There have been some very important hard facts left out of the critical thinking here.
Hard facts:
The evidence for a conspiracy to use 9/11 to invade Iraq is significant. While there is not one shred of evidence the government blew up the World Trade Center, there is evidence that they used the tragedy to remove Saddam Hussein using poor WMD evidence.
Below is a short list of people who blew the whistle on the misuse of pre-war intelligence.
Thomas Packard, acting FBI director: Summer before 9/11, Ashcroft told him he didn’t want to hear anything more about terrorist threats. During the 9/11 hearings other FBI people corroberated this. Someone lied to congress and yet this goes uninvestigated.
Larry Johnson, former counter terrorism agent with the CIA: Rumsfeld set up a special office to link Iraq and Al Qaeda cherry picking Intel; evidence is sent back saying, “That’s garbage, that’s misleading, that misrepresents,” then they would take the same brief to the vice president or one even worse.
Rand Baers, National Security Council: Resigns White House post and works against Bush. He said Cheney pushed CIA "Cheney said, “Everybody knows Saddam has weapons of mass destruction, tell us what you know, what’s your best stuff?..”
Downing Street Memo says Bush wanted to remove Saddam though military action. “Evidence fixed around the policy” How many other counties did the Bush Administration ask to fix evidence evidence around policy? Is the yellowcake part of this fix? If they did it to one country why wouldn't they do it to others?
Rice, Rove, Karen Hughes, Cheney have weekly closed door meetings on how to convince the American people.
John McLaughlin, CIA deputy director: “We did not clear that particular [Niger] speech”… Tenet’s “slam dunk” does not mean what the media thinks it means. Tenet also says the slam dunk was not about the evidence but the presentation of the evidence.
Michael Scheuer: Intel did not matter. We were going to war / Tenet researched 10 years worth of documents and found no connection to Al Qaeda. Tenet tells Bush / Administration yet administration continues to suggest connection.
Who is ‘Joe T’ and why was he the point man for analyzing nuclear weapon intel?
Gregory Thielmann, State Dept intelligence: More and more people said intel on tubes was that they were no good for a nuclear weapon. Official leak saying “Mushroom Cloud” misrepresents the intelligence community disagreement. Administration continues “No doubt” he has WMD. Tenet defends erroneous evidence while others in the CIA voice doubts. State department issues strong and lengthy dissent. Niger uranium purchase “Highly Dubious.” "Intelligence agencies, get your talking points”
CIA intel notes critical gaps in the evidence because of questionable reliability of many sources,
For the first time before a modern war, Bush did not ask for National Intelligence Estimate. Congress demands it. N.I.E. said Saddam not a threat.
White House Iraq group gives only evidence which supports policy while down playing dissent.
Last minute dispute over Niger speech.
Tenet and Powell argue about intel.
Carl Ford, Asst Sec of State, Intelligence: “This is all we got? And we’re making these firm judgments?
Powell not told about Curveball. Curveball was never debriefed by the CIA.
Col. Laurence Wilkerson: Evidence brought to the UN “It was anything but an intelligence document. It was a Chinese menu where you can pick and choose what you want”
A day before Powell’s UN speech, a CIA skeptic had warned Curve Ball is a lair. A superior sends an E-mail reply saying “This war’s going to happen regardless, the powers that be probably aren’t interested whether Curve ball knows what he’s talking about.”
Powell’s speech riddled with misleading allegations. Not outright lies but worded in such a way as to mislead.
Scott Ritter, ex UNSCUM weapon inspector: The evidence for war is not there. He goes on just about every TV station trying to stop the war.
Richard Clarke: Bush wanted to connect Iraq and 9/11. Invading Iraq for 9/11 is like China attacking us and we invade Mexico.
Gen. Clark: People in the Pentagon told him Bush was going to war no matter what.
New Memo DSM said Bush was going to war no matter what.
We know the PNAC wanted to invade Iraq before 911. Was 911 the perfect excuse?
Are you telling me all these high level people are lying?
Here is what I think happened...
PNAC has been looking for an excuse to invade IRAQ since the clinton years. They had a few reasons in mind.
1) Saddam was a nutcase (Trying to draw conclusions from his actions based on what the normal person would do is silly. He wasn't normal) - Problem: he was never shown to be more than a local threat
2) protect the oil supply - Problem: A good reason but not enough to invade. It's their oil and the american people will not go to war just to secure something which isn't theirs.
3) Stablize the middle east: Problem: The american people don't want to go to war to turn Iraq into a middle estern america.
I think what put them over the edge was money. Many of their supporters were going to make a lot of money if they went to war. I'm not saying they made the decision because they knew they were going to make a killing (No pun intended) but because it colored their judgement.
The proof that they didn't think there was WMD was the fact that he pulled the weapon inspectors out only 3 months after they began. Yet we spent more than a year with more than one group of inspectors only to realize they didn't have WMD.
So if you want to go to war what would you have to do? Paint Saddam as a threat by suggesting he was creating WMD and could give it to terrorists. You would do it with a small number of players. Just present the evidence the way conspiracy theorists present their evidence - tell half the truth.
You can want to believe we are killing people in Iraq for valid reasons and if that helps you sleep at night so be it.
I think a filmmaker has a responsibility to understand how an audience are most reasonably going to receive their work.
