The Unknown Known

STAR RATING: ***** Saturday Night **** Friday Night *** Friday Morning ** Sunday Night * Monday Morning

Former US Secretary of Defence Donald Rumsfeld finds himself being grilled one on one by documentary maker Errol Morris in this follow up to his 2003 expose The Fog of War. A controversial figure as a result of being one of the key architects of the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, Rumsfeld is called to defend his actions, and is put in the spotlight about some glaring inconsistencies in the thousands of memos, 'snowflakes', as he called them, that he was fond of writing that questioned the validity of the invasions. At the same time, Morris presents some of the background of his subject, from being the youngest and then the oldest holder of his post, as well as serving under no less than four US presidents.

Being remembered, as it will, as the first big war of the 21st century, the invasion of Iraq is still seen by many as a massive travesty, and a gross abuse of power, that many still want answers to. In some small way, Errol Morris here attempts a stab at this, by gaining access to one of the key figures at the heart of the matter. Throwing the spotlight completely on Rumsfeld, the man and his foibles are exposed for all to see, and with no escape. The title of the film is a part of one of the man's most confusing and tongue twisting uses of language, that probably makes a lot of sense to him, but just confuses (and infuriates) most others. He continues with this type of garble throughout, and often rounds it off with that questionable grin of his that will make him even harder to stomach for those already unconvinced by his rhetoric.

The film covers a lot of interesting ground, and has much back story to ponder over, but there's little to be distracted from than a man sitting down and talking to a camera, which is inevitably boring at times and causes your attention to wonder. It might also be a case of too much information to take in, at a running time stretching to just over an hour and a half. All the same, I can say I preferred it to The Fog of War, with Morris somehow managing to make it all just a little more digestible and affecting.

Rumsfeld doesn't come off as an entirely desirable guy, a man who clearly uses language designed to sound clever but obviously just with the purpose of confusing, whose nonsense is signed off with a patronising smile, and who leaves a lot of unanswered questions on the lips of those affected by the not completely kosher decisions he was part of making. For those who already weren't fond of him, it won't make them feel any better, whilst others will just see the man behind the suit, and have to make their own mind up. Morris has brought him out in a manner that has a lot of interesting material, but not the most thrilling execution. ***

I have rarely been so perplexed by a documentary film as by this one. It is 102 minutes long, and for much of that time Donald Rumsfeld is talking to the director/interviewer Errol Morris. However, despite that, I now feel that I know less about Donald Rumsfeld than I did before I saw the film. I almost preferred him as an unknown unknown to what he now is, an unknown known. Rumsfeld manages to talk endlessly in what appears to be a very candid way, without ever really saying anything. A few salient facts do emerge, but only a few. The most surprising one to me was the revelation that he and George Bush Senior evidently detest one another, although Rumsfeld thinks very highly indeed of 'W'. I also did not realize until I saw this film that Rumsfeld and Dick Cheney are so close, and worked together for so many years, that they are like brothers. However, a slight trace of vanity appeared throughout the film as Rumsfeld was always very careful to describe Cheney on several occasions as 'my deputy'. Just in case little brother got any big ideas about forgetting who was the older brother, I suppose. Cheney was indeed Rumsfeld's deputy for a long time in office. When Cheney became Vice President, it was Cheney who recommended to George W. that Rumsfeld be made Secretary of Defence. So yes, some facts did emerge, and they are interesting. As for Rumsfeld himself, he remains an enigma in the highest degree. I was surprised to discover how astonishingly intelligent Rumsfeld was. One does not normally expect to find that in a public figure. But the most interesting aspect of Rumsfeld's personality is that a sense of ironical whimsicality seems to pervade everything he says, thinks, and does. Those grins that he makes are not normal grins, they are grins at the ironical whimsicality of situations and events. They are an invitation to those watching him to share his sense of irony and delight. Rumsfeld's grins do not say, as most grins do: 'Hello, I'm very friendly,' they say instead: 'Isn't that wonderfully whimsical, and don't you want to grin with me about it?' In other words, Rumsfeld is not like other men. I had no idea that Rumsfeld had commenced working in the executive branch of the Government during the Kennedy Administration, having previously been a congressman. This film says nothing whatever of his business activities, and does not mention his launching of the agricultural chemical spray Roundup upon the world, which in some opinions was an act more serious than the Iraq War, and may cause more deaths (deaths which cannot be defended on any 'just cause' basis, as the cause was only making money). No one could appear to cooperate more in making a film about himself than Donald Rumsfeld did, but the feeling afterwards is that he is a master at appearing to be transparent while all the while surrounding himself in a cloud of ink like an octopus. People often joke about eating Chinese food (in a bad Chinese restaurant), when they consume a lot but feel hungry immediately afterwards. Well! Where is the real meat on Rumsfeld, or is he all grissle? Nor is there any fat to chew on, only snowflakes. This man is a mystery, truly he is.

