Uncovered: The War on Iraq

Do you remember us going into Iraq, supposedly in search of Weapons of Mass Destruction? Do you remember when the failure to find any WMDs caused the purpose of the war to shift to Iraqi Freedom? And now that Iraq is NOT free, and it is clear there never was a connection between Saddam and Al Queda, our President says the invasion was ALWAYS about making America, and the rest of the world, a safer place... Don't you believe it. Robert Greenwald's UNCOVERED: The War on Iraq is a thorough, even-handed dissection of what the Bush administration said; when they said it; how they twisted the truth for their own purposes; and how we, as a nation, were manipulated by our own leaders into invading a country, killing thousands of its people, and (justifiably) incurring the outrage of an entire world. And for what? EVERY American should see this movie before they go to the polls in November. Knowledge is power; get powerful.

In the wake of "Fahrenheit 9/11"s phenomenal box office success, a flurry of similarly-themed documentaries hit movie theatres in late 2004, all making the case that the Bush administration's war against Iraq was ill-advised, opportunistic and based on intelligence and evidence that turned out to be, at best, faulty, and, at worst, deceptive and manipulated. "Uncovered: The War on Iraq," produced by the liberal organization MoveOn.org., is one such documentary. The preposition used in the title - "on" as opposed to "in" - reveals right up front the political leanings of those who made the movie.

The basic thesis of the film is that the neo-cons in the Bush administration had decided, even before 9/11, that the U.S. would eventually have go to war against Iraq to overthrow the Saddam Hussein regime. 9/11 merely provided them with the pretext they needed to sell the idea to the American public. By painting Iraq as a viable terrorist threat, the Bush administration was able to win over Congress and the nation's people to their cause, resulting in a war that is entering its third year now, having already cost us thousands of lives and hundreds of billions of dollars.

The film does an impressive job of what opponents would call "Monday morning quarterbacking," juxtaposing comments made by members of the Bush administration before the war with current statements by mainly key CIA and former CIA officials about what we know now. Through a series of largely familiar news clips, we see Bush, Condaleeza Rice, Colin Powell, Donald Rumsfeld, Paul Wolfowitz and others all lining up to present the case for war against Iraq by arguing that Saddam Hussein possessed weapons of mass destruction, harbored terrorists within his nation's borders, and had known links with the Al Qaeda operatives who perpetrated the attacks on 9/11 - all "facts" we now know to have been either woefully unsubstantiated or completely fabricated. The movie includes interviews with Joe Wilson, the ambassador whose wife was "outed" as a CIA operative by a member of the Bush administration when Wilson publicly questioned the validity of some of the "evidence" being touted around town that Iraq possessed chemical and biological weapons. Another key figure in the movie is weapons inspector David Kay, who is given ample screen time to declare his mea culpas for initially supporting the Bush administration's assertions that WMD's would ultimately be found once U.S. forces had invaded and subdued the country.

The film also takes aim at the American news media for allowing itself to be essentially co-opted by the neo-cons in the run-up to the war. Rather than challenging the White House's spin as it should have, the media, according to the filmmakers, simply went along with what it was being told by the Bush administration, thereby failing to fulfill its function as the independent Fourth Estate. It became, essentially, complicit in misleading the American public - a scandalous dereliction of duty which should concern patriotic citizens on both sides of the political spectrum.

"Uncovered" doesn't pretend to offer a "fair and balanced" view of the events leading up to the Iraq War; it doesn't offer opposing viewpoints or interview people from the other side of the political equation. As a result, it opens itself up to charges from the Right that it is every bit as propagandistic as the administration it is attacking. Yet, the fact remains that those on the Left, who opposed the war and questioned the administration's motives even before the conflict started, turned out to be largely correct in their assessment of the facts. And the film makes a compelling case that the people who were labeled "unpatriotic" and "un-American" before the war for daring to raise these objections may actually have been the most patriotic and pro-American people of all.

"Uncovered" is, essentially, a talking heads documentary, but one that will have you shaking your own head (or pulling your hair out) in dismay and frustration - especially when one considers how astonishingly blasé and indifferent the American public seems to be about the whole thing.

