REVIEW: Uncovered: The Whole Truth About The Iraq War

True, this doc takes us very deep into the heart of intelligence analysis, and dozens of CIA operatives, foreign service officers etc. explain in detail what was wrong with Colin Powell's UN presentation and the associated Bush claims. Side-by-side clips of Condoleeza Rice contradicting herself, George W. wobbling unsteadily under hard questions from the British press (Q: "Is American credibility on the line over Weapons of Mass Destruction in Iraq?" A: "Uh…. I'm not exactly sure what that means…"), show just how equivocal the current US administration is.

Condi, for instance, is confronted on a news show about the claim that Iraq tried to get weapons-grade uranium from Nigeria. This claim was removed from an earlier speech because the CIA director thought it wasn't solid enough, Condi says. "How did it get back in to the State of the Union speech?" asks the host. "It's not a matter of it getting back in," she replies, deadpan, but a little flustered. "People forgot."

US conservatives, amazingly, accept this kind of answer; it's as if lying, mistakes, and failures are not enough to undermine an argument if the argument "feels" right. That's what drives me crazy about US politics, and it's what this film also tries to address: there's a long segment near the end which argues that criticism of the president, even opposition to US government war policy, isn't "unpatriotic." But, of course, that debate is madness, because patriotism isn't a rational impulse. The racist imperialists in the US – and I'm not talking crypto-fascists like Bush but people like Ann Coulter who actually come out and demand that we colonize the middle east, kill their leaders and convert them to Christianity – aren't prepared to discuss matters rationally. Anyone who thinks Iraqis are racially inferior, Islam is satan, and so on, has no interest in Saddam's weapons of mass destruction. They understand that all the diplomacy, or lack thereof, is just a smokescreen for the ultimate goal: U.S. Christian imperialism. And facts be damned, as Coulter drooled:

"This is no time to be precious about locating the exact individuals directly involved in this particular terrorist attack. Those responsible include anyone anywhere in the world who smiled in response..."

I remember reading in the New York Times, right after September 11, an article that interviewed an American yahoo. Somehow, he had gotten the idea that if you kill a Muslim, then wrap their body in pigskin, their soul wouldn't go to heaven. This seemed, to the New York Times, a reasonable idea to include in an article about US reactions to the World Trade Center bombings. And somehow, having decided this horrible evil tripe was "fit to print," they neglected to ask an expert on Islam whether this was indeed a Moslem belief or, rather, white-supremacist hogwash mythology. The NYT ensured that this radical Christian prescription faced no second opinion, at least none that was fit to print.

And so, in "The Real Truth about the Iraq War," the failure interