Posted on 09/07/2006 8:40:14 AM PDT by Democracy In Iraq
Clinton officials protest 9/11 TV series
By DEEPTI HAJELA, Associated Press Writer 24 minutes ago
NEW YORK - A miniseries about the events leading to the Sept. 11 attacks is "terribly wrong" and ABC should correct it or not air it, former Clinton administration officials demanded in letters to the head of ABC's parent company.
Former Secretary of State Madeleine Albright, former National Security Adviser Sandy Berger, Clinton Foundation head Bruce Lindsey and Clinton adviser Douglas Band all wrote in the past week to Robert Iger, CEO of The Walt Disney Co., to express concern over "The Path to 9/11."
The two-part miniseries, scheduled to be broadcast on Sunday and Monday, is drawn from interviews and documents including the report of the Sept. 11 commission. ABC has described it as a "dramatization" as opposed to a documentary.
Calls to ABC seeking comment Thursday were not returned.
The letter writers said that the miniseries contained factual errors, and that their requests to see it had gone unanswered.
"The content of this drama is factually and incontrovertibly inaccurate and ABC has a duty to fully correct all errors or pull the drama entirely. It is unconscionable to mislead the American public about one of the most horrendous tragedies our country has ever known," Lindsey and Band wrote in their letter.
The letter writers pointed out examples of scenes they had been told were in the miniseries, but which they said never happened. Albright objected to a scene that she was told showed her insisting on warning the Pakistani government before an airstrike on Afghanistan, and that she was the one who made the warning.
"The scene as explained to me is false and defamatory," she said.
Berger objected to a scene that he was told showed him refusing to authorize an attack on Osama bin Laden despite the request from CIA officials. "The fabrication of this scene (of such apparent magnitude) cannot be justified under any reasonable definition of dramatic license," he wrote.
Lindsey and Band objected to advertisements for the miniseries, which they said suggested that Clinton wasn't paying enough attention to the threat of terrorism.
"While ABC is promoting "The Path to 9/11" as a dramatization of historical fact, in truth it is a fictitious rewriting of history that will be misinterpreted by millions of Americans," they said. "Given your stated obligation to 'get it right,' we urge you to do so by not airing this drama until the egregious factual errors are corrected, an endeavor we could easily assist you with given the opportunity to view the film."
The five-hour miniseries is set to run without commercial interruption. Director David Cunningham said it was a massive undertaking, with close to 250 speaking parts, more than 300 sets, and a budget of $40 million. Cunningham has said he shot 550 hours of film. Among the actors in it are Harvey Keitel, Patricia Heaton and Donnie Wahlberg.
Miniter: Here's a rundown. The Clinton administration:
1. Did not follow-up on the attempted bombing of Aden marines in Yemen.
2. Shut the CIA out of the 1993 WTC bombing investigation, hamstringing their effort to capture bin Laden.
3. Had Khalid Shaikh Mohammed, a key bin Laden lieutenant, slip through their fingers in Qatar.
4. Did not militarily react to the al Qaeda bombing in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia.
5. Did not accept the Sudanese offer to turn bin Laden.
6. Did not follow-up on another offer from Sudan through a private back channel.
7. Objected to Northern Alliance efforts to assassinate bin Laden in Afghanistan.
8. Decided against using special forces to take down bin Laden in Afghanistan.
9. Did not take an opportunity to take into custody two al Qaeda operatives involved in the East African embassy bombings. In another little scoop, I am able to show that Sudan arrested these two terrorists and offered them to the FBI. The Clinton administration declined to pick them up and they were later allowed to return to Pakistan.
10. Ordered an ineffectual, token missile strike against a Sudanese pharmaceutical factory.
11. Clumsily tipped off Pakistani officials sympathetic to bin Laden before a planned missile strike against bin Laden on August 20, 1998. Bin Laden left the camp with only minutes to spare.
12-14. Three times, Clinton hesitated or deferred in ordering missile strikes against bin Laden in 1999 and 2000.
15. When they finally launched and armed the Predator spy drone plane, which captured amazing live video images of bin Laden, the Clinton administration no longer had military assets in place to strike the archterrorist.
16. Did not order a retaliatory strike on bin Laden for the murderous attack on the USS Cole.
Will ABC have the stones to stand up to the Clintonistas?
My confidence level is not that high.
Hypocrisy thy name is liberalism.
