IV. Terrorism and the Patriot Act
To support this point, Moore shows clips of administration officials giving warnings about dangers, and intersperses them with clips from a speech in which Bush says things like “fly and enjoy America’s great destination spots,” and “take your families and enjoy life” and “get down to Disney World in Florida.” These statements are from remarks Bush made at Chicago’s O’Hare International Airport to airline industry employees on September 27, 2001. He was not offering advice, but describing a goal of the war on terror:
And one of the great goals of this nation’s war is to restore public confidence in the airline industry. It’s to tell the traveling public: Get on board. Do your business around the country. Fly and enjoy America’s great destination spots. Get down to Disney World in Florida. Take your families and enjoy life, the way we want it to be enjoyed. And we’ve got a role, the government’s got a role. Not only do you have a role to play, which you’re playing in such fine fashion, but the government has a role to play, as well. We’ve got a significant responsibility to deal with this emergency in a strong and bold way. And we are doing so. (http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2001/09/20010927-1.html)
In any case, is Moore suggesting that the appropriate response to the dangers of terrorism to bring life to a halt, and stop all travel?
But Moore and McDermott insist that the contradictions—surely contradictions that define the nation’s life just now—are part of a government conspiracy to … well, to whatever. McDermott says, “It’s like training a dog. You tell him to sit down or you tell him to roll over at the same time, the dog doesn’t know what to do. Well the American people are being treated like that. It was really very, very skillfully and, and ugly in what they did.” What may be the aim of these “ugly” efforts—to what end this “skill” is employed—is never stated.
Moore then shows a clip of Bush on a golf course, taking a break to answer reporters’ questions. Bush says, “We must stop the terror. I call upon all nations to do everything they can to stop these terrorist killers. Thank you. Now watch this drive.” And then he swings the golf club. Moore wants to leave us with the impression that Bush is talking about terrorist threats to the United States, and that making such a statement and following it with a golf swing is a profound show of unseriousness. Actually, Bush’s statement, made on August 5, 2002, was about a suicide bombing in Israel (http://usembassy-australia.state.gov/hyper/2002/0805/epf102.htm), and he made the statement between golf swings because he was asked about it on the golf course. (Indeed, when President Clinton learned of the assassination of Yitzhak Rabin in 1995, he played some golf as well, http://www.jewishsiliconvalley.org/clinton.html.) Why this should mean that Bush was not serious is not apparent.
McDermott then concludes his paranoid rant, saying, “They will continue, in my view, as long as this administration is in charge, of every once in a while steeling everybody to be afraid, just in case you forgot. It’s not gonna go down to green or blue. It’s never gonna get there. There clearly is no way that anyone can live constantly on edge like that.” He again offers no proof that terror alerts have not been based on facts.
Next, Moore offers a few clips showing various commercial security products—a “safe room,” a skyscraper escape parachute, and the like. He shows news clips of worried Michiganders, and residents of a small town in Virginia that had been mistaken by the FBI for a different town against which a terrorist threat had been perceived. This is all apparently intended to paint the threat of terrorism as silly and comical, and the attempts to predict and prepare for terrorist attacks as a kind of deception. Why we should think the threat is comical is not made clear.
Moore seems wholly oblivious to the hypocrisy of criticizing the Bush Administration for being too lax on terrorism before the 9/11 attacks, and then criticizing the administration for making too much of the threat afterwards. He introduces us to Attorney General John Ashcroft, whom we see singing a patriotic song he has written. Moore tells us that, “in 2000, he was running for reelection as Senator from Missouri against a man who died the month before the election. The voters preferred the dead guy. So George W. Bush made him his attorney general.” In fact, “the dead guy” was late Missouri governor Mel Carnahan, and after his death, the new governor announced he would appoint Carnahan’s wife, Jean, to take the seat if Carnahan won the election—so while a dead man was technically on the ballot, the voters understood that a Carnahan victory would put the widow in office. The death naturally caused Ashcroft to strictly curtail his campaigning, and in the end Carnahan’s widow won the race by just under one percent—after a state court allowed polling stations in heavily Democratic St. Louis to remain open an hour beyond the legally allotted time (http://www.mdn.org/2000/STORIES/SENSWRAP.HTM). (Despite those irregularities, Ashcroft gracefully declined to contest the election.) Jean Carnahan was appointed in her husband’s place and served an abbreviated two-year term before being defeated by Republican James Talent in 2002.
More importantly, Moore tells us that “during the summer before 9/11, Ashcroft told acting FBI director Thomas Pickard that he didn’t want to hear anything more about terrorist threats.” We then see a brief clip from the 9/11 Commission hearings, in which commission member Richard Ben-Veniste and former Acting Director of the FBI Thomas Pickard have the following exchange:
RICHARD BEN-VENISTE: Mr. Watson had come to you and said that the CIA was very concerned that there would be an attack. You said that you told the attorney general this fact repeatedly in these meetings. Is that correct?
THOMAS PICKARD: Yes, I told him on at least two occasions.
RICHARD BEN-VENISTE: And you told the staff, according to this statement, that Mr. Ashcroft told you that he did not want to hear about this any more. Is that correct?
THOMAS PICKARD: That is correct.
(http://www.9-11commission.gov/archive/hearing10/9-11Commission_Hearing_2004-04-13.htm)
What Moore does not tell us is that later at the same 9/11 Commission hearing (April 13, 2004), commission member James R. Thompson and John Ashcroft had this exchange:
MR. THOMPSON: Acting Director Pickard testified this afternoon that he briefed you twice on al Qaeda and Osama bin Laden, and when he sought to do so again, you told him you didn’t need to hear from him again. Can you comment on that, please?
