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The Path to 9/11

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File:PathTo911 lead.jpg
Promotional material for The Path to 9/11

The Path to 9/11 is a controversial two-part miniseries aired in the United States on ABC television on September 10, 2006 at 8 p.m. EDT and September 11, 2006 at 8 p.m. EDT, and also in other countries (see the schedule below for details). The film dramatizes the 1993 terrorist attack upon the World Trade Center in New York City and the events leading up to the September 11, 2001 attacks.

The film has gained extraordinary pre-airing attention, in part because it purportedly portrays the Clinton administration as extremely lax in their attention to the threat of al-Qaeda, even passing up several opportunities to capture or kill Osama bin Laden. It also is being presented with a sense of authenticity because it claims to be based largely on the 9/11 Commission Report, and 9/11 Commission Chairman Thomas Kean served as a consultant to ABC for the film and has endorsed it. Other Commission members, however, have called it a distortion of the facts, including some from the 9/11 Commission report itself [1].

The film was written by Cyrus Nowrasteh, directed by David L. Cunningham, and produced by Marc Platt[2]. It stars noted actors Harvey Keitel and Donnie Wahlberg[3].

Cast

Broadcasting

United States

File:Abcpathto911webscreen.PNG
Web screenshot of ABC.com homepage

Canada

Australia

New Zealand

United Kingdom

India

Production history

The movie is reportedly based on the 9/11 Commission Report, books The Cell by John Miller, and The Relentless Pursuit by Samuel Katz [citation needed]. The first indication that ABC was running a miniseries appeared in a brief article in the New York Post[4]. In it, the producers identified shooting locations and revealed that Harvey Keitel would play John O'Neill. At the time, ABC had a working name of Untitled Commission Report and the producers used the working title Untitled History Project, with the project beginning filming in July 2005 and scheduled to end post production by January 2006. In January, Nowrasteh stated that the miniseries would air in July[5], which by April was pushed back to the September air date [6]. Preview screenings were made in May for foreign broadcasters [7]. The film was first publicly announced at the Television Critics Association summer press tour in July.

Also in July, ABC announced that the movie would be shown "with limited commercial interruptions" [8]. According to Advertising Age. the miniseries was a personal project of ABC entertainment president Steve McPherson, who began to look for a producer shortly after reading the 9/11 Commission Report [citation needed].

Though commercial interruptions will be limited, the White House has asked the major networks for airtime to present a Presidential Address to the nation. The interruption is expected to delay the broadcast of Path to 9/11 by an estimated 18 minutes. [9][10].

Filming was conducted in Morocco, New York City, Toronto, and Washington, D. C. The production was one of the few allowed to film at the headquarters of the Central Intelligence Agency in Langley, Virginia [11].

Controversy

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Criticisms and reponses

Advance viewing copies distributed

The extensive pre-broadcast controversy over the film is based on content that was present in viewing copies sent to TV reviewers and conservative talk show hosts and bloggers[12]. A version was also shown at a Washington DC screening to members and guests of the National Press Club [13], and to attendees of the Midwest Security and Police Conference in Chicago [14]. After the controversy arose, ABC issued a statement claiming that this version was not the final version and there was still editing in progress. It is therefore not yet known if this content will be present in the final version seen in the US. It is also not clear if changes that ABC has indicated it may make will have been incorporated in the screening copies that have already been broadcast in other nations.

The dramatized content in question is said by former Clinton Administration officials and leading Democrats, as well as some conservatives and prominent historians, to cast a negative light on the attitudes and actions of members of the Clinton Administration[citation needed]. The concerns of these critics include the degree of dramatic license taken in these scenes, the asserted use of outright fabrications, and charges that the miniseries would leave viewers with an incorrect impression of what actually occurred[citation needed].

In an official statement released on September 7, 2006, ABC called the film "a dramatization, not a documentary, drawn from a variety of sources, including The 9/11 Commission Report, other published materials, and from personal interviews" [15].