Donald Rumsfeld, The Unknown Known, and his Lifetime of Service to War

The Unknown Known is the latest documentary from Errol Morris. Like his interviews with Robert McNamara in his film Fog of War, he interviews another architect of war, this time the Second Iraq War.

Unlike former Secretary of Defense Robert McNamara who pushed a continuation of the Vietnam conflict when he was in office, Donald Rumsfeld is not apologetic about his role in sending Americans off to die overseas. In his book In Retrospect, McNamara states in Time Magazine, "We were wrong, terribly wrong. We owe it to future generations to explain why."

Rumsfeld has no apologies to make, according to the man himself. And he learned no lesson from Vietnam except, as he would say, "it was a failure of imagination" that we lost in Vietnam.

Even Nixon apologized about his mistakes when talking to David Frost.

I am sure Director Morris was under legal contract not to ask tough, direct questions of Rumsfeld. Thus, he let Rumsfeld indict himself. Rumsfeld is narcissistic and unapologetic about the Second Iraq War. He sees no wrong in making the U.S. strong militarily regardless in how that strength is used. He does not, in The Unknown Known, see that the Second Iraq War was based on lies at all. He sees no lies. He submits that Saddam Hussein and Iraq did have WMDs, we just couldn't find them. He believes the U.N. weapons inspectors were duped and needed to keep looking. He does not agree that water boarding is torture, no matter what Human Rights Watch and others say. He sees know wrong except in our "failure of imagination."

Rumsfeld is a master of Newspeak, using phrases like "peace through strength", and "weakness is provocation." This all comes out in the movie, and it was no surprise to most of the audience. He lives in a world of lies, and the person he deludes the most is himself. Rating: Rent it. It is worth a view, and I would love to say that you should see it multiple times.

But there are no dramatic revelations in the movie, no sense of awaking. In fact, the lesson is that a beltway insider has many ways to deny the suffering of others, especially those we kill thousands of miles away for no cause. Rumsfeld sees war not as a destination, but a journey. As long as the U.S. stays on that journey, he is happy.

Peace, Tex Shelters

The Unknown Known

There is a myth about the documentary film genre that it is some sort of quest for objective truth; when in fact there is no greater and often times no more effective means of subjective film making . No documentarian worth his salt is going to go forward with a project without a point of view.

And so it is with documentarian Errol Morris as he tries to pin down former defense secretary Don Rumsfeld to some objective truths about the war in Iraq. It's slow going.

For Morris this is not without precedent. In his "The Fog of War" he was able to get Lyndon Johnson's (and I should also add John Kennedy's) secretary of defense Robert Mac Namara, a chief architect of the Viet Nam war to show contrition, regret and even self pity about the advice he gave and decisions he made during that turbulent time. To those like Morris who believe that the Viet Nam war was a disaster, this must have proved satisfying. They gave him an Academy Award for it . Morris also believes the Iraq war was a disaster but in Rumsfeld he found a much tougher nut to crack.

The film documents Rumsfeld's rise to power as a career politician and bureaucrat in which he navigated through many a troubled water to become a trusted confidant and administrator for Presidents Ford, Reagan, and Bush the second, and given a certain set circumstances might have become President of the United States. But he made some enemies too, Nixon chief of staff Bob Haldeman, George Bush the first, and his national security adviser Brent Scowcroft, as well as a very public feud with Condoleezza Rice. And these were his fellow Republicans! Richard Nixon called Rumsfeld "a ruthless little bastard" and I can't imagine a statement like that coming from higher authority.

The long and the short of it is that Rumsfeld has faced off against a lot tougher guys than Errol Morris.

Morris seems now to suspect that Rumsfeld might have got the best of him, since in his post release interviews he emphasizes how Rumsfeld "horrifies' him. However, that doesn't come off in the film. Rumsfeld appears to be a man of considerable charm and wit, with an easy humor about events and himself.

It is well to remember that Rumsfeld fully co-operated with this project, one might even say eagerly co-operated. He wanted his side publicly aired and decided to do it this way, even though he knew Morris's predisposition. To Morris's credit he gives Rumsfeld free reign and ample opportunity to make his case.