ATTY GEN. ASHCROFT: First of all, Acting Director Pickard and I had more than two meetings. We had regular meetings. Secondly, I did never speak to him saying that I did not want to hear about terrorism. I care greatly about the safety and security of the American people and was very interested in terrorism, and specifically interrogated him about threats to the American people, and domestic threats in particular. One of the first items which came to my attention, which I mentioned in my opening remarks, was the question of whether we wanted to capture or find and kill bin Laden. I carried that immediately to the national security adviser and expressed myself in that matter. Together with the Vice President of the United States, we got a briefing at FBI headquarters regarding terrorism, and I asked the question, “Why can’t we arrest these people?” because I believe an aggressive arrest and prosecution model is the way to disrupt terrorism. These are things about which I care deeply. When the Senate Appropriations Committee met on May the 9th in the summer of 2001, I told the committee that my number-one priority was the attack against terror; that we would protect Americans from terror; and I wrote later to them a confirming letter saying that we had no higher priority. These are the kinds of things that I did in order to communicate very clearly my interest in making sure that we would be prepared against terrors. In addition, when we went for the largest increase in counterterrorism budgeting before 9/11, in the last five years, that signaled a priority in that respect. And when we, for the next year, had a 13-percent higher counterterrorism budget than was provided in the last year of the Clinton Administration, it was also a signal that counterterrorism was a matter of great concern to us and that we would treat it seriously. (http://www.9-11commission.gov/archive/hearing10/9-11Commission_Hearing_2004-04-13.htm)
In its final report, the 9/11 Commission said it could not decisively settle this dispute about what was said, but noted that no one else present at the meetings between Pickard and Ashcroft had any recollection of Ashcroft ever telling Pickard he did not want to hear any more about terrorism (http://www.9-11commission.gov/report/911Report.pdf, p. 536, note 52). The report also notes that in the months before 9/11, Pickard met with Ashcroft several times to present terrorism information (http://www.9-11commission.gov/report/911Report.pdf, p. 265). But Moore ignores this, claiming instead that “Ashcroft’s Justice Department turned a blind eye and a deaf ear” to terrorism information.
All this turns out to be an extended introduction to a section of the film that purports to discuss the Patriot Act. After telling us Ashcroft didn’t care about terrorism before the September 11th attacks, Moore says: “But after 9/11, John Ashcroft had some brilliant ideas for how to protect America,” and we then see what seems to be a local television news report about the Patriot Act. The reporter says, “The USA PATRIOT Act, adopted by Congress and signed by Bush six weeks after the attacks, has changed the way the government does business. The USA PATRIOT Act allows for searches of medical and financial records, computer and telephone conversations, and even for the books you take out of the library.”
What the report does not mention, and Moore doesn’t choose to add, is that these powers can only be used with a court order (read the law here: http://frwebgate.access.gpo.gov/cgi-bin/getdoc.cgi?dbname=107_cong_public_laws&docid=f:publ056.107.pdf). Nor does Moore mention that the government already had these powers, and commonly used them in cases related to organized crime and drugs—and the Patriot Act just explicitly permits these powers in terrorism cases. The act itself says nothing specifically about library records, which for some reason have become the focus of criticism of the law. It simply extended the government’s longstanding power to examine public records of individual transactions (which could, in principle, include public library records) if such an examination is deemed by a judge to be relevant and important to a terrorism investigation.
Moreover, a report to Congress on September 13, 2004 from the Justice Department’s Inspector General found no Patriot Act abuses (http://www.justice.gov/oig/special/0409/index.htm). And, at least as recently as September of 2003, the Justice Department reported that the power to examine public records (including possibly library records) has not even been used (http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2003/08/19/national/main569135.shtml). Congressional testimony from the Deputy Attorney General on September 22, 2004 describes several instances when the powers provided by the Patriot Act have proven useful to investigators (http://judiciary.senate.gov/testimony.cfm?id=1312&wit_id=3279).
Moore then proceeds to tell the story of a local activist group called Peace Fresno (http://www.peacefresno.org/), about which he says, “Unlike the rest of us, they’ve received an early lesson in what the Patriot Act is all about.” He tells us that the group had been infiltrated and monitored by a member of the Fresno County Sheriff’s Department in 2003. Such a step certainly seems excessive and unwarranted (although Moore does not quite give us an accurate impression of this very-active protest group, which among other things has suggested that the Bush Administration staged the September 11th attacks: http://www.indybay.org/uploads/550_the_march_begins.jpg) but Moore never explains how any of this is related to the Patriot Act. And indeed, it has nothing to do with the Patriot Act. The infiltration he describes was clearly undertaken by a local sheriff’s department, not any arm of the federal government, and the Patriot Act does not permit the federal government to engage in any similar activity. As the Justice Department points out (http://www.lifeandliberty.gov/subs/u_myths.htm), the language of the act limits the definition of “domestic terrorism” in ways that would never permit a group that does not violate the law and endanger others to be considered a terrorist or terrorism-related group. The language of the act is clear on this point (http://frwebgate.access.gpo.gov/cgi-bin/getdoc.cgi?dbname=107_cong_public_laws&docid=f:publ056.107.pdf) and Moore makes no effort whatsoever to provide any connection between the Peace Fresno story and the Patriot Act.
Moore then moves on to another story which also has no link to the Patriot Act. He tells us about Barry Reingold, who told some people at his gym that he thought George W. Bush was worse than Osama bin Laden. The people who heard him apparently reported him as a suspicious person to the FBI, and FBI agents then came to his home to interview him. Moore offers no explanation of what this might have to do with the Patriot Act, and no sense of what the FBI should do when people report someone as suspicious, even if the report seems weak and misguided. There is no indication that Reingold’s rights were in any way violated, and although Moore does not make it clear, when Reingold told the FBI agents he did not wish to speak to them, they left and took no further action (http://www.progressive.org/webex/wxmc1219a01.html).