Chairman Kean's comment

Additionally, a book by Thomas Kean, the 9/11 Commission chairman who worked as an adviser to the film, is also included as a published material[16]. Kean supports the film saying, "People in both parties didn't particularly like the commission report, and I think people in both parties aren't going to love this one." Cite error: A <ref> tag is missing the closing </ref> (see the help page)..

ABC insists their movie is non-partisan and has responded to critics by explaining that, "No one has seen the final version of the film, because the editing process is not yet complete, so criticisms of film specifics are premature and irresponsible[17]." Some of the sequences objected to have been widely seen on television as advance clips promoting the film.

Criticism of writer/producer

The film's writer/producer Cyrus Nowrasteh, has been accused of letting his conservative political beliefs influence the screenplay. He has described himself as "probably more of a libertarian than a strict conservative." Rush Limbaugh added to the controversy when he said Nowrasteh was a friend and promoted his work on The Rush Limbaugh Show[18] [19]. For his part, the filmmaker has said that he doesn't "want to just be a conservative version of Michael Moore [20]." Nowrasteh also wrote the script for the Day Reagan Was Shot, a TV movie in which Oliver Stone was the executive producer and Nowrasteh directed.

Author James Bamford revealed in an interview on MSNBC that an FBI agent who worked as a consultant to “The Path to 9/11” quit halfway through production of the miniseries because he believed the writers and producers were “making things up" [21].

Portrayal of Clinton administration

The main source of the controversy stems from alleged inaccuracies in the portion of the film concerned with the Clinton administration in the 1990s. Critics say that certain scenes tend to suggest that blame for the events that took place on September 11, 2001 lies with Clinton and his cabinet. One example cited is a scene in which then National Security Advisor, Sandy Berger, is unwilling to approve the order to take out a surrounded Osama bin Laden and leaves it to Tenet to decide if he will take responsibility. Tenet calls off the operation. Sandy Berger and others claim that this never happened. [22]. Nowasteh has now admitted that the abrupt hang-up portrayed was not in the script and was instead improvised and then removed from the version shown in the United States [23].

According to the bi-partisan 9/11 Commission Report, both Berger and the CIA director George Tenet claim it was Tenet, not Berger, who called off the supposed "operation to assassinate UBL [Osama bin Laden]." However, the report makes no claim as to who actually called off the operation, and it notes that the CIA's Deputy Director of Operations James Pavitt said he "thought that it was Berger’s doing, though perhaps on Tenet's advice." Berger claims, and his claims are presented uncontested in the Report, the operation was never in the execution stage in the first place because it was not feasible for local tribes and warlords to assist in his capture and delivery to the United States[24].

Ben-Veniste and Clarke response

One of the 11 panel members of the 9/11 Commission, Richard Ben-Veniste [25], and counter-terrorism adviser (for both Bill Clinton and George W. Bush), Richard Clarke (previously an appointee of George H. W. Bush and the author of several books critiquing the George W. Bush administration's response to the terrorism threat from January 2001[26]) have also come forward and stated that the Berger scene is fiction based on the following claims (paraphrased for clarity):

  1. Contrary to the movie, no US military or CIA personnel were on the ground in Afghanistan to have spotted bin Laden.
  2. Contrary to the movie, the head of the Northern Alliance, Ahmed Shah Massoud, was nowhere near the alleged bin Laden camp and therefore could not have seen Osama bin Laden.
  3. Contrary to the movie, the CIA Director actually said that he could not recommend a strike on the camp because the information was single sourced, and there would be no way to independently confirm bin Laden's presence in the target area by the time an already launched cruise missile would have reached it [27].

Michael Scheuer, former head of the CIA Bin Laden Unit during the Clinton Administration, a critic of President Bush's Iraq policy, says it was not Sandy Berger who canceled assaults on bin Laden, but was instead Richard Clarke whom he said claimed President Clinton did not want action taken. Scheuer states, "Mr. Clarke, of course, was at the center of Mr. Clinton's advisers, who resolutely refused to order the CIA to kill bin Laden. In spring 1998, I briefed Mr. Clarke and senior CIA, Department of Defense, and FBI officers on a plan to kidnap bin Laden. Mr. Clarke's reaction was that "it was just a thinly disguised attempt to assassinate bin Laden." I replied that if he wanted bin Laden dead, we could do the job quickly. Mr. Clarke's response was that the president did not want bin Laden assassinated, and that we had no authority to do so" [28].