But Rumsfeld does not control the editing process and it here that Morris strikes back. Using cross cutting, graphics, and archival footage Morris exposes Rumsfeld's renowned candor as a smokescreen for obfuscation and evasion. Most particularly, in Rumsfeld's now famous, or infamous if you prefer, philosophical rumination on what could be known or unknown , or whatever the hell he said, in response to a direct question as to whether he (Rumsfeld) had any evidence that Sadam Hussein had participated or assisted in the 9/11 attacks. This was called by the press at the time (rather admiringly I might add) as "Rummy speak".

In the film Rumsfeld admits there wasn't then and isn't now any such evidence.

Even more telling to me was his mastery of expressing a limited truth and passing it off as candor. In summing up the Viet Nam War Rumsfeld says this: "Some things work out, some things don't .That one didn't." Hard to argue with that. True, as far as it goes, but it does not illuminate. Hell, I could have come up with that over a couple of Irish Whiskeys at the local tavern, and maybe even thought to be pretty profound by my fellow inebriates at the bar, but I think we have a right to expect more than that from our public officials. Did we learn anything? Would we do anything differently? In listening to Rumsfeld's echo the answer is apparently and depressingly, no. Given the perceived threats at the respective times in Iraq and Viet Nam, our policy makers did exactly the same thing.

Author Evan S. Connell in his book "Son of the Morning Star" recounts how General Philip Sheridan as one of the key policy makers leading to the destruction of the Plains Indian tribes after the defeat of Custer at the Little Big Horn, reflected on his role. Sheridan seemed to empathize with the Indians and implied that had the situations been reversed, he would have acted in the very same way the Indians had. He would have resisted. To which Connell comments: "Like other generals, bureaucrats and private citizens who contribute to some irrevocable disaster, he wondered about it afterward."

Not Donald Rumsfeld, no qualms, no regrets, no apologies. He did his duty and history can sort it out. And of course it will.

Morris ends the film with a shot of an empty ocean which I took to be metaphor and interpreted thus: It is shimmering and shiny, even magnificent to look at but who knows what horrors lie beneath the surface. Like Donald Rumsfeld, it covers the "Unknown Knowns".

"There are known knowns; there are things we know that we know. There are known unknowns; that is to say, there are things that we now know we don't know. But there are also unknown unknowns - there are things we do not know we don't know." This was the enigmatic quote from American politician Donald Rumsfeld that inspired the title of this interview by acclaimed documentary maker Errol Morris. Rumsfeld had an astonishing career working for no fewer than four US presidents and serving twice as Secretary of State for Defense - once as the youngest holder of the position (1975- 1977) and then later as the oldest holder of the post (2001-2006). In his second term as Defense Secretary, he was a principal architect of the so-called 'war on terror', sending troops into Afghanistan and then Iraq.

The fascinating testimony presented by Morris is both written and oral. Rumsfeld was famous for his blizzard of memos - known as "snowflakes" - and Morris managed to gain access to all the unclassified ones and to persuade Rumsfeld to read out the most relevant to the documentary. Additionally Morris posed a series of searching questions in an interview shot over 11 days and recorded using the film maker's trademark "Interrotron" device which means that Rumsfeld is seen staring straight into the camera. It has to be said that Rumsfeld is a fluent writer and an articulate speaker and, after eight decades, is as sharp as ever, so there is no revelatory moment like David Frost's interview with Richard Nixon, but it is precisely his evasiveness and the charming manner in which he accomplishes this that is so revealing of a bizarre and (when given power) frightening character.

I saw "The Known Unknown" at its UK premiere in central London's Curzon Soho cinema in the presence of Errol Morris who made some opening remarks and then, after the screening, took a question & answer session. He compared this documentary with "The Fog Of War", his 2003 interview with another US Defense Secretary when he questioned Robert McNamara on the Vietnam war, and called the two films "bookends". He noted that McNamara was "deeply reflective", but characterised Rumsfeld's performance as "deeply unreflective". He called Rumsfeld "a skillful obscurantist" who was "obsessive with language" and had "a complete lack of irony", highlighting his "infernal grin".

The banality of much of Rumsfeld's language - "The absence of evidence is not the evidence of absence" - reminded me of Peter Sellers' penultimate film "Being There" (1979) in which he played a simple gardener whose bland aphorisms about nature led to him being co-opted by America's political power brokers. Morris has done us a service in capturing all this for history in the hope that we can learn from history. What is totally unclear is why Rumsfeld agreed to the interview. This was Morris's last question to him and he responded: "I'll be darned if I know".