein with "shock and awe." This week, the commanders themselves seemed paralyzed by a deep shock. The images of humiliated and wounded Iraqi prisoners, the orgies of sexual degradation had even hit Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld like, in his own words, "a punch in the gut."

The sense of paralysis lasted only a few days before a counter-strategy began to materialize, a strategy intended to make it clear that America was on the road to redemption. In Washington, Deputy Secretary of Defense Paul Wolfowitz grudgingly admitted that US troops had violated the Geneva Convention. During a surprise visit to Baghdad and tour of the notorious prison, his boss vowed that there would be a "full investigation."

A few days later, 293 prisoners were released from their prison of horror. They fell to their knees, praising Allah and kissing the ground in front of the prison walls. The first trial of the torturers is already set to begin in Baghdad this week.

Rumsfeld, however, prepared his troops in Iraq, who were involved in heavy fighting with insurgents just last week, for rough times ahead: "It will get a lot worse." He recommended a recipe for survival that he uses himself: "I don't read newspapers anymore."

Thus shielded from the daily calls for his resignation, he probably failed to notice that the administration's goodwill campaign had faltered on a central front. Of all people, the family of Nicholas Berg, the young American who was violently beheaded on camera by Al Qaeda terrorists, accused the administration of George W. Bush of being responsible for the tragedy. The tragedy, more than any act of contrition on the part of the Pentagon, seemed to alleviate the national sense of shame over the images of torture.

The vehemence of the accusations - "My son died for the sins of George Bush and Donald Rumsfeld," the father had claimed - brought the young man's short life, and the bizarre circumstances of his death, into the public spotlight. By the end of last week, the country began asking itself the question: Who was Nicholas Berg?

The father describes his son as an adventurous and good-natured boy. "I am convinced that, down to the last few seconds, he only saw the good in his kidnappers," Berg said, weeping. Circumstances that have linked Nicholas Berg with two notorious figures who were exposed as terrorists after September 11, 2001 have raised questions: Zacarias Moussaoui who, like the terrorists of September 11th, attended a US flight school, but was arrested four weeks prior to the attacks, and Abu Mussab al-Zarkawi, who is now believed to be the principal organizer of attacks on coalition forces in Iraq.

Like Moussaoui, Berg also spent time in Oklahoma. He was an engineering student there, and he attracted the FBI's attention because e-mails addressed to Berg were found on Moussaoui's computer. However, Berg, who had been under suspicion, was cleared of any charges. According to his father, he had lent out his computer and password. Someone who had been in contact with Moussaoui must have used the son's e-mail address.

Berg later worked for a company that constructed radio towers, then established his own small business. However, he saw an opportunity to find work and make money in post-war Iraq. Berg, 26, headed for Iraq on his own.

He traveled to Iraq for the first time in December, reaching the Iraqi capital via Tel Aviv and Amman. At his hotel, the affable young man quickly acquired the nickname "Nick, the man on the mast." Equipped with his large tool belt and a cable, he climbed radio and television transmission towers in need of repair to photograph damage, which he planned to show to his potential customers to drum up business. But the success Berg had hoped for remained elusive. In early February, he returned to West Chester without having accomplished anything.

On March 14, the young entrepreneur left the United States for his second adventure, which was to end with his barbaric murder. His return ticket was issued for March 30. However, business opportunities seemed to be improving. The "Iraqi Media Network," a company supported by the US government, was in the process of developing the country's public broadcasting network. To do so, it needed intact transmission equipment, and that was where "Nick, the man on the mast" became involved. He impressed his potential employers with his knowledge of the field.

But then the young man suddenly decided to drive to Mosul, in Iraq's Kurdish region. Berg told some people that he intended to meet a relative, and others he was meeting a friend. On March 24, he was picked up by the police and thrown in jail. Because of the Israeli immigration stamp, Iraqi police thought he was a spy and notified the prison's American overseer. This was how he attracted the FBI's attention a second time.

A few agents also visited Berg's family in West Chester, which was outraged about his arrest. On April 5, his relatives in Philadelphia filed a request for an investigation into his arrest, and blamed Rumsfeld for his being held without cause. Perhaps because of this intervention, their son was released a few days later. Once again, the FBI had cleared him of all suspicion.

Today, the US consular official in Mosul claims that FBI agents had urged Berg to leave the country as quickly as possible, and had even offered their assistance. In early April, foreign civilians were being kidnapped in rapid sequence. Instead, Berg opted to drive to Baghdad on April 6. He left his hotel on the morning of April 10, at which point his whereabouts became unknown.

He died for the same symbolic reasons as those for which Wall Street Journal writer Daniel Pearl had died two years earlier. Like Pearl, he was an American and a Jew, the Israeli immigration stamp in his passport probably providing the first indication of his status. In their pompous statement, the murderers claimed that Berg's execution was being committed as revenge for the atrocities in Abu Ghraib. Apparently, the knife was wielded by Abu Mussab al-Zarkawi, whom the CIA has been hunting for years, albeit unsuccessfully.

Zarkawi is the spider in the Iraqi terrorism network. He maintains contact with Al Qaeda and is considered the main impetus behind attacks on the occupation forces. The US government has now issued a reward of ten million dollars for information leading to his capture.

The bitter rage of Berg's family can be explained by the fact that the argument used by the murderers - revenge for Abu Ghraib - is so obvious, even to other Americans, whose doubts concerning US military involvement in Iraq are clearly on the rise, in spite of their dismay over Berg's brutal murder.

Last weekend, protests against the war reached one of its principal architects. While Pentagon chief Rumsfeld was in Baghdad, four demonstrators piled on top of each other in front of his house in Kalorama Heights, a Washington diplomatic neighborhood, to replicate the notorious pyramid of prisoners' bodies at Abu Ghraib. Three other protesters, dressed in uniforms, made obscene gestures and photographed the incident.