Text 22353, 132 rader
Skriven 2006-09-07 13:49:00 av Jeff Binkley (1:226/600)
Ärende: 9/11
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Listen to them squealing when the shoe is on the other foot.....

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http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/09/06/AR2006090601819
_pf.html

Clinton Administration Officials Assail ABC's 'The Path to 9/11'

By Howard Kurtz
Washington Post Staff Writer
Thursday, September 7, 2006; A09



Top officials of the Clinton administration have launched a preemptive strike
against an ABC-TV "docudrama," slated to air Sunday and Monday, that they say
includes made-up scenes depicting them as undermining attempts to kill Osama
bin Laden.

Former secretary of state Madeleine K. Albright called one scene involving her
"false and defamatory." Former national security adviser Samuel R. "Sandy"
Berger said the film "flagrantly misrepresents my personal actions." And former
White House aide Bruce R. Lindsey, who now heads the William J. Clinton
Foundation, said: "It is unconscionable to mislead the American public about
one of the most horrendous tragedies our country has ever known."

ABC's entertainment division said the six-hour movie, "The Path to 9/11," will
say in a disclaimer that it is a "dramatization . . . not a documentary" and
contains "fictionalized scenes." But the disclaimer also says the movie is
based on the Sept. 11 commission's report, although that report contradicts
several key scenes.

Berger said in an interview that ABC is "certainly trying to create the
impression that this is realistic, but it's a fabrication."

Marc Platt, the film's executive producer, said that although it "does contain
composite and conflated scenes and representative characters and dialogue,
we've worked very hard to be fair. If individuals feel they're wrongly
portrayed, that's obviously of concern. We've portrayed the essence of the
truth of these events. Our intention was not in any way to be political or
present a point of view."

The former Clinton aides voiced their objections in letters to Robert A. Iger,
chief executive of ABC's corporate parent, the Walt Disney Co., but the network
refused to make changes or to give them advance copies of the movie. They were
not interviewed by ABC; it hired as a co-executive producer Thomas H. Kean, the
Republican who chaired the Sept. 11 commission, but no Democratic members of
the panel.

"In an undertaking this gargantuan," Platt said, "it's impossible to interview
every single person available, and we didn't believe we needed to." He said
that "maybe I'm naive" in thinking that hiring only Kean would not prompt
criticism of a political slant.

The fierceness of the debate reflects a recognition that a $40 million
miniseries -- whose cast includes Harvey Keitel, Patricia Heaton and Penny
Johnson Jerald -- can damage Clinton's legacy in the anti-terrorism fight on
the fifth anniversary of the Sept. 11 attacks.

Among the scenes that the Clinton team said are fictional:

· Berger is seen as refusing authorization for a proposed raid to capture bin
Laden in spring 1998 to CIA operatives in Afghanistan who have the terrorist
leader in their sights. A CIA operative sends a message: "We're ready to load
the package. Repeat, do we have clearance to load the package?" Berger
responds: "I don't have that authority."

Berger said that neither he nor Clinton ever rejected a CIA or military request
to conduct an operation against bin Laden. The Sept. 11 commission said no CIA
operatives were poised to attack; that Afghanistan's rebel Northern Alliance
was not involved, as the film says; and that then-CIA Director George J. Tenet
decided the plan would not work.

· Tenet is depicted as challenging Albright for having alerted Pakistan in
advance of the August 1998 missile strike that unsuccessfully targeted bin
Laden.

"Madame Secretary," Tenet is seen saying, "the Pakistani security service, the
ISI, has close ties with the Taliban." Albright is seen shouting: "We had to
inform the Pakistanis. There are regional factors involved." Tenet then
complains that "we've enhanced bin Laden's stature."

Albright said she never warned Pakistan. The Sept. 11 commission found that a
senior U.S. military official warned Pakistan that missiles crossing its
airspace would not be from its archenemy, India.

· "The Path to 9/11" uses news footage to suggest that Clinton was distracted
by the Republican drive to impeach him. Veteran White House counterterrorism
official Richard A. Clarke, who also disputes the film's accuracy, is portrayed
as telling FBI agent John P. O'Neill: "Republicans went all out for
impeachment. I just don't see the president in this climate willing to take
chances."

O'Neill responds: "So it's okay if somebody kills bin Laden, so long as he
didn't give the order. . . . It's pathetic." The Sept. 11 commission found no
evidence that the Monica S. Lewinsky scandal played a role in the August 1998
missile strike, but added that the "intense partisanship of the period" was one
factor that "likely had a cumulative effect on future decisions about the use
of force against bin Laden."

Clinton allies have complained that advance copies were sent to a number of
conservative commentators, including Rush Limbaugh, but not to liberals.
Limbaugh, saying that the screenwriter, Cyrus Nowrasteh, is a friend of his,
told his radio audience that the film "indicts the Clinton administration,
Madeleine Albright, Sandy Berger. It is just devastating to the Clinton
administration. It talks about how we had chances to capture bin Laden in
specific detail."

ABC said copies of the film were sent to media organizations and commentators
without regard to ideology, and that Democrats and Republicans were invited to
a screening in Washington. At the screening, Richard Ben-Veniste, a Democratic
member of the Sept. 11 commission, assailed the film as inaccurate.

Nowrasteh, who has described himself as a conservative, told Frontpage magazine
that the movie illustrates "the frequent opportunities the administration had
in the '90s to stop bin Laden in his tracks -- but lacked the will to do so."

Nowrasteh drew criticism from Reagan administration officials for his Showtime
movie "The Day Reagan Was Shot." He told the Los Angeles Daily News then that
he "made a conscious effort not to contact any members of the [Reagan]
administration because I didn't want them to stymie my efforts."

The assault on "The Path to 9/11" assumed the trappings of a campaign
yesterday. Four senior House Democrats -- John Conyers Jr., Jane Harman, John
D. Dingell and Louise M. Slaughter -- have written Iger to demand that the
inaccuracies be corrected. Spurred by the Center for American Progress, which
is headed by Clinton chief of staff John D. Podesta, 25,000 people have sent
letters of protest to ABC.

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