Last night we were in DC, and we got to see No End in Sight, a movie released about three weeks ago that relentlessly tracks one key aspect of the war in Iraq, namely the woeful lack of planning within the Bush administration for the administration of post-invasion Iraq.
The film notably does not delve into the US decisionmaking on the issue of whether to invade Iraq. Nor, really, does it say much at all about Iraqi politics, history, and society. It is a movie about Americans, with Iraq as the backdrop to that. For a good film about Iraq, we’ll need to go elsewhere.
What the film does, though, it does brilliantly. Charles Ferguson produced, directed, and wrote the film, which is a full-length feature. Probably more than half of what we see on the screen is interview material. He uses a technique very similar to the one Errol Morris used in his 2003 movie about Robert McNamara and Vietnam: The Fog of War. That is, Ferguson has one interview subject on the screen at a time, placed over to one side of the screen as we watch; the subject is photographed fairly close up, though sometimes we see his or her hands. We don’t see the interviewer at all, and we generally never even hear his voice, though we do hear his questions on a couple of occasions. And in between the interview segments there’s some illustrative news footage with a voice-over that helps to tell the story.
The difference is that FOW was about one man and his decisionmaking, while NEIS is much, much more of a group montage. There are about three dozen interview subjects, of whom maybe half are former officials in the Bush administration… Some of these now have very serious misgivings indeed about the job they were tasked to do implementing the Bush-Cheney-Rumsfeld policy in Iraq.
That is, of course, both very similar to the moral tenor of the McNamara movie and somewhat different from it. Different, because the people in the NEIS movie were not as high up the totem-pole as McNamara… More like, people at the second-through-fourth echelons of policymaking.
It’s a very human movie, because you see people who took jobs where they wanted to do what they thought was “the right thing” but were prevented from doing it by the recklessly (or perhaps actually criminally) faulty decisions made by the people above them.
Most human of all, for me, was Col. Paul Hughes, who was the principal military advisor to Jay Garner right at the beginning of the occupation. (Hughes is the guy nearly at the end of this YouTube trailer who says “There are nights when I don’t sleep very well.”) He tells how in his early weeks in Baghdad he had been in touch with high officers in the still-in-hiding Iraqi army who assured him they could bring 137,000 soldiers in the Baghdad area to help keep the peace in the country… and he was all ready to start to set that process in train, ending the paroxysm of lawlessness that had taken hold of the country, when he was abruptly told by the newly arrived Bremer that the whole Iraqi army would be disbanded and all its members tossed out on the street. Just like that.
The movie has a great section where parts of the interview Hughes made on that point are intercut with pieces from an interview with Walter Slocombe, who before Bremer’s arrival in Baghdad had worked with him in Washington formulating the plan to disband the Iraqi army.
Slocombe comes out of the movie looking dishonest, ignorant, arrogant, and deeply manipulative. (Just the kind of person Bremer would get along with, I suppose.)
Ferguson does have a great, long list of people who “declined to be interviewed for the movie.” Bremer is on it. Also Rumsfeld and Cheney and Rice. If Slocombe has a little intelligence– which from the evidence, he may well not have– he is probably right now wishing he had declined as well.
The highest-ranking people who appear in the movie are Jay Garner, the first administrator of Iraq, and Rich Armitage, who was Powell’s deputy as Deputy Secretary of State. Garner comes out looking like perhaps a decent fellow, but not terrifically swift. Armitage pulls his punches a lot, repeatedly saying he doesn’t want to comment on various aspects of the affair.
As I said, what the movie does, it does very well. But I think there are things it should have had in the picture, even just to adequately tell the story it did seek to tell. For example, there is no substantive mention of the crimes and scandal of Abu Ghraib at all– even though there is one small, suggestive mention of the prison, and even though the story is taken, certainly, through to (and a little beyond) that flash-point in April-May 2004 when that scandal burst out in the middle of the battles of both Fallujah and Najaf.
Also, it truly was no “accident” that the US ended up with a ground force in Iraq that was quite insufficiently sized for the task of running an orderly occupation. Doing the invasion with a very small force had been an integral part of Rumsfeld’s planning for the war. He wanted to “prove” his (as it turned out, quite incorrect) theory that the US could indeed send its forces barging all around the world toppling opponents and transforming their countries into robustly pro-US democracies by using only very small– but agile and well-equipped– ground forces.