But as ever, Moore just moves right on. He next shows us an interview with Rep. Porter Goss, who defends the Patriot Act, saying it offers full transparency and that there’s nothing in the act that he is ashamed of in any way. Goss then says “I have a 1-800 number. Call me. I’m the guy you call if there’s a violation or an abuse. If you’ve got a poster child on this, I want to see it. That’s what I do. I’m hired by the people of the United States to provide oversight, I provide oversight,” but as he speaks about the 800 number, Moore flashes text on the screen saying “he’s lying” and claiming Goss does not actually have an 800 number, giving his normal office number. But Goss (who was then a Member of Congress, and is now Director of Central Intelligence) actually did have an 800 number: Anyone wishing to call his office, or any other congressional office, could reach the congressional switchboard at 800-839-5276. What’s more, the committee Goss chaired—the intelligence committee—also has a toll-free number: 877-858-9040 (http://intelligence.house.gov/ContactUS.aspx). So anyone wishing to make a toll-free phone call to report a Patriot Act abuse could easily do so, but none of the supposed abuses reported so far has panned out (http://www.justice.gov/oig/special/0409/index.htm).
We then return to Rep. Jim McDermott, who says, “Trent Lott said, the day the bill was introduced, ‘Maybe now we can do things we’ve wanted to do for the last ten years.’” It would certainly have been nice if the government had had a greater capacity to prevent terrorism over the past ten years, and this statement from McDermott offers no argument against any element of the Patriot Act, but the suggestion is that September 11th offered an excuse for the administration (and apparently for 98 Senators and 357 members of the House: http://www.lifeandliberty.gov/subs/p_congress.htm) to put into effect some despotic plan they had long held in reserve.
To support his point, Moore then shows a clip of the President joking: “a dictatorship would be a heck of lot easier, there’s no question about it.” The clip is from July 26, 2001, from this exchange between a reporter and the President:
Reporter: The Alamo up on the wall is not an indication of how you feel in the White House right now, is it?
President Bush: I feel great. Listen, I think we’ve had one of the most constructive first six months of any presidency. And we're making great progress on a lot of issues. No, I've always—a dictatorship would be a heck of a lot easier, there's no question about it. But dealing with Congress is a matter of give and take. The President doesn't get everything he wants, the Congress doesn't get everything they want. But we're finding good common ground. (http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2001/07/20010726-3.html)
We then return to McDermott, who says, “I mean—they, they, they had all this on the shelf somewhere. Ideas of things they would like to do. And they got 9/11 and they said, ‘It’s our chance, go for it!’” Again, he offers no argument as to why having ideas about how to improve counterterrorism should be a bad thing, and no specific argument about the Patriot Act.
Then we are shown Rep. John Conyers, a Michigan Democrat, who says: “There was an immediate assumption, on the part of the administration, that there had to be a surrender of certain of our rights.” Neither Conyers nor Moore offers any explanation of what rights they believe have been surrendered, and indeed no reading of the Patriot Act would suggest any either (http://frwebgate.access.gpo.gov/cgi-bin/getdoc.cgi?dbname=107_cong_public_laws&docid=f:publ056.107.pdf).
Next we see Rep. Tammy Baldwin, a Wisconsin Democrat, who does offer a specific criticism of the Patriot Act, saying, “There are several definitions in the bill that are quite troubling. First of all, the definition of ‘terrorist’ and, and, it’s so expansive that it could include people um, who,” at which point Moore interjects, “like me” and Baldwin laughs. The Patriot Act (in Section 802, page 376, http://frwebgate.access.gpo.gov/cgi-bin/getdoc.cgi?dbname=107_cong_public_laws&docid=f:publ056.107.pdf) explicitly defines a terrorist as a person involved in acts which are dangerous to human life, that violate federal or state criminal law, and that appear intended to intimidate or coerce a civilian population, influence government policy by intimidation or coercion, or affect government conduct by mass destruction, assassination, or kidnapping. If Moore believes this description applies to him, so be it—but it is hard to see how Baldwin takes it to be too broad.
We then return to McDermott who asserts that “no one” in Congress read the Patriot Act before voting on it. He is then confirmed by Rep. Conyers, who adds that “We don’t read most of the bills” passed in Congress. So Moore determines to read the act to the Members of Congress, and we then see him riding around Capitol Hill in an ice cream truck, apparently reading the act aloud. Oddly, Moore does not actually let us hear him read any of the sections of the act that he takes to be so egregious—likely because actually hearing or reading the act would not confirm any of what he has told us about it (http://frwebgate.access.gpo.gov/cgi-bin/getdoc.cgi?dbname=107_cong_public_laws&docid=f:publ056.107.pdf).
But Moore moves on. He shows us a clip of President Bush at a restaurant, apparently taking orders and talking about eating ribs. It is not clear what purpose this clip serves. In what passes for a transition, Moore then says: “We all know you can’t secure the homeland on an empty stomach. And in order to remain secure, everyone needs to sacrifice … especially little Patrick Hambleton.”
Moore then tells us the story of Patrick and his mother Susan, who was made to drink two ounces of her own bottled breast milk at an airport, to prove that she was not carrying a dangerous substance. This is an amusing story about an unfortunate and ridiculous excess in airport security—one that a few nursing mothers went through in 2002—but again, what does it have to do with the Patriot Act? And what, for that matter, is its larger implication in general?
Moore wants to make the point that the security steps taken after September 11th are just diversions, and not really about our security. For proof he argues that certain obvious security steps, like keeping matches and lighters off of planes, were not taken. This has some truth to it. The Transportation Security Administration does allow certain kinds of matches and lighters to be taken on airplanes, while others are banned (http://www.tsa.dot.gov/public/interapp/editorial/editorial_multi_image_with_table_0099.xml) which does seem a very odd policy. In late September 2004, a Senate Committee voted to ban these items, though the bill has, at the time of this writing, not yet made it to the Senate floor (http://dorgan.senate.gov/newsroom/record.cfm?id=226556).
Moore then says, “Okay, let me see if I got this straight. Old guys in the gym—bad. Peace groups in Fresno—bad. Breast milk—really bad. But matches and lighters on a plane—hey, no problem.” But of course, this list of items he has chosen to highlight does not constitute a list of any official government policies. There are no rules that say breast milk is not allowed on planes, and there is nothing in present anti-terror laws that had anything to do with the questioning of “old guys in the gym” or peace groups in Fresno. He has taken his own list of unconnected examples and drawn a conclusion from it. And what is his conclusion? He says, “Was this really about our safety? Or was something else going on?” Like what? Moore offers no specific answer, of course.
Instead, he moves on to another unrelated example. Showing us a lovely coastal scene, Moore says, “This is where the Pacific coastline meets the shores of Oregon. Over one hundred miles of beautiful, open coastline on our border. And, thanks to the budget cutbacks, the total number of state police protecting it? One. Part-time.” What budget cutbacks? Certainly not any federal budget cutbacks. As Moore has shown, the federal government now devotes a great deal of energy and resources to anti-terror activities. Rather than explain, Moore shows us interviews with two Oregon state troopers, who say that their patrol office has very few officers, and there are times when no one is on patrol in their area. To examine these assertions, one blogger interviewed Lt. Glenn Chastain of the Oregon State Troopers, and asked him about Moore’s claims (http://recoveringcynic.blogspot.com/2004/07/my-interview-with-lt-chastain.html). Chastain notes that the relatively small number of officers in that area of Oregon has to do not with any federal funding, but with cutbacks in state funds over the past 30 years. He also points out that state troopers in Oregon are not responsible for protection of the coast against terrorism, but for traffic and safety issues—while the coast is protected by the United States Coast Guard.
In the end, it is unclear what point Moore thinks he can make by showing these state troopers. Moore shows one trooper saying the federal government has offered them no guidance on how to deal with terrorist threats, but in the interview noted above, Lt. Chastain says that the Department of Homeland Security actually has done so (http://recoveringcynic.blogspot.com/2004/07/my-interview-with-lt-chastain.html). But Moore just goes on, saying, “Of course, the Bush Administration didn’t hand out a manual on how to deal with the terrorist threat because the terrorist threat wasn’t what this was all about. They just wanted us to be fearful enough so that we’d get behind what their real plan was.”
And what was the real plan? This is Moore’s transition to Iraq. Apparently, the lack of funding from the Oregon state government for Oregon state troopers is supposed to prove that terrorism is not a real threat, and that Iraq is the only reason the Bush Administration has pushed for any homeland security legislation.
V. The War in Iraq
In his own voice, Moore describes the beginning of the Iraq war this way: “On March 19, 2003, George W. Bush and the United States military invaded the sovereign nation of Iraq. A nation that had never attacked the United States. A nation that had never threatened to attack the United States. A nation that had never murdered a single American citizen.” Absurd. He does not mention that Iraq had been in violation of its agreements from the conclusion of the 1991 Gulf War. He does not mention that Iraq had been in a state of fairly open conflict with the United States for over a decade, including on numerous occasions attacking American aircraft patrolling the UN-imposed “no fly zones” (to which Saddam Hussein expressly agreed in the 1991 surrender). He does not mention that Iraq undertook to assassinate former President George H.W. Bush and, on a separate occasion, the American ambassador to the Philippines. He does not mention the violation of more than a dozen UN resolutions requiring disarmament and reporting of weapons programs. He does not mention that Iraq paid the families of suicide bombers who killed Israelis and on several occasions killed Americans in Israel (http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2002/04/03/world/main505316.shtml). He does not mention that Iraq sheltered Abdul Rahman Yasin, a leader of the group that bombed the World Trade Center in 1993 (http://www.usatoday.com/news/world/iraq/2003-09-17-iraq-wtc_x.htm). He does not mention that Iraq sheltered the ruthless Palestinian terrorist Abu Abbas (http://www.cnn.com/2003/WORLD/meast/04/15/sprj.irq.abbas.arrested/) and the notorious Palestinian terrorist Abu Nidal (http://www.cnn.com/2002/WORLD/meast/08/19/mideast.nidal/).
And of course Moore does not mention, as the 9/11 Commission made clear, that Iraq also made an offer of shelter to Osama bin Laden and his Al Qaeda organization (http://www.9-11commission.gov/report/911Report.pdf, p. 66).
Saddam’s regime also routinely threatened the United States and called for attacks against it (see, for instance, http://www.acronym.org.uk/dd/dd20/20iraq.htm).
Moreover, the description of the Iraqi regime as an innocent victim of American aggression belies mountains of evidence of that regime’s abuses of human rights; its scorn for international norms and laws; its belligerence toward its neighbors; and its decades of mass torture and despotism. Moore offers no description or rebuttal of the actual American case for the war in any of its elements, he simply asserts there was no reason at all to engage in it.
