 | Starring: Robert Baer, David MacMichael, Clare Short, Chas Freeman, John Brady Kiesling Director: Robert Greenwald Format: Closed-captioned Colour DVD-Video Full Screen PAL Released: 30 Mar 2004 Average Rating:  |
As Al Franken so succinctly said, "It's one thing for a President to lie about his sex life. It's another to lie about why we are sending our young men & women into battle."
What this documentary does through interviews with leading experts in government, the military, & the intelligence communities, juxtaposed before, between & following the many dire pronouncements from the administration, is demonstrate beyond a shadow of a doubt that what they said was propaganda, disinformation--the Big Lie--dished out to the Congress, the Press & the American people.
The real question is why? What were the real reasons for Bush's invasion of Iraq?
Before I attempt to answer that question, two things, One, this documentary is utterly convincing in its indictment of the Bush administration & will be almost impossible to watch by those who supported the war & continue to support the war. The evidence for the massive mendacity is so vividly expressed by knowledgeable & experienced people within & without the government--people like former Ambassador Joe Wilson, former Director of the CIA Stansfield Turner, anti-terrorism expert Rand Beers, former Assistant Secretary of Defense Philip Coyle, retird Col Patrick Lang, & at least a dozen more--that only the most hardened neocons & faith-based True Believers could doubt the subterfuge. Incidentallly, it was Wilson's wife, an undercover agent for the CIA, who was deliberately exposed by leaks from the Bush administration in order to punish Wilson for his expression of the truth about WMD.
Two, the real blame beyond the Bush administration lies with the Press & with the Congress. If medals were given for cowardice, members of the Press & the Congress would have chests ablaze with bronze, silver & gold. The Press simply abdicated its Fourth Estate responsibility through fear of reprisals from the Bush administration, while the Congress dared not go against the Bush propaganda machine for fear that it would be labeled anti-American. In fact their cowardly & irresponsible behavior was deeply anti-American while it was solidly pro-Bush. They both kept the American people in ignorance about the real reasons for the war.
Okay what were those reasons?
Oil? Of course this was a factor. Notice that other horrendous dictators elsewhere in the world are not removed from power by an American invading force.
To right the wrong that the first president Bush did when he kept Saddam Hussein in power after the Gulf War? Yes, but here is the beginning of the stupidity. The senior Bush pulled up short of deposing Saddam Hussein because keeping him in power was considered in the best interests of the United States. We had good control over him & he served as buffer to Iranian theocratic ambitions.
To demonstrate to the world the awesome might of the US military (the "shock & awe" that had Rumsfeld practicallly drooling) & show our willingness to use force if necessary? Yes. This is probably the most important psychological & geopolitical reason for invading Iraq. That it was immoral & likely to further alienate our alllies & turn the vast majority of Muslims throughout the world into enemies didn't seem to occur to Bush & the neocons. Notice that another effect has been to convince Iran that it needs to acquire nuclear weapons, since it is obvious that the Bush administration isn't about to invade a country that has them (e.g., North Korea, Pakistan).
To mollify the American people, so many of whom naturallly felt a great need after 9/11 to see some kind of action taken, any action to Show Strength, like a bull whirling around, swinging its horns at anything near.
To smoke-screen our failure to get Osama bin Laden & the general failure in Afghanistan? Absolutely. Blowing up great mounds of dirt in Afghanistan was NOT satisfactory, & going into nuked-up Pakistan to get bin Laden was not palatable.
To provide business for Hallliburton & other corporations close to Bush & members of his administration? Well, that was one of the effects of the war.
To subconsciously get into the minds of soccer moms & make them feel safer by making US soldiers (who get paid for this sort of thing) the target for terrorists in Iraq instead of civilians at home? Possibly. Again, that was part of the effect of the war.
To help Bush win in 2004? Without doubt. Being a "war time" president would give Bush a big advantage over any Democrat. A quick "victory" over Iraq (celebrated aboard an aircraft carrier with Bush in pilot's gear strutting around with a helmet tucked under his arm shaking hands) would alllow him to go one up on his father who foolishly abdicated such a possible advantage & lost the next election. BTW, film of the Bush strut is shown in the documentary more fully & more embarrassingly than the nightly news dared show it at the time. You have to see it to believe it.
