COMMENT Stumbling on the Path to 9/11
By Skip Kaltenheuser
WASHINGTON - Here in well-insulated Washington, DC, it's hard to guess what
really impacts the national electorate and how, but I'm going to risk at least
trying to answer what affects voters. Wiser heads can gamble on the "how".
The American Broadcasting Co (ABC) recently threw a fancy spread with
free-flowing vino for a packed house at the National Press Club. The
network screened the first half of its miniseries
The Path to 9/11, scheduled to air on the five-year anniversary of the
attacks on New York and the Pentagon. Its creators say it's based in part on
the 9-11 Commission Report.
Conservative columnists and bloggers are already touting a segment where,
during the administration of president Bill Clinton, the Central Intelligence
Agency and the Northern Alliance - allies of the US in Afghanistan - surround
Osama bin Laden in his camp. They walk over sleeping terrorists lit by
night-goggle vision, ready to knock on bin Laden's door to catch him alive.
Suddenly, US national security adviser Sandy Berger aborts the mission, won't
put his neck on the line, only the field agents' necks.
Shortly thereafter, bin Laden works his murderous mayhem at US embassies in
Tanzania and Kenya. "Astonishing," wrote Govinda Murty in the online
hyper-conservative Human Events, "... a perfect example of Clinton-era
irresponsibility and incompetence."
Perhaps Murty stepped out to powder her nose during the post-screening
discussion when 9-11 Commission member Richard Ben-Veniste, surrounded by
commission staffers who appeared steamed, stood up and clearly stated that this
episode never happened.
Writer/producer Cyrus Nowrasteh and director David Cunningham clutched the
show's disclaimer - composite and representative characters and time
compression were used for dramatic purposes.
Memo to Cyrus and Dave: September 11, 2001, doesn't lack dramatic effect. And
Berger isn't a composite. He's Sandy Berger. I'll be surprised if ABC's lawyers
don't engineer a change to that "composite" scene.
Apparently, a missile attack on bin Laden was nixed because collateral damage
would have included the Northern Alliance. If it plays fast and loose with
editing - achieving slip-and-slide accountability - the show is undeniably
riveting and well acted, and thought-provoking. So, knowing how many people
will take this as gospel, why put in something so distorted from an actual
event? It makes one wonder what else stumbles over the truth meter.
Then there's the comment by a US Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) agent
about Ramzi Yousef's laptop, found in the Philippines in 1995, detailing
"Operation Bojinka", a plot to blow up a dozen airliners. If it had been found
in the US, says the agent, we could never open it. Really? A laptop surrounded
by a burning bomb-making lab filled with explosives, firearms and terrorist
screeds? Those pesky civil libertarians, what they have wrought! It's a lazy
cop-show cliche. Comments like that without proper context belong in a rodeo
bullpen.
The Monica Lewinsky fiasco is underscored on several occasions - perhaps grim
comic relief - hinting that it powered the White House agenda. Of course, it
distracted the administration, perhaps from Rwanda and elsewhere. But the show
doesn't whack Republicans for hobbling the administration by trying to hang
Wild Bill high. Some even charged a failed missile attack on bin Laden was an
attempt to distract the nation from Monica. And no mention that when George W
Bush took the White House, he just walked away from the Middle East peace
negotiations table Clinton had wrestled at.
The Clinton administration, though, is hardly above criticism.
Nor is the Bush administration, which the second half of the show presents as
sidelining the prior administration's bin Laden concerns and hanging the
Northern Alliance out to dry. If the show is on the mark here, the Bush
administration also hamstrung White House counter-terrorism adviser Richard A
Clarke and tried to destroy the career and reputation of FBI special agent John
O'Neil, the show's dramatic center. They were the squeaky security wheels the
Bush administration wouldn't properly grease.
And then there are all the unconnected dots - from bureaucratic intransigence
to dysfunctional agency cooperation - still evident today, according to the
9-11 Commission.
The show quits dramatically, appropriately, with the first tragedy of September
11. It doesn't mention the second tragedy of September 11: the war in Iraq -
which the neo-conservatives coveted before September 11 - or the revisited
tragedy of Afghanistan, which didn't get the attention it deserved because of
Iraq.
What impact might this have on November's elections? This is one of two dozen
television shows pegged to the September 11 anniversary. Modest box-office
returns for two generally well-reviewed films, United 93 and World Trade
Center, may reflect tragedy fatigue.
I've no doubt of Middle East fatigue. The United States' repeating nightmare is
watching a train wreck on shifting tracks, stops now including Lebanon. Are the
neo-conservatives laying track to Iran with a House Intelligence Committee
report criticizing spy agencies for being shy on the conclusions regarding
Iranian nuclear threats? Are they again ordering up "better" intelligence?
Judging how fast people at the screening jumped on "nitpickers" who failed to
worship the ABC show adequately, many politicians will find something to
embrace.
Consider that terrorism is the only issue on which Bush gets a positive rating.
The polls awarded him a boost from the Brits' impressive bust of terrorists
with deadly shampoo. Speaking out of a rotating mouth, Bush still cobbles
connections between the motive to invade Iraq and terrorism. In a recent press
conference, he noted that "Saddam [Hussein] had relations with [Abu Musab
al-]Zarqawi" (the recently killed head of al-Qaeda in Iraq). Who knew?
Consider also that 60% of Americans now believe the war in Iraq will lead to
more terrorism. Never mind their purse strings, tightened at the gasoline pump
and elsewhere.
Politicians running for office, from Hillary Clinton to Joe Lieberman, are now
trying to figure out how to orbit between those gravities.
Meanwhile, attention paid to the Katrina anniversary, including an HBO
miniseries by Spike Lee (When the Levees Broke: A Requiem in Four Acts),
pounds White House levees like a Category 5 hurricane.