Having asserted the war had no reason except Bush’s villainy, Moore then proceeds to show scenes of civilian casualties in the war. Having refrained from showing us any of the thousands of civilians killed intentionally on September 11th, he shows footage of some of those innocent Iraqi civilians killed inadvertently in the invasion of Iraq, when even the herculean efforts taken to use only precision bombing based upon reliable intelligence proved imperfect. Moore does not describe those efforts, of course. He also offers no evidence that the scenes we are witnessing are the result of American actions, and not those of errant Iraqi anti-aircraft artillery (http://www.opinionjournal.com/la/?id=110005402). It seems reasonably likely that the scenes are indeed the result of American actions, and there is no question that civilian casualties occurred as the result of the American invasion. But Moore distorts the truth by not balancing these pictures against the lengths to which the U.S. went to avoid civilian casualties (http://www.nytimes.com/2003/02/23/weekinreview/23JDAO.html?ex=1091678400&en=d3f4215ca4abe605&ei=5070), or the good done by the American invasion (http://www.whitehouse.gov/infocus/iraq/100days/100days.pdf). There is no denying the reality of what is being depicted, but it is clear that Moore has put these scenes in an intentionally distorted and inaccurate context.
Moore then seeks to depict American soldiers in Iraq as heartless animals, psyching themselves up to kill by listening to violent music. He shows a soldier saying, “It’s the ultimate rush cuz you’re going into the fight to begin with, and then you got a good song playing in the background and uh, that gets you real fired up. Ready to do the job.” And he has soldiers explain that they can pipe music through the tank’s internal communications. By putting this scene immediately before and after scenes of civilian casualties in Iraq, Moore makes it look like the Americans are savaging the innocent to the tune of classic rock. But the footage of these soldiers, which was taken from an Australian documentary called “Soundtrack to War” (http://www.soundtracktowar.com/), is taken out of context. The maker of that film, Australian documentary artist George Gittoes, told an Australian television network, “I was concerned of course for my soldiers because their interviews were taken out of context,” and that Moore “got access to my stuff and assumed that I would be happy for it to be in 9/11. I would actually have been quite happy for it not to be in 9/11” (http://www.theage.com.au/articles/2004/07/27/1090693936198.html?oneclick=true).
Moore shows several other soldiers talking about the heat of battle, and the costs in civilian lives, without giving any further context, without telling us what the soldiers were asked, and without offering any better understanding of the reasons and circumstances of the Iraq war. Then, with footage of an injured child, he plays a clip of Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld saying, “The targeting capabilities and the care that goes into targeting is as impressive as anything anyone could see. The care that goes into it, the humanity that goes into it.” Rumsfeld is correct (http://www.nytimes.com/2003/02/23/weekinreview/23JDAO.html?ex=1091678400&en=d3f4215ca4abe605&ei=5070), but Moore puts his statement in the context of some of the civilian casualties and suffering that did occur, in an effort to make Rumsfeld look ridiculous without directly asserting that he is wrong.
Moore then shows more footage of civilian casualties and a woman telling a reporter that her uncle’s house has been attacked, and venting her sorrow and suffering, calling for God. It is a moving scene, offered, again, with no context or balance of any kind. Rather than offer such context or balance, Moore jumps to a statement by singer Britney Spears, chewing gum and saying, “Honestly, I think we should just trust our president in every decision that he makes and we should just support that. You know? And, um, be faithful in what happens.” She is asked by a reporter (Tucker Carlson of CNN), “Do you trust this President?” and answers, “Yes, I do.” Moore of course does not offer any images of celebrities expressing the opposite sentiment. Does the fact that Britney Spears trusts George W. Bush have more bearing on anything than the fact that Barbara Streisand does not trust him?
But Moore’s point is that all of us have been stupid, like Britney Spears. “Britney Spears was not alone,” Moore tells us, “The majority of the American people trusted the President. And why shouldn’t they? He’d spent the better part of the last year giving them every reason why we should invade Iraq.” He then shows clips of President Bush and Secretary of State Powell discussing Saddam Hussein’s weapons programs before the war. Bush says, “Saddam Hussein has gone to elaborate lengths, spent enormous sums, taken great risks to build and keep weapons of mass destruction,” which was certainly true. Powell says “Saddam Hussein is determined to get his hands on a nuclear bomb,” which was also true (see, for instance, the British review of prewar intelligence, the so-called “Butler Report,” http://image.guardian.co.uk/sys-files/Politics/documents/2004/07/14/butler.pdf).
Moore then says: “Huh, that’s weird. Because that’s not what Bush’s people said when he first took office,” and shows a clip (with the subtitle February 2001) of Secretary Powell saying that Saddam Hussein “has not developed any significant capability with respect to weapons of mass destruction; he is unable to project conventional power against his neighbors,” and then a clip (with the subtitle July 2001) of Condoleezza Rice saying that “we are able to keep arms from him. His military forces have not been rebuilt.” The Powell quote is from a press conference with the foreign minister of Egypt, in which Powell was asked whether the U.S. would consider removing the sanctions against Iraq. He answered that the U.S. did not intend to free Iraq from sanctions, since Iraq was in violation of its commitments, and then said the sanctions had been working (http://www.state.gov/secretary/rm/2001/933.htm). In a CNN interview in September of 2003, Powell was asked about these remarks:
JUDY WOODRUFF: But you did say, though, you said, quote, "He threatens not the United States. He has not developed any significant capability with respect to weapons of mass destruction." It wasn’t just you. It was Dr. Rice, later in 2001. Vice President Cheney, who said Saddam is bottled up. I guess my question is, how did something that happened here in the United States, al Qaeda behind it, affect what was going on on the ground in Iraq?
POWELL: Because it focused the president’s attention, all of our attention, on the fact that if there were nations in the world that were continuing to hold or develop weapons of mass destruction, in the aftermath of 9/11, when we saw the kinds of terrorist organizations that were out there that would stop at nothing to strike us or other civilized nations, then a nexus existed between the possibility of such terrorists getting access to these kinds of weapons. And, also, the reality of it was that Saddam Hussein did have these weapons. The previous administration acknowledged it. The previous administration went to a mini-war in late-1998 and bombed Saddam Hussein’s facilities for four days. And here it was five years later, in 2003, the president made a decision based on this continued violation of U.N. resolutions for all these years, after taking the case to the U.N., that the world in this post-9/11 environment could no longer tolerate that kind of activity by a regime as irresponsible as Saddam Hussein’s. (http://cnnstudentnews.cnn.com/TRANSCRIPTS/0309/28/le.00.html)
In other words, what had changed was September 11th, but Moore—having closed our eyes to September 11—suggests that we should have gone on operating as we did before those attacks.
