|
| |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Robert Greenwald’s brisk, comprehensive documentary doesn’t so much uncover as it lays waste. About two dozen experts — including such usual suspects as Richard Clarke, Scott Ritter, and Joseph Wilson — boasting a cumulative résumé of about three centuries in intelligence, defense, foreign service, and other germane fields unload on the administration’s arguments for the war like a barrage of cruise missiles. A montage of talking heads — not slick or subtle but more convincing than the comic agit-prop of Michael Moore — take aim at the "evidence" for Saddam’s possession of weapons of mass destruction and the alleged links between Iraq and al-Qaeda, and at the reliability of such "informers" as Ahmed Chalabi. Sometimes the experts aren’t even necessary; the words of Bush, Cheney, Powell, et. al. are, in retrospect, self-incriminating. Not that they weren’t dutifully trumpeted at the time by the media, who take their shots from Greenwald for their drum roll of support, their squelching and demonizing of dissent (point well taken, but could he have found someone more mainstream than Michael Savage to illustrate it?), their unwillingness to question. It’s all here, from yellowcake to Valerie Plame to mission accomplished. Originally a DVD distributed on the Internet by MoveOn.org and now expanded with a long, lucid, irrefutable interview with David Kay, this essential document ventures into a handful of theaters. Uncovering the truth is one thing; getting people to look or care is another. (83 minutes)
BY PETER KEOUGH
|