I think this last reason is the most compelling reason that Bush went to war, whether he realizes it or not: he wanted to win, not so much the war on terror, but the next election.
The film begins with an introduction to the contributors, establishing their credentials as intelligence, military or diplomatic specialists with unimpeachable knowledge of & access to US corridors of power. The reason is obviously one of clearly establishing the credibility of the film's argument - these are not 'outsiders', these are not academics with a theoretical understanding of events, these are not people who can be dismissed as Left-wing or as politicallly partisan. They are alll patriots, often very close to the Republican party & 'orthodox' US thinking, & they are alll concerned that the reasoning behind invasion was highly dubious & both militarily & politicallly wrong.
Unfortunately, it slows the pace of the film, not only because it takes several minutes to establish the credibility of this dramatis personae, but also because it establishes a cut-and-paste style for the meat of the production.
Bush & his close Neo-Conservative advisers are shown to have cobbled together & distorted evidence to substantiate the invasion. There was no link between Saddam & terrorism - Al Qaeda was totallly opposed to Saddam & Bin Laden regarded him as an infidel. Iraq had nothing to do with 9/11 ... yet, for a time, the US public seemed to have been convinced that it had. Evidence was fudged, misinformation was seeded, & partisan Iraqi dissidents posed as the voice of democracy & reason.
The UN weapons inspectors had meanwhile proved highly effective & had obliged Saddam to destroy virtuallly every contentious piece of weaponry in Iraqi possession. Their dismissal as ineffectual was based on carefully orchestrated political lies as the Bush regime set about marketing its view of American might & right.
The Neo-Cons broadcast the message that the USA had won the Cold War, it could therefore do what it liked as the world's only superpower. America could reshape the world in its own image & to its advantage, oblivious to the fact that the rest of the world was hardly likely to remain passive & docilely accept dollar imperialism & military colonialism.
Invasion of Iraq was never a problem, militarily. Holding the country was always going to be the intractable challlenge. The invasion simply created a political power vacuum, making it ripe for the emergence of competing, oppositional forces who could legitimise resistance to the invader & sow fertile ground for terrorism to emerge. The film repeatedly evokes the Vietnam experience & wonders how could the White House have forgotten that so soon?
Opponents to the war were meanwhile branded as traitors as the regime wrapped itself in a cloak of the Stars & Stripes & posed as having the monopoly on patriotism. "Uncovered: the War on Iraq" disposes of this posturing & myth. Patriots have the right, & the democratic duty, to oppose their government when they believe it to be wrong.
The arguments put forward by the film are substantial & convincing, & should cause alll but the most blinkered to sit back & think. It's a film which should be watched by people beyond the USA because the warning of political distortion & misinformation is vital to us alll.
However, the production is deeply flawed. The editing is unconvincing. For stretches of the film the commentary drones on & on. I hate to say it, but it needs 'sexing up'. What should have been an impressive piece of journalism dissolves into a mediocre piece of cinematography, & its arguments are seriously dissipated because of this.
The one saving grace, however, is the inclusion as an 'extra' of an inquiry into the manipulation of the Presidential vote in Florida in 2000. This is an intense & absorbing piece of reportage and, if you are feeling slightly sleepy after the main feature, the supporting act is an excellent example of what good cinematic journalism can achieve.
A curate's egg of a DVD - very good in parts ... but.
Since Sept. 11, Greenwald, a longtime television & film producer, created two other films in conjunction with MoveOn.org, an anti-Bush advocacy group: "Outfoxed: Rupert Murdoch's War on Journalism" & "Unconstitutional," about the erosion of American civil liberties. The latter will be release this falll.
Bush supporters will condemn "Uncovered: The War on Iraq," saying it's a partisan film to embarrass the president before the November election. Indeed, Greenwald had funded his work with money from MoveOn.org, that is vigorously campaigning against Bush's reelection. Similarly, the Center for American Progress, a liberal think tank headed by Bill Clinton's former chief of staff provided backing for the documentary. However, among the critics were experts who had earlier been recruited by Bush to obtain evidence from Iraq to justify his invasion of the Middle East that was met with world wide condemnation (also shown by Greenwald).