Meanwhile, the Condoleezza Rice quote is used in a way that distorts her meaning. The quote is from an interview by CNN’s John King on July 29, 2001. She was asked about efforts by the U.S. to impose tighter sanctions on Iraq, which at that point had been held up at the UN because China and Russia did not approve. Her answer was:
Well, in fact, John, we have made progress on the sanctions. We, in fact, had four of the five, of the permanent five, ready to go along with smart sanctions. We’ll work with the Russians. I’m sure that we’ll come to some resolution there, because it is important to restructure these sanctions to something that work. But in terms of Saddam Hussein being there, let’s remember that his country is divided, in effect. He does not control the northern part of his country. We are able to keep arms from him. His military forces have not been rebuilt. This has been a successful period, but obviously we would like to increase pressure on him, and we’re going to go about doing that. (http://www.cnn.com/TRANSCRIPTS/0107/29/le.00.html)
So Rice was not arguing, as Moore’s snippet implies, that further pressure on Saddam would be unnecessary. Rather the reverse: She argued that the U.S. hoped to “increase pressure” on Saddam. Indeed, just before asking that question, CNN’s John King showed a clip of Bush saying, “Well, we’re going to keep the pressure on Iraq, the no-fly zone strategy is still in place. There’s no question that Saddam Hussein is still a menace and a problem, and the United States and our allies must put the pressure on him.” Moore’s suggestion that the incoming Bush Administration did not believe Saddam Hussein was a problem is just false—and in any case, how does it jive with his conspiracy theory that Bush was planning to attack Iraq all along?
But Moore quickly abandons the notion that Bush had not believed Iraq was a threat, and instead goes back to showing administration officials before the war talking about the threat of Iraq, this time as it is related to Al Qaeda. Moore shows clips of officials talking about connections between Iraq and Al Qaeda, and Iraq and terrorism—claims which have since been confirmed by the 9/11 Commission and others. He also shows footage of Rumsfeld saying, “It is only a matter of time before terrorist states armed with weapons of mass destruction develop the capability to deliver those weapons to U.S. cities” (which is correct), Powell saying his statements are based on solid intelligence (which seemed correct at the time), and Bush talking about Saddam’s attitude toward America and his attempt to assassinate the first President Bush (correct).
Then Moore shows Jim McDermott again, saying, “They simply got people to believe that there was a real threat out there, when in fact there wasn’t one.” Moore and McDermott offer no evidence that “there wasn’t one” and just make the assertion without even a pretense of support.
We then see Donald Rumsfeld saying: “You get told things every day that don’t happen. It doesn’t seem to bother people”—meant to suggest that Rumsfeld is telling reporters that they should get used to being lied to. This Rumsfeld quote is used completely out of context. It is from a Pentagon press briefing on February 28, 2003, from the following exchange about a program of anti-terrorist cooperation between the U.S. and the Philippines:
Q: We had been told last week that the Philippine activity or whatever—the upcoming program had been agreed upon and was beginning—would be beginning soon. So has the start of it been delayed by this disagreement over semantics, or—.
RUMSFELD: Well, I don’t know that it’s just semantics. It is trying to find a formula where we can provide the maximum help in a manner that’s consistent with their constitution.
Q: But again, we were told that that was agreed upon.
RUMSFELD: You weren’t told by me.
Q: Well—.
RUMSFELD: I mean, you’re going to be told lots of things. You get told things every day that don’t happen. It doesn’t seem to bother people. They don’t—it’s printed in the press. The world thinks all these thing happen. They never happened. It’s—everyone’s so eager to get the story before, in fact, the story’s there that the world is constantly being fed things that haven’t happened. All I can tell you is, it hasn’t happened, it’s going to happen, and we’re worrying through those issues in a very constructive, friendly, positive way. (http://www.defenselink.mil/transcripts/2003/t02282003_t0228sd.html)
In other words, Rumsfeld is criticizing the press for inaccurate reporting, not saying that the government lies. In cutting and misrepresenting the quote, Moore is of course guilty of precisely what Rumsfeld is complaining about.
But Moore moves on. He accuses the Democrats of failing to keep the authority to invade Iraq from the president (showing a clip of Tom Daschle saying he will support the authority, as most Democrats did). Moore again fails to offer actual reasons why the Democrats should have withheld their support.
He next proceeds to make fun of the nations working with the United States in Iraq and in the larger war on terror. He shows clips of Powell and Bush making reference to the “coalition of the willing” and then tells us that this coalition consists of nations which he does not think worthy of being taken seriously. A voiceover says, “The Coalition of the Willing roll call: The Republic of Palau. The Republic of Costa Rica. The Republic of Iceland.” Then, showing us clips of people dancing and pounding rocks and riding donkeys, Moore says, “Of course none of these countries has an army or, for that matter, weapons.” He has indeed picked those three out of the 30-nation coalition which do not have regular military forces, and whose support for the coalition consisted of civilian medical and humanitarian assistance. Such assistance is hardly irrelevant, and these countries should not simply be treated as laughingstocks.