Barbara Tuchman, in her book "The March of Folly," writes that, "Wooden headedness, the source of self deception, is a factor that plays a remarkably large role in government. It consists in assessing a situation in terms of preconceived fixed notions while ignoring any contrary signs. It is acting according to wish while not allowing oneself to be deflected by the facts. It is epitomized in a historian's statement about Phillip II of Spain, the surpassing woodenheaded of all sovereigns: 'No experience of the failure of his policy could shake his belief in its essential excellence.'" In the case of the Bush administration and the Iraq War, truer words were never spoken.

Having now done the troika of anti-war/anti-bush films --F9/11, Outfoxed and now Uncovered: The War on Iraq I only wish I could force feed this film on all republicans " who I'm sure will never get near it and will hold on to their totally misguided viewpoints. This film presents a phalanx of former CIA and diplomatic heavyweights who proceed to tear apart...shred by shred the misleading "evidence" -- the totally fabricated and false rationale for this totally unnecessary war. It is not very funny like F9/11..it is not investigative as is Outfoxed and WMD --the Danny Schecter film: Weapons of Mass Deception --this film just outlines and delienates,carefully and methodically, using REAL experts the deceit and deception --the lies that this "adminstration" have brought to bear to justify the unjustifiable --it is political, it is "biased" but, it is truthful because the people in it were observers (and, in some cases, participants) to the lies perpetuated on the "american public" ...how can we get people to see it? to be exposed to the truth of what has taken place and caused so much heartbreak and anxiety? See it and make others see it as well. ...this is very important

This hour-long show featured a number of experts who gave their opinions of the Bush policy regarding Iraq. Between these interview segments were segments of press conferences, testimonies, and speeches by high-level members of the Bush administration.

What I found interesting was the complete one-sidedness of this issue. Nothing was mentioned of the Clinton speeches with the same message, nor of the Democrats who also supported an Iraq War. Senator John Kerry said "the threat of Saddam Hussein with weapons of mass destruction is real" on 23 January 2003. I don't have the time to include more quotes, but I can if requested.

As far as the "experts" go, history has proved some of these guys to be wrong. For example, Peter Zimmerman stated several times that no WMDs were ever found. That's a total lie! On 18 May 2004, a roadside bomb containing Sarin gas exploded in Baghdad. In addition, news outlets reported just last year that "Defense personnel have completed the transfer of 550 metric tons of Iraqi uranium ore to Canada...", which was transferred from Tuwaitha Nuclear Research Center near Baghdad. So, if there were no WMDs, where did they find the YellowCake again? But, this "expert" says there were no WMDs, specifically saying "no Sarin". Simply put, Zimmermann is either a liar or a fool.

The Producer of this film also forgets to mention that the intel was identical to that of: UN Security Council, British MI5, and the Russian Intelligence Agency.

This film was nothing more than 56 minutes of anti-Bush propaganda. It commits the same sins it accuses the Bush Administration of committing: omitting facts. As a result, it comes across as waste of film. But, anti-war people will gobble this garbage up.

My brother's girlfriend has a sticker on the back of her car which reads 'If you're not completely appalled, you haven't been paying attention.' This is a movie for those people who are not completely appalled, because if you've been paying attention then you already know most of what this movie has to say. Or maybe I've just been paying attention too much. I never for a second bought the ludicrous story of weapons of mass destruction, not from day one. I had a friend of several years in Fresno that I longer talk to because we got in such a heated discussion about Bush's upcoming war. He thought that at a time of crisis it was important that America supports it's president, I was sure, and still am, that supporting a president as he makes such a massively wrong move could only make it worse. Just because a moron made his way into the White House is no reason to show the world that we are an entire country of morons, because we are not.

I like that the movie stays away from the hard line tactics of Michael Moore, placing words in people's mouths and making dangerous assertions in order to get his point across. Moore has good points and its important that people see them, but his methods are not the greatest. Uncovered: The War on Iraq is made up of the testimony of 27 government officials, most of whom were involved in the events that led to this ridiculous war in Iraq, as well as lots of archive footage of top Bush administration officials putting their feet so far in their mouths that they may need to have them surgically removed.