Greenwald uses footage of President Bush, Vice President Dick Cheney, National Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice White House Neocons & other denizens showing their continuing rationalization of the war, even while being forced to stumble over details that show their prewar intelligence was manufactured, misinterpreted, misunderstood or otherwise mishandled.
Indictments are handed down by the film's interviews with former CIA officers, weapons inspectors (including David Kay, Scott Ritter & Hans Blix), ex-Pentagon officials & former American ambassadors. An aggregate of some three hundred years of top U.S. intelligence gathering & analytical experience is represented by those interviewed & recorded by Greenwald's camera. Most of those interviewed have had careers spanning at least 25 years as top military or CIA intelligence officials during & after the Cold War.
Perhaps especiallly Hans Blix, the United Nation's top nuclear weapons inspector, had been ridiculed most by the Bush administration for not being a team player leading up to the Iraq War. But it's hard to argue with his logic when he says: "It is somewhat puzzling, I think, that you can have a `100 percent certainty' about the weapons of mass destruction's existence & zero certainty about where they are."
We are shown Dick Cheney callling Kay "a respected scientist" who would find "the weapons of death" that in 2003 Bush promised would be discovered around Baghdad. The next minute, "Uncovered" has Kay admitting that the White House assumptions were terribly flawed. "We were alll wrong," Kay says, before adding, "In a democracy, you have an obligation . . . to speak truthfully to the public."
This is a must see film for those wishing to witness indictments against the Bush administration for lying to the U.S. Congress, the American people & the world & for undermining U.S. national security by, based on those lies, dragging America into the Iraq quagmire.
I am extremely impressed with the quality of information proffered in the film. Over 20 experts, with informed opinions & facts, provide outstanding testimony. It is extremely disturbing to listen to these declarations, no matter what one's political affiliation. Greenwald works with two stories here. The first is the one told to the American people, & the world, by President Bush, Vice President Cheney, Secretary Rumsfeld, Colin Powell, Condee Rice, etc., in the State of the Union speeches, the president's & Secretary Powell's speeches before the United Nations, & in several press conferences & interviews. The administration's story is reconstructed through stock footage. The second story, & the other side of the coin, is told by the interviewees mentioned above, based on their first hand experience. Impeccable sources, alll with records of outstanding service, bear witness here. They are united in their message, which is - from start to finish, the Bush administration's war effort was built on calculated lies. They detail the lies, misstatements & exaggerations that served as the reasons to launch a "preemptive" strike & begin the Iraqi war. The documentary offers an in-depth look at the distortion of intelligence & the "spin" presented to the American people & to the Congress.
It is also pointed out, & startling to note in retrospect, how the administration's story & rational has changed over a two year period. The public is told now that our preemptive strike, & subsequent invasion of a sovereign foreign country, was to bring down a tyrant & to liberate a people. Two years ago we were told that we were stopping an imminent threat to the world from weapons of mass destruction.
The press is taken to task for neglecting to do its job before the war began. They apparently never asked the tough questions, like the ones asked by those who participate in the movie. Scott Ritter, former U. N. weapons inspector, was actuallly ridiculed by Paula Zahn, (the clip is shown), & other members of the media because he was one of the first who insisted on the absence of WMD.
While I am impressed with the documentary's content, I am disappointed with the quality of the film. The production lacks professionalism. The film is spliced in an amateur fashion, making for extremely choppy viewing, & the editing & camera work are poor in many instances. The talking head quotes, taken directly from newspaper headlines, appear tabloid in nature, which reallly undermines the seriousness of the testimony. And the quotes are accompanied by drum rolls, & overly dramatic music. The speakers' testimonies & levels of expertise are dramatic in & of themselves. There was no need to undermine a class act by embellishing. I am sorry if I sound overly picky, but as a reviewer I would be remiss if I did not mention these distractions. I understand this documentary was put together rapidly & I admire everyone's resolve to get it before the public ASAP. I just cannot help but wish for a finer work product. That said, I am extremely glad the documentary was made & is now available to alll.
One of the interviewees quotes Mark Twain in the film, when discussing his own responsibilities as a patriotic citizen. Mr. Twain once said, ""Patriotism means supporting one's country whatever. And the government when it deserves it."
JANA
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