All of the former Cliton administration are to receive the first ever....UNMITIGATED FECKLESS CRAPWEASEL AWARD" with oak leaf clusters. Never presented before, such award is warranted due to thier constant bitching and moaning about the ABC mini-series. They protest too much don't you think?
The letter writers claim factual errors.
And the script writers would like to see the TS++ documents Sandy Berger stuck in his pants and socks, snuck out of the national security vault, and altered or destroyed.
Isn't Sandy Burglar in Jail yet?
This crook really has some brass ones.
Methinks they doth protest too much...
You know its the truth. They would never dispute gross lies with such vigor.
Why do I suspect that this will be a white wash and Clinton's protests are staged?
The letter is posted somewhere here on FR, don't have time to search but the writers admit they've not seen the production but they're demanding edits based on hearsay !
You know, I can't see how the Clintons are benefiting by giving the miniseries all this free publicity. Now everybody is going to tune in to see the dirty little secret they don't want out.
I think we are in the process of being "had". The second night all the blame goes to BUSH....and that's what people will remember...it's BUSH'S fault.
4-08-2004:
From today's WashTimes Op-Ed:
Rice, Clarke and September 11
New revelations that the final national security policy paper submitted to Congress by President Clinton barely mentioned the terrorist threat from Osama bin Laden provide some much-needed context for National Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice's testimony today. As this newspaper reported Tuesday, the 45,000-word document makes no mention of al Qaeda at all and refers to bin Laden by name just four times. The document further undermines assertions by former White House terrorism analyst Richard A. Clarke that the Clinton administration considered al Qaeda an "urgent" threat, while Miss Rice and the Bush administration "ignored" it.
Mr. Clarke's credibility has been further undermined by two letters written by Rep. Chris Shays, chairman of the House Government Reform Subcommittee on National Security in July 2000 and January 2001 ? long before Mr. Clarke became a controversial public figure. In the letters, Mr. Shays was sharply critical of the quality of Mr. Clarke's work as anti-terrorism czar in the Clinton administration. Last month, Mr. Shays sent another letter to the September 11 commission stating that, under Mr. Clarke, "several presidential directives and a Justice Department five-year law-enforcement plan were clumsily lashed together and called a strategy" to combat terrorism.
Unfortunately, calling Miss Rice to testify before the September 11 commission investigating the attacks provides one more example of what is wrong with Washington today. Rehashing yet again events of the past rather than preparing for the future is harmful to the national interest. Miss Rice has been forced to spend valuable time preparing for her testimony when her attention is needed to events in Iraq.
A sincere effort to gain lessons learned could have been done methodically and quietly rather than on a partisan public timetable geared to sensationalism. (Thank goodness that FDR and his senior advisers didn't have to waste precious weeks and months being grilled by former isolationists.)
While there are inevitably discrepancies in the ways that honorable people remember events, we know that Miss Rice will not be defensive and will carefully explain the administration's pre-September 11 approach.
The sharply worded letters sent by Mr. Shays, criticizing Mr. Clarke's work as the Clinton administration's counterterrorism czar, suggest that Miss Rice had plenty of reason to be wary of investing a great deal of responsibility in him. In a July 5, 2000, letter to Mr. Clarke, for example, Mr. Shays blasted his evasiveness in responding to committee questions about a comprehensive anti-terror strategy. Mr. Shays amplified these concerns in a Jan. 22, 2001, letter to Miss Rice. In a March 24 letter to Tom Kean and Lee Hamilton of the September 11 panel, Mr. Shays said that Mr. Clarke's approach to terrorism was "reactive and limited to swatting at the visible elements of al Qaeda," making him "part of the problem before September 11." In evaluating Miss Rice's testimony, the panel will need to take the credibility problems of Mr. Clarke, the administration's sharpest critic, into account.
1,634 posted on 04/08/2004 10:51:43 AM EDT by DoctorMichael
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1113643/posts?page=1634#1634
The letter writers haven't seen it and have only been told of scenes. This article is a waste of html.
Rush saw an advanced copy. He said it was excellent and did go after the Clintons. Though some parts may be presumed fictitious, the happy-go-lucky culture was accurate.
I heard Rush yesterday, too. Isn't it HILARIOUS that Rush has seen it but Berger and Albrecht haven't? ROFL!
I didn't understand what the other article concerning Google and this movie. Now, I get it. The DNC is trying to inundate the internet with criticism of the story, so that the media can claim that the public hated the movie and were not moved by it, at all. They are trying the same tactics that they used during the debates, to claim that Kerry won, when he really couldn't get a single idea across, just took both sides of every issue.
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