(Okay, that is the benign interpretation of what he was trying to do. Another interpretation is that he truly wanted Iraq to implode completely as a nation in the aftermath of the invasion– something that, certainly, many Israelis and many of the friends they had deeply embedded within Rumsfeld’s Pentagon wanted to see happen. from that point of view, I think Ferguson was dishonest to describe the Israeli scholar Amatzia Baram, who was one of his interview subjects, only as a “Historian of Iraq.” He has also long been one of Israel’s key government-advising intellectuals on the subject, too.)
If you watch Ferguson’s movie, you could come away from it thinking that it was all just a horrible mistake, the fact that the post-invasion planning had been so completely dysfunctional. Partly, I think, you get that impression from the sometimes very sympathetic and anguished way that people like Paul Hughes– and even more so, the other military officers interviewed– tell their story. I mean, those are all very sympathetic people. So the fact that they had volunteered to go and work in the occupation regime means that it must at one point have been a potentially admirable venture– no?
But even more important, I think, is the way Ferguson had framed the whole movie. He could and should have raised the question as to why the planning had been so poorly done (or, from another point of view, so well done– if the outcome actually sought by Rumsfeld and Cheney was the destruction of the unitary Iraqi state… ?)
As part of the misframing, Ferguson raises yet again the old canard of criticizing the administration for the fact that the post-invasion administration of Iraq was left to the Pentagon and not given to the State Department. The reason I think that’s a canard is because actually, under international law, it is the military’s job to administer occupied territories. It is the Israeli military that has that job within the OPTs… and earlier, it was the US and Allied militaries that administered occupied Germany and Japan.
If the Bushites did make a “mistake” in setting up that administration, it was by throwing out the planning that the State Department had done for the administration of a post-invasion Iraq. But it shouldn’t have been the State Department that did that administering. That was always, rightfully, the DOD’s job. Because of course, one of the main things that needs doing in an occupied area is the assurance of public security for all the residents. The State Department couldn’t have done that. The DOD could have and should have, but notably failed to.
Anyway, those criticisms aside, I’m glad I went to the movie. I saw quite a few people I know on-camera, which is always fun (Nir Rosen, George Packer, Samantha Power, Barbara Bodeen….) And you do get this tragic sense of some well-intentioned people– among the former US government officials– having gotten dragged into working for a really ill-intentioned (and not merely “dysfunctional”) project there in Iraq…. and the disquiet or discomfort some, but not all, of them came to feel about that.
Although I’m glad I went, it was not at all an enjoyable experience. It was extremely depressing just to hear that very, very familiar story being told again, and at times I felt angrier about the Bushites than I have let myself feel for quite a while. By and large, I think anger is an extremely unhelpful (and corrosive) emotion.
Ommmm.
17 thoughts on “Film review: No End in Sight”
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Helena (and Scott)
You may have missed this piece in the Washington Post by good old Iyad Allawi.
http://tinyurl.com/37e4k6
It ain’t over until the Fat Lady Sings and signs the oil contracts.
One might suspect that the Quiet Americans are back at it again.
Tom Englehardt is speculating that there is some really nasty news about the oil price in the pipeline.
I expect digging the mass graves will do something to reduce the rate of unemplyment in Baghdad.
Ah, perhaps Dr. Allawi is a “moderate” after all!
Notice how he restrains himself from saying to the Crawfordites “Please make a coup and put me in power.” Was that not heroic self-denial?
Aliawi’s column suggests a continuation of the rumored neocon plan to salvage something by getting rid of the more or less democratically elected Maliki government and replacing it with a non democratic “secular” government more friendly to the White Hoouse views and the big oil interests. All this to be brought to you by the same people who screwed up so badly initially. It also indicates a continuation of the WAPO- and MSM in general- program of supporting these plans through planted articles and slantedly selected opinion pieces.
Guys
Can somebody who knows about international law explain what sort of validity a contract with a newly installed “Government” after a stage managed coup would have.
The next coup could always cancel them and say much the same as the Russians.
Dear Helena Cobban,
there is altogether too much coldblooded free poor speech about matters that involve millions of lives trashed and another million murdered in the name of Donald Duck or any of the other cultural comedy of killing for commercial gain. This is a pretty empty America these days: spies deluxe, fear mongers, and garish spittoons overflowing like the Tigris with endless pints of human gore.
gk zentelis
Remember, Richard Armitrage is the one who admitted outing Valerie Plame, confirmed by Novak and yet wasn’t called as a witness when the search was on for the leaker.
Although, no one seems interested in that.
Remember, Richard Armitrage is the one who admitted outing Valerie Plame, confirmed by Novak and yet wasn’t called as a witness when the search was on for the leaker.
Although, no one seems interested in that.