It was mere months before Bush gave Hussein his 48 hour warning that both Colin Powell and Condoleeza Rice stated that Saddam had no weapons and no means of obtaining any weapons. Next thing you know he is an imminent threat who could launch WMDs within 45 minutes of giving the order. How can people be so blind? When Fahrenheit 9/11 was released, the right wing, particularly radio talk show hosts (keep your eye out in Uncovered, by the way, for footage of Michael Savage, one of the most hate-filled and nakedly racist men ever allowed near a radio microphone in the history of the medium), were so shocked and frightened that they immediately denounced it as things like a 'pack of lies' (Rush Limbaugh).

My question would be something like, Did Bush ever say 'Some call you the elite, I call you my base'? Did he ever say that or was that another of Michael Moore's lies? In Uncovered: The War in Iraq, Director Robert Greenwald leaves no room for such hollow and weak arguments. The film is literally packed with video evidence of top Bush administration officials stating their reasons for the war, which gradually change as their faulty intelligence becomes apparent. First we went to war to rid Hussein of WMDs, then we were in Iraq to free the Iraqi people, then when that failed too we were there to make America safer, which has also failed. What's next?

Oh yeah, Saddam Hussein is a villain and the world is better off without him. Which renders very difficult to explain the footage of Donald Rumsfeld, the SITTING SECRETARY OF DEFENSE, SHAKING HANDS WITH HIM. Hussein was a brutal dictator, that is not a subject of debate, but neither is the fact that Iraq and Hussein had absolutely nothing to do with 9/11. This has been staring Bush and America in the face since 9/12. Hussein was an ENEMY of Osama bin Laden. But is the world really better off without Hussein in power? I'll be the first to say that the world may very well be better off without him, but there are two things that I can also say for certain – Iraq is not better off without him, and America is not better off without him. Iraq has become a haven for terrorists and insurgents and is massively unsafe for everyone within the nation's borders, and Bush has demolished the image of America as a benevolent force in the eyes of the world. We are no longer a benevolent force, we are the bully that no one likes.

Hussein had no weapons on mass destruction and Iraq was not a terrorist nation UNTIL America INVADED AND OCCUPIED IT. As Bush himself said in front of lots of rolling cameras, he wouldn't be happy if he were occupied either. But hey, the first rule of politics is that the man who orders the execution never drops the blade, so Bush's total lack of any kind of military combat experience will make no difference as he sends thousands of young Americans to their meaningless deaths with the flick of a pen and an arrogant smirk for the passing cameras.

Bush went to war in Iraq, among other selfish reasons, to finish what his father left undone when he lost in 1992 to Bill Clinton, and the movie ends with a powerful quote from a book by George H. W. Bush himself, which stated that a ground war in Iraq would have led to an occupation that would result in countless American deaths and no end in sight. Evidently his son is so against accumulating knowledge that he doesn't even read books written by his own father.

Here's something that really gets me, people attack Clinton because bin Laden was offered to him but he wanted to pursue legal means rather than reckless military action, like Bush, so bin Laden wasn't captured and later attacked us on Bush's watch. Rather than go after bin Laden to clean up what supposedly was Clinton's mess, Bush diverts the vast majority of funds and military force AWAY from the pursuit of bin Laden in order to 'use 9/11 as a reason to go after Iraq' (Rumsfeld's words), attacking and removing from power a man who had absolutely nothing to do with 9/11. Way to go, Bush, because of what you've done, the insurgents planting roadside bombs in Iraq and killing our troops are acting in SELF DEFENSE.

The election, which takes place a mere 8 days after the time of this writing, is the most important election in American history. Lives are at stake, and the mere act of voting Bush out of office can perform miraculous work in repairing at least some of the decades and decades of damage that he has done to this country in his four illegitimate years in office. He has destroyed America's image in the eyes of the world, and in the catastrophic event that he wins a second term (whether by being elected for the first time, or by being wrongly appointed again), we will effectively show the world that we as a country agree with his illegal tactics and arrogant foreign policy.

It is absolutely IMPERATIVE that this does not happen, and films like Uncovered: The War on Iraq are exactly what we need to stop it.