Actions of former Secretary of State Albright

Another scene in question supposedly portrays Madeleine Albright refusing to shoot missiles at Osama bin Laden without authority from Pakistan and eventually getting "permission" from them against the military's wishes. Albright insists that this is a falsity and completely inaccurate.[29][30]

Reviewers who have seen previews of the movie's version as of September 9, 2006 have stated that American Airlines is also falsely implicated for negligence in the opening scene of the movie, by depicting them ignoring a security warning regarding hijacker Mohammed Atta;[31], however, the scene shows American Airlines following proper pre-9/11 security screening requirements.

ABC-selected pre-screenings

ABC, which is offering the movie to schools, critics, some blogs, radio personalities such as Rush Limbaugh, and conservative movie critic Michael Medved, eventually presented a special screening to which Democrats such as Richard Ben-Veniste were also invited. According to Jay Carson, a spokesman for Bill Clinton, Clinton's office requested a copy of the movie so that they could view it before it aired, but the request was denied. Carson has also stated that Madeleine Albright and Sandy Berger had also requested a copy and had also not received them [32].

This prompted Madeleine Albright and Sandy Berger to write letters [33] [34] to ABC asking why they had not received copies and why ABC have chosen to run a movie whose accuracy is highly in question.

In addition to requesting an answer, Albright also stated the following reason for wanting a copy:

For example, one scene apparently portrays me as refusing to support a missile strike against bin Laden without first alerting the Pakistanis; it further asserts that I notified the Pakistanis of the strike over the objections of our military. Neither of these assertions is true. In fact, The 9/11 Commission Report states (page 117), "Since the missiles headed for Afghanistan had had to cross Pakistan, the Vice Chairman of the Joint Chiefs was sent to meet with Pakistan’s army chief of staff to assure him the missiles were not coming from India. Officials in Washington speculated that one or another Pakistani official might have sent a warning to the Taliban or Bin LadinCite error: A <ref> tag is missing the closing </ref> (see the help page)..

Scholastic Press announcement

Scholastic Press, which had a deal with ABC to distribute "educational materials" based on the movie, pulled the materials in question from their website on September 7, substituting them with materials focusing on "critical thinking and media literacy skills" [35].

Dick Robinson, Chairman, President and CEO of Scholastic Press had this to say on the matter:

“After a thorough review of the original guide that we offered online to about 25,000 high school teachers, we determined that the materials did not meet our high standards for dealing with controversial issues...at the same time, we believe that developing critical thinking and media literacy skills is crucial for students in today’s society in order to participate fully in our democracy and that a program such as ‘The Path to 9/11’ provides a very ‘teachable moment’ for developing these skills at the high school level. We encourage teachers not to shy away from the controversy surrounding the program, but rather to engage their students in meaningful, in-depth discussion" [35].

Responses from cast and crew

Harvey Keitel, who plays the lead role in the film, also criticized the end result saying that "it turned out not all the facts were correct" and "you cannot cross the line from a conflation of events to a distortion of the event"[36].

Producer Marc Platt has acknowledged that the script was based in part on a book co-written by a Bush administration official. The book, The Cell: Inside the 9/11 Plot, and Why the FBI and CIA Failed to Stop It was co-written by John Miller, who serves as the assistant director of public affairs for the FBI [37].

Response by pre-screeners

Before the miniseries aired, screeners of previews of The Path to 9/11 asserted that certain scenes misrepresented the real-life events upon which they were said to be based. In some cases they allege complete fabrication. Some left-leaning figures (many of whom had been denied the opportunity afforded to right-leaning talk show hosts and bloggers to see the movie in advance) have picked up on this and accused ABC of being unfair in its portrayal of the Clinton Administration's attitudes and actions regarding terrorism[citation needed]. There are also claims that some individuals portrayed in the film were not given special DVD preview copies before it was aired publicly [38].

In addition to the fictionalized scenes and charges of misrepresentation, preview copies have also contained several smaller errors that prompted criticism that the film is sloppy in its fidelity to facts. For example, a caption in the film misspelled the name of Madeleine Albright [39]. Another example is a scene portraying a warning popping up on a computer when Mohamed Atta boarded American Airlines Flight 11 in Boston. The scene was fictionalized; in actuality, the warning appeared when Atta boarded a connecting U.S. Airways flight in Bangor, Maine [40].

Further responses and criticism

Open letter–questionable props

Arthur Schlesinger, Jr. and a number of noted historians have published an open letter to ABC expressing concern about "flagrant falsehoods about critical events in recent American history", concluding: "A responsible broadcast network should have nothing to do with the falsification of history, except to expose it. We strongly urge you to halt the show's broadcast and prevent misinforming Americans about their history" [41].

During production of the movie, there was a controversy in the Toronto media over the use of discarded medical charts and records as document props. The Privacy Commissioner for the province of Ontario launched an investigation and the producers destroyed footage including the garbage and sent all remaining documents to a shredding service for disposal [42].

Responses from the right

Some conservative commentators have responded to the controversy by suggesting that what they call "the deep anger of the Clinton political machine" amounts to "self-serving complaints" and to quibbling about details in what talk radio host Hugh Hewitt described as "a very accurate docudrama" whose main message, according to Brent Bozell, is that "America's intelligence apparatus was woefully unprepared for 9-11, and remains dangerously inadequate today" [43]. Bozell further stated that both "Clinton and Bush officials come under fire, and if it seems more anti-Clinton, that's only because they were in office a lot longer than Team Bush before 9-11. Indeed, the film drives home the point that from our enemies' perspective, it's irrelevant who is in the White House. They simply want to kill Americans and destroy America. The film doesn't play favorites, and the Bush administration takes its lumps as well" [44]. Hewitt added that the "program is not primarily about the Clinton stewardship—or lack thereof—of the national security. It is not even secondarily about that. Rather the mini-series is the first attempt—very successful—to convey to American television viewers what we are up against: The fanaticism, the maniacal evil, the energy and the genius for mayhem of the enemy" [43].

Prominent conservative Republican William Bennett joined those saying there is "no reason to falsify the record" or "falsify conversations". He called on ABC to correct the inaccuracies of the show and for fellow conservatives to join him in such a demand [45].

Public response

Internet campaigns were launched on blogs in the weeks prior to airing of the mini-series calling for boycotts of ABC, Disney, and all of their subsidiaries. Links and information were provided to some blog visitors with information urging them to show discontent through the ratings program used by Tivo, DVR and Comcast [46].

ABC airs movie with changes

On September 10, 2006, Part 1 aired over ABC in the United States as scheduled. According to the journal Editor and Publisher Magazine, less than one minute was "cropped out" in comparison to the review copy in its possession. All of the controversial scenes were included in some manner, with only brief shots trimmed out[47].

See also

Wikinews has related news:

Notes

  1. ^ ABC Entertainment Gets More Pressure to Toss 9/11 Film, by David Bauder, September 8, 2006.
  2. ^ Marc Platt at imdb.com
  3. ^ "The Path to 9/11" at imdb.com
  4. ^ Kaplan, Don and David K. Li. "SECRETS OF FIRST 9/11 MINISERIES" New York Post, July 28, 2005
  5. ^ http://thomastessier.blog.com/490878/
  6. ^ http://thomastessier.blog.com/688886/
  7. ^ http://www.variety.com/article/VR1117947195?categoryid=14&cs=1&nid=2562
  8. ^ Atkinson, Claire. "ABC's 'Path to 9/11' to Air With Limited Ads" Advertising Age, July 21, 2006.
  9. ^ http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20060911/ap_on_go_pr_wh/sept11_bush
  10. ^ http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20060911/tv_nm/bush_dc_1
  11. ^ http://www.boston.com/ae/tv/articles/2006/09/06/makers_of_abc_miniseries_question_why_911_happened?mode=PF
  12. ^ http://www.libertyfilmfestival.com/libertas/?p=2184
  13. ^ http://www.calendarlive.com/tv/cl-et-path9sep09,0,2124244.story?coll=la-home-headlines
  14. ^ http://abclocal.go.com/wls/story?section=local&id=4422368
  15. ^ http://www.wzzm13.com/news/news_article.aspx?storyid=60898
  16. ^ http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/09/07/AR2006090701055.html
  17. ^ http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=%22The_Path_to_9/11%22_%282006_Docudrama%29
  18. ^ http://www.rushlimbaugh.com/home/daily/site_090106/content/truth_detector.member.html (Reference requires membership)
  19. ^ http://ken_ashford.typepad.com/blog/2006/09/abc_docudrama_b.html
  20. ^ http://www.libertyfilmfestival.com/libertas/index.php?p=462
  21. ^ http://thinkprogress.org/2006/09/07/fbi-agent-quit/
  22. ^ http://thinkprogress.org/2006/09/07/miniter-911/
  23. ^ http://www.nytimes.com/2006/09/07/washington/07path.html?hp&ex=1157688000&en=83f7ae6acba5dd2f&ei=5094&partner=homepage
  24. ^ http://www.9-11commission.gov/report/911Report_Ch4.htm
  25. ^ http://public.cq.com/public/20060905_homeland.html
  26. ^ http://amazon.com/s/ref=sr_kk_2/002-3856354-2388061?ie=UTF8&search-alias=aps&field-keywords=richard%20clark
  27. ^ http://thinkprogress.org/2006/09/05/clarke-blasts-abc/
  28. ^ http://www.washtimes.com/op-ed/20060704-110004-4280r.htm
  29. ^ Albright letter to Robert Iger, September 5, 2006.
  30. ^ The same letter by Albright, hosted on the internet by CNN.
  31. ^ http://americablog.blogspot.com/2006/09/american-airlines-to-blame-for-911.html
  32. ^ http://www.tpmcafe.com/blog/electioncentral/2006/sep/06/bill_clinton_breaks_silence_on_9_11_docudrama
  33. ^ http://websrvr80il.audiovideoweb.com/il80web20037/ThinkProgress/2006/albright%20letter.doc
  34. ^ http://websrvr80il.audiovideoweb.com/il80web20037/ThinkProgress/2006/Berger%20letter.pdf
  35. ^ a b http://www.scholastic.com/aboutscholastic/news/press_09072006_CP.htm
  36. ^ http://www.crooksandliars.com/2006/09/07/harvey-keitel-speaks-out-on-path-to-911-it-turned-out-not-all-the-facts-were-correct/
  37. ^ http://mediamatters.org/items/200609070004
  38. ^ http://thinkprogress.org/2006/09/06/abc-dvd/
  39. ^ http://americablog.blogspot.com/2006/09/disneyabc-gets-sec-of-state-albrights.html
  40. ^ http://americablog.blogspot.com/2006/09/american-airlines-to-blame-for-911.html
  41. ^ http://openlettertoabc.blogspot.com/2006/09/leading-historians-call-for.html
  42. ^ Siddiqui, Tabassam. "Privacy office probes records fiasco; Hundreds of medical charts strewn on streets Used as props for Toronto shoot of 9/11 movie." Toronto Star, Oct 4, 2005. pg. A.07
  43. ^ a b http://www.townhall.com/columnists/HughHewitt/2006/09/07/why_does_the_left_hate_the_path_to_911 Cite error: The named reference "whylefthate" was defined multiple times with different content (see the help page).
  44. ^ http://www.townhall.com/columnists/BrentBozellIII/2006/09/07/a_compelling_path_to_9-11
  45. ^ http://thinkprogress.org/2006/09/08/video-bill-bennett-says-abc-should-correct-those-inaccuracies-in-path-to-911/
  46. ^ http://www.dailykos.com/story/2006/9/8/164416/0200
  47. ^ ABC airs 9/11 Film -- Contested Scenes Remain, Editor & Publisher, by E&P staff, September 10, 2006
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