No end in sight? On the contrary, Henry Kissinger has promised it to us on many occassions — wherever the stench of his influence peddling lingers. The promised relief from yet another outbreak of Unforced Quagmire Syndrome usually comes in the form of discredited Orwellian slogans like “Peace With Honor.” Or, as I prefer to call it:
“Peace With Horror”
A leper knight rode into view
Astride his mangy steed
A harbinger of violence
A plague without a need
An apparition of discord
Upon which fear would feed
His unannounced arrival meant
He’d lost his leper’s bell
And yet his ugly innocence
Could not conceal the smell
His good intentions only paved
Another road to Hell
With mace and lance and sword deployed
He vowed in peace to live
Through rotting lips he promised not
To take, but only give
He swore to only kill the ones
Whom he said shouldn’t live
He did not speak the language and
He did not know the land
So why the healthy shrank from him
He could not understand
Why did they want the water when
He’d offered them the sand?
Committed to commitment he
Committed crimes galore
As steadfast in his loyalties
As any purchased whore
A mercenary madman like
His slogan: “Peace through War”
His slaying for salvation masked
An inner, grasping greed
A lust for living good and well
While looking past his deed
A dead man walking wakefully;
A graveyard gone to seed
He planned to leave in “phases,” so
He said to those back home
Who’d heard some nasty rumors rife
From Babylon to Rome
Of murders in their name meant to
Exalt their sacred tome
But still he needed to “protect”
Some pilgrims on the road
Who for “protection” glumly paid
A portion of their load:
For this decaying derelict,
An object episode
When asked to give a summary
Of what he had achieved
He shifted to the future tense
The gains that he perceived
And spoke in the subjunctive mood
To those he had aggrieved
“The future life to come portends
More suffering than now
Through me alone can you avoid
What I will disavow:
The promises I never made
While making, anyhow.”
“I unsay things that I have said
And say I never did;
Then say them once again to pound
The meaning deeply hid,
Down where the lizard lives between
The ego and the id.”
“I’ve given you catastrophe
And called it a success;
If you want other outcomes then
Step forward and confess
That you believed a pack of lies
With no strain, sweat, or stress.”
“You know the meaning of my words
Lasts only just as long
As sound takes to decay in air
So that you take them wrong
If you assign significance
To my sly siren song.”
“A ‘propaganda catapult’
I’ve called myself, in fact;
A damning human document
Which I myself redact
At every opportunity
With no concern for tact.”
“If you think what I’ve done before
Has caused me to repent
Or dream that I, in any way,
Might let up or relent
Then I’ve got wars for you to buy,
Or maybe just to rent.”
“I’ve little time to live on earth,
So why should I reflect
Upon the dead and dying souls
Whose lives I’ve robbed and wrecked?
I care not if they hate, just that
They know to genuflect.”
Thus did the ruin of a world
Continue in its curse;
The great man on his horse relieved
The faithful of their purse
And gave them bad to save them from
What they feared even worse
So onward to Jerusalem
He staggered as he slew
In train with sack and booty that
He only thought his due
For spreading freedom’s germs among
The last surviving few
Michael Murry, “The Misfortune Teller,” Copyright 2006
Can somebody who knows about international law explain what sort of validity a contract with a newly installed “Government” after a stage managed coup would have.
Frank, I think it’s a very complex question for several reasons :
1) At first when the US invaded Iraq, both the US and UK were subject to the fourth Geneva Convention which prevent any occupying power to take any measures bound to change the economical system (a remnant of the cold war, when the Western powers feared a transition toward socialism).
2) The Iraq vice-roy (Bremer) of course didn’t respect this in many economic decisions; he applied fundamental changes to the economic laws of Iraq and curbed them toward a more liberalism. But after the fact, two UN resolutions (1483 and 1511) recognized a special status to the CPA. A Netherland lawyer has analysed the contradictions between the UN resolutions and the 4th Geneva convention and the Hague treaty of 1907 this document
His conclusion is that :
In a case such as Iraq, where there are divergent views as to the legitimacy of the events that have led to the occupation, there can be no derogation or only
an ambiguous one, and the States concerned will have only limited latitude for reforms. More fundamental changes to the occupied territory’s political, legal and economic system will have to be left to that territory’s population. If such changes are considered necessary, power should be transferred to the local population as soon as possible. In the present case, this means that power should pass as soon as possible to the Iraqi people.
3) Things get more complicated after the elections, because it brings the legal question as to wether the US/UK occupation has ceased or not. The US/UK pretend that they are there at the invitation of the Iraqi government. Although most thinks that it is a puppet government under influence, stricto sensu, in the legal fiction it may be considered legitimate.
4) Concerning the oil contracts, everything depends upon the oil law. The Kurds have already passed an oil law in their region, but as long as the share of each regions isn’t fixed by the federal oil law, I don’t think that contracts signed under the Kurdish law can bound them. Also, if once the Iraqi get a real sovereign government, I don’t see what could prevent them from changing these laws if they feel so.
“It will be a hard withdrawal. They want the image of a British defeat . . . It will be ugly and embarrassing,” he said.
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/iraq/article2284257.ece
I wonder how much truth next movie tell us the second retreat of Britt’s from Iraq.
The simple Basra truth: our troops must get out quickly
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/comment/columnists/michael_portillo/article2241584.ece
Salah
A colonel told one of the newspapers in 2004 that as there was only a Brigade in Basra and that if half a million people showed up at the gate there was nothing to be done but roll up the sleeping bag and jump on the Hercules.
A bit like Gallipoli the problem lay in the misconception of the scheme.
Everyone from Lance Corporal up keeps a picure of Gandamak in his mind so getting out will be done in a professional manner.
You can find a list of the Units that will be heading South and West here http://www.mod.uk/DefenceInternet/FactSheets/OperationsFactsheets/OperationsInIraqDetailsOfBritishAndCoalitionForces.htm
They have done it before in a long list of places from Dunkirk to Aden so they know how it is done.
God have mercy on anyone who fires on them because nobody else will.
I wonder if the Irish Guards Pipe Major will compose a tune to remember the place?
Thanks Christiane
Of course, in a similar manner to Kazakhstan they will be made to keep their surplus oil revenues in a development account somewhere.
If there is a counter coup by people with some sort of legitimate claim to be a government, the development fund will be frozen in the international systesm in a similar way to the frozen Iranian funds.
This may be have interest to Helena as a Quaker member!
“Peaceful demonstrators protest inclusion
In December 2005 it was disclosed that the system included data on anti-military protests and other peaceful demonstrations.
Anti-war groups and other organizations, including a Quaker group — the American Friends Service Committee — protested after it was revealed that the military had monitored anti-war activities, organizations and individuals who attended peace rallies.”
Pentagon to shut down controversial database
Anti-terror program criticized for storing information on peaceful protesters
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/20375361/
Oh Well
Heck of a job Maliki.
http://news.independent.co.uk/world/americas/article2883850.ece
Now where did they put Ahmed Challabi? he has got to be in one of these boxes in the store.
You are right about the character of Walter Slocombe. He spoke at Florida State University earlier this spring, and without blinking denied personal responsibility for the violence in Iraq. That day he said his advice to Bremer re disbanding the Iraqi army was not a cause of the country’s instability.
He also compared the likelihood of a deadly partitioning of Iraq to the partitioning of India-Pakistan. And he sounded exactly like Sir Cyril Radcliffe advising Mountbatten, when he told the FSU lecture hall, again without blinking, that the partition of India and Iraq was and remains “the best option.”
Slocombe does not seem to care, apparently, that when the question of partition was put to a vote of the Indian people, the majority voted for it. No one, as far as I know, has suggested putting the question of partition to the Iraqi people who, based on poll results, would overwhelmingly vote against it.
But then, none of this has ever had anything to do with the well-being, let alone the wishes, of the Iraqi people.
Rummy says don’t blame him for the mess.
from an interview with Bob Woodward:
MR. WOODWARD: My question really is — what did you envision in the spring of ’03 happening? Because, of course, Bremer comes in with a very different model.
SEC. RUMSFELD: He did? I was more in the Jay Garner mode. And Jerry Bremer, of course, is a presidential envoy and, as such, he reported to the president and to Condi at the NSC staff.
MR. WOODWARD: I see, but did you — because you were in charge, you — particularly Garner was reporting to you in this? And Bremer actually reported ot you initially?
SEC. RUMSFELD: Bremer actually was —
MR. WOODWARD: Reported to you initially —
SEC. RUMSFELD: Technically, but not really. He didn’t call home much. In other words, he was out there in a tough environment, making a lot of decisions, calling audibles, and it’s a difficult job.
MR. WOODWARD: And he felt he was the President’s man.
SEC. RUMSFELD: You bet, and he was. It wasn’t a matter of feeling it; he was. And he had a staff that he put together that was basically from the State Department, and they worked well together, and they did a hell of a good job. It’s a difficult job, and they accomplished a heck of a lot in a relatively short period of time.
http://www.defenselink.mil/Transcripts/Transcript.aspx?TranscriptID=3744