But the “roll call” continues, naming Romania and showing a picture of a vampire. Morocco is mentioned next (although Morocco is actually not on the U.S. list of coalition members), and Moore says, “Morocco wasn’t officially a member of the coalition, but according to one report, they did offer to send 2,000 monkeys to help detonate landmines.” It is true that there was a report of a group in Morocco accusing the government of having made such an offer (http://www.upi.com/view.cfm?StoryID=20030324-064259-1443r), but it isn’t clear that such an offer was ever really made.
Moore next mentions the Netherlands, and shows an image of a drug user, rather than an image of the 1,100 brave Dutch soldiers sent to serve in Iraq (http://216.239.41.104/search?q=cache:2-aov4yi54YJ:www.government.nl/actueel/dossieroverzicht/42_18993.jsp+&hl=en). Next he notes that Afghanistan is playing a role in Iraq through its new government, but he asserts that Afghanistan couldn’t play a role since it has no army (like the nations mentioned above, it is participating in a small and non-military way). Moore of course leaves out the major contributors to the coalition, including England, Italy, Australia, Poland, and originally also Spain—who together have contributed tens of thousands of soldiers to the effort to liberate Iraq and establish a secure democracy there. When asked about this in a press interview, Moore said only that his film was not supposed to tell the full truth:
Q: You mock the “coalition of the willing” by only showing the tiny countries that have voiced support. But you leave out England, Spain, Italy and Poland. Why?
Moore: This film exists as a counterbalance to what you see on cable news about the coalition. I’m trying to counter the Orwellian nature of the Big Lie, as if when you hear that term, the ‘coalition,’ that the whole world is behind us. (http://moorelies.com/news/specials/latimes_moore.cfm)
So his defense is that obscuring the truth is the appropriate way to tell the truth. Orwellian indeed. Incidentally, the following 31 countries currently (as of October 5, 2004) have troops in the American-led coalition in Iraq (and several other nations, including those Moore mentioned, have non-military civilian workers participating in the coalition and aiding the new Iraqi government): Britain, Italy, Poland, Ukraine, Netherlands, Romania, South Korea, Japan, Denmark, Bulgaria, Thailand, El Salvador, Hungary, Australia, Georgia, Norway, Azerbaijan, Mongolia, Portugal, Latvia, Czech Republic, Lithuania, Slovakia, Albania, New Zealand, Estonia, Tonga, Singapore, Kazakhstan, Macedonia, and Moldova (http://www.globalsecurity.org/military/ops/iraq_orbat_coalition.htm).
Moore simply asserts there was no real coalition, and then blames the major media for not telling us so. He proceeds into a bizarre accusation that the networks were somehow in favor of the war, and hyped it up for the American people. He shows clips of reporters and anchors saying things like, “The rallying around the president, around the flag, and around the troops clearly has begun,” and “The pictures you’re seeing are absolutely phenomenal”—none of which has anything to do with the coalition and none of which amount to advocacy for the war. He shows Dan Rather “admitting” that as an American he wants his country to win when it is at war, and shows Peter Jennings announcing that “Iraqi opposition has faded in the face of American power” (which was of course true). But anyone watching the news at the time of the Iraq invasion would find simply ridiculous the notion that reporters were cheerleaders for the war (http://www.mediaresearch.org/projects/gulfwar/welcome.asp).
Having asserted it, however, he moves on and criticizes the press for not covering the stories of individual soldiers killed in the war, and the government for not allowing pictures to be taken of coffins of fallen soldiers arriving home. There were certainly a great many stories about individual soldiers killed in Iraq, but Moore is correct on the latter point—though he does not point out that barring photos of arriving coffins has been the policy of the United States for thirteen years, through Republican and Democratic administrations, and was adopted to protect the privacy of the soldiers involved. The policy was also reaffirmed by the Senate in a 54-39 vote in June 2004 (http://www.nytimes.com/2004/06/22/politics/22cong.html).
During this section, Moore shows footage of a military funeral of a soldier killed in Operation Iraqi Freedom and buried at Arlington National Cemetery. This footage is of the funeral of Major Gregory Stone, who was not killed in combat, but rather was murdered by a fellow soldier who threw a grenade into Stone’s tent in March 2003. It is worth noting that Stone’s family never gave permission for this footage to be used in the film, and was outraged to discover that Moore had used the footage without asking for permission. Stone’s aunt told reporters, “There was no permission for it. Greg’s dead, he can’t defend himself or say what he really thinks. There’s no way he would ever let himself be affiliated with Michael Moore” (http://www.kbcitv.com/x5154.xml?ParentPageID=x5157&ContentID=x55058&Layout=KBCI.xsl&AdGroupID=x5154&NewsSection). Stone’s mother referred to Moore as “a maggot that eats off the dead” for using the footage (http://washingtontimes.com/national/20040712-101816-2160r.htm).
Moore continues: “That kind of story [of wounded or killed troops] is a downer, especially when you’re getting ready for a party on a boat.” This is Moore’s idea of a transition to talking about Bush’s now famous “Mission Accomplished” speech—so called because it took place on an American aircraft carrier heading home from Iraq on which was displayed a banner reading “Mission Accomplished.” Moore seeks to advance the notion that Bush said the war in Iraq was simply over, and that no more trouble should be expected. Panning up to the “Mission Accomplished” banner, Moore shows us Bush saying, “My fellow Americans, major combat operations in Iraq have ended. In the battle of Iraq, the United States and our allies have prevailed.” This is followed by footage of American soldiers under attack and wounded, and then by television reporters listing the mounting casualties in Iraq. Moore’s clear implication is that President Bush prematurely claimed that our work in Iraq was finished.
Moore does not mention that President Bush, in the same speech, also said, “We have difficult work to do in Iraq. We’re bringing order to parts of that country that remain dangerous. We’re pursuing and finding leaders of the old regime, who will be held to account for their crimes.” Or that Bush told those sailors, “The transition from dictatorship to democracy will take time, but it is worth every effort. Our coalition will stay until our work is done. Then we will leave, and we will leave behind a free Iraq” (http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2003/05/text/20030501-15.html). Far from implying that the work in Iraq was done, President Bush clearly stated that hard work and great risk remained ahead.
As General Tommy Franks, who commanded the U.S. Military’s Central Command during the invasion of Iraq, has since made clear, the aim of the speech was not to simplistically suggest that our work in Iraq was finished:
“Mr. Secretary,” I said to Donald Rumsfeld … “We’ve been talking about the timing of Phase IV. The British are going to hold a victory parade when their first combat units return from the Gulf. But our soldiers aren’t going home yet. I’d like to figure out a way to acknowledge their sacrifice and service. There’s a lot of work to be done over here, but major combat operations are over.” I wanted the Secretary—or the President—to publicly acknowledge this fact for the troops.
And there was another reason to make a public statement about the end of Phase III. There were Coalition members who didn’t want to participate in combat, but had said they would help once that phase was over. “I’d like to see some of them start bringing in their reconstruction and humanitarian assistance troops,” I told Rumsfeld.
“What do you have in mind, Tom?”
“It would be good if the President could acknowledge the success of major combat operations, Mr. Secretary.” I tried to find the right words. “The troops have accomplished every mission we gave them. There’s never been a combat operation as successful as Iraqi Freedom.”(Tommy Franks, American Soldier, pp. 523-4, http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0060731583)
Thus, the purpose of the “Mission Accomplished” speech was not to declare victory, but rather to honor our troops and to satisfy the demands of countries that had signaled a willingness to assist in rebuilding Iraq once “major combat operations” were over.
Moore then shows Bush saying, “There are some who feel that the conditions are such that they can attack us there. My answer is: Bring ’em on,” and then shows us footage of contractors murdered and gruesomely mutilated in Fallujah on March 31, 2004. The Bush “Bring ’em on” statement is from an exchange with reporters more than eight months earlier, on July 7, 2003. Bush was asked if he thought the U.S. should plead with other nations to join the Americans in securing Iraq, and responded:
Well, first of all, we’ll put together a force structure who meets the threats on the ground. And we’ve got a lot of forces there, ourselves. And as I said yesterday, anybody who wants to harm American troops will be found and brought to justice. There are some who feel like that if they attack us that we may decide to leave prematurely. They don’t understand what they’re talking about, if that’s the case. Let me finish. There are some who feel like—that the conditions are such that they can attack us there. My answer is, bring them on. We’ve got the force necessary to deal with the security situation. Of course we want other countries to help us—Great Britain is there, Poland is there, Ukraine is there, you mentioned. Anybody who wants to help, we’ll welcome the help. But we’ve got plenty tough force there right now to make sure the situation is secure. We always welcome help. We’re always glad to include others in. But make no mistake about it—and the enemy shouldn’t make any mistake about it—we will deal with them harshly if they continue to try to bring harm to the Iraqi people. I also said yesterday an important point, that those who blow up the electricity lines really aren’t hurting America, they’re hurting the Iraq citizens; their own fellow citizens are being hurt. But we will deal with them harshly, as well. (http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2003/07/20030702-3.html)
The attackers of course have been dealt with harshly. But Moore is trying to suggest that Bush declared victory and showed overconfidence in the face of the challenges in Iraq—ignoring what Bush has done in the year since.
Moore then shows footage of Dan Rather saying, “The renewed battle for control of Iraq raged for a fourth day today with street clashes in nearly every corner of the country. Iraq could become, quote, another Vietnam.” Moore apparently sees no contradiction between such an outrageously exaggerated negative statement and the film’s earlier attempt to paint Rather and the press as Bush stooges. We hear a reporter saying, “Officials say they see evidence that Sunni and Shiite extremists might be joining forces”—but viewers are never told that such a joining of forces never occurred.
Moore then shows footage of Bush saying: “They’re not happy they’re occupied. I wouldn’t be happy if I were occupied either.” Moore clearly wants us to believe that Bush is talking about the insurgents, and essentially justifying their actions—making Bush seem ridiculous. But the clip, from a White House news conference on April 13, 2004, is actually of Bush answering a question about the Iraqi people in general and their desire for protection from the insurgents, rather than the motives of the insurgents. Here is what Bush said:
Finally, the attitude of the Iraqis toward the American people—it’s an interesting question. They’re really pleased we got rid of Saddam Hussein. And you can understand why. This is a guy who was a torturer, a killer, a maimer; there’s mass graves. I mean, he was a horrible individual that really shocked the country in many ways, shocked it into a kind of—a fear of making decisions toward liberty. That’s what we’ve seen recently. Some citizens are fearful of stepping up. And they were happy—they’re not happy they’re occupied. I wouldn’t be happy if I were occupied either. They do want us there to help with security, and that’s why this transfer of sovereignty is an important signal to send, and it’s why it’s also important for them to hear we will stand with them until they become a free country. (http://usembassy.state.gov/posts/in3/wwwhwashnews1592.html)
Moore has again edited a clip and used it out of context. Having done so, he just shows more footage of insurgent attacks, perhaps wanting us to believe that Bush has done nothing about these attacks, which is simply false. Moore also does not tell us that he himself has cheered on the insurgents, as when he noted on his website in April 2004 (while making this movie) that:
The Iraqis who have risen up against the occupation are not “insurgents” or “terrorists” or “The Enemy.” They are the REVOLUTION, the Minutemen, and their numbers will grow—and they will win. (http://www.michaelmoore.com/words/message/index.php?messageDate=2004-04-14)
But rather than put off his audience by explicitly stating in this film that his sympathies lie with the people who are killing American troops, Moore moves on to the question of retention and recruitment in the military.