here is no critique more stinging than one wrapped in
sympathy. Tonight, PBS's "Frontline" examines the Bush administration's rationale
for the Iraq war in a tone of puzzled sorrow that somehow enhances, rather
than mutes, the righteous indignation of the reporting.
Opening softly with the return to Baghdad of an idealistic Iraqi exile,
Kanan Makiya, two weeks after the fall of Saddam Hussein, "Truth, War and
Consequences" explores the disillusionment of the war's most fervent
supporters before backtracking to how the Bush White House brought it all
about. But White House deception is the real focus of the program, which
draws two main conclusions, both linked to hubris: that the administration
twisted the facts to paint Mr. Hussein as an imminent threat to the
security of the United States, and that it ignored its own experts'
warnings about the risks and cost of postwar reconstruction.
These are, of course, accusations that have been made on Sunday talk
shows, in newspaper editorials and at foreign affairs seminars for weeks,
growing most recently acute around the scandal over the leaking of the
identity of a C.I.A. agent, Valerie Plame.
The "Frontline" documentary, which weaves solemn interviews with Iraqi
exiles and disgruntled government officials around scenes of the everyday
chaos and violence of Baghdad, does not provide new information so much as
it richly illustrates the case against the Bush administration — a
prosecution brief enhanced with charts, photographs and a thick leather
binder.
Ahmad Chalabi, the Iraqi exile who was a vital intelligence source for
the Pentagon hawks, is presented as exhibit A. "Do you have any
documentary evidence of any kind?" Martin Smith, the program's on-camera
reporter and producer, asks Mr. Chalabi, who says he has "very strong"
evidence linking Mr. Hussein and Al Qaeda. Mr. Smith politely presses the
Iraqi to produce an actual document. "I mean, if there is such a document,
it makes sense for you to share it, no?" he persists. Mr. Chalabi
promises, awkwardly, that the document will be furnished.
"The document was supposed to demonstrate money changing hands between
Saddam Hussein's government and Al Qaeda," a narrator intones. "After
repeated requests, `Frontline' has still not
seen the document."
Mr. Chalabi's discomfort is contrasted with the calm self-possession of
former United States government officials who question the
administration's policy. Robert M. Perito, a retired career diplomat who
briefly served as a national security aide in the Reagan and first Bush
administrations, says he reminded top administration officials of the
costly chaos in Panama City after Gen. Manuel Antonio Noriega was removed
from power in 1989. "And those lessons were ignored," he says
matter-of-factly.
Greg Thielmann, who left his post as director of the strategic,
proliferation and military affairs office in the State Department's Bureau
of Intelligence and Research last September, also describes in
dispassionate tones how the State Department's intelligence reports were
ignored or sanded down to suit the White House's case. Calling the
administration's approach "faith-based intelligence," Mr. Thielmann says,
"They were cherry-picking the information that we provided to use whatever
pieces of it fit their overall interpretation."
What the documentary does not point out is that every administration
routinely ignores its most experienced in-house experts. The banks of the
Potomac are littered with the spent careers of C.I.A. analysts and foreign
service professionals who had discordant assessments of El Salvador,
Bosnia and Iraq.
What distinguished the Bush administration, "Frontline" contends, was
the openness of its arrogance and the magnitude of its policy shift —
sending more than 200,000 American troops to invade a Muslim country and
recreate it along American democratic lines.
Ambassador L. Paul Bremer III, the American administrator of Iraq,
tells "Frontline" that the reconstruction effort will cost $100 billion.
And that is in addition to the $4 billion a month the United States is
currently spending on the military occupation.
The documentary illustrates how the American occupation is beginning to
grate even on the least politicized Iraqi citizens. An eight-hour wait for
gasoline grows so tense a man fires a gun in frustration — and the bullet
hits a gas tank, killing four civilians, including the brother of a young
boy, filmed as he wails his rage and grief. Soldiers assigned to find Mr.
Hussein or his henchmen conduct house-to-house raids, each small,
fruitless invasion of privacy setting off a ripple of resentment in
villages and city neighborhoods.
Those scenes contrast sharply with a clip of President Bush at a news
conference boldly pressing the case for a pre-emptive strike, warning,
"The Iraqi regime could launch a biological or chemical attack in as
little as 45 minutes."
The narrator notes, "What was missing from all the speeches and
television appearances were the caveats and contrary evidence from their
own intelligence agencies."
Most documentaries can also be faulted for the same sin: leaving out
information that detracts from the central thesis.
No administration official is interviewed on camera. In a flash of
journalistic self-importance, the narrator explains that Secretary of
Defense Donald H. Rumsfeld, Vice President Dick Cheney, Secretary of State
Colin L. Powell and the national security adviser, Condoleezza Rice, were
asked for interviews, and that "they all declined." A meeting with Douglas
J. Feith, the under secretary of defense for policy, was canceled by the
White House, according to the narrator, who adds, "We received no
explanation."
Instead the program relies on Richard N. Perle, a business consultant
who was an important aide in the Reagan administration, to explain the
government's view. Mr. Perle is not actually a government official, but he
plays one on TV. He advises Mr. Rumsfeld from his unpaid perch on the
Defense Policy Board, a position that gives him behind-the-scenes access
to top Bush officials as well as the freedom to speak out publicly.
"Let me be blunt about this: the level of competence of the Central
Intelligence Agency in this area is appalling," Mr. Perle says, explaining
why the Pentagon created its own intelligence unit to find links between
Mr. Hussein and Al Qaeda. "So if you're walking down the street and you're
not looking for hidden treasure, you won't find it."
When Mr. Smith suggests that the converse is also true, Mr. Perle
agrees. "Of course, there's no absolute truth in this," he says
genially.
FRONTLINE: Truth, War and Consequences
On most PBS stations tonight
(check local listings)
Martin Smith and Marcela Gaviria, producers; Martin Smith, writer and
reporter; David Fanning, executive producer for Frontline. A Frontline
co-production with Rainmedia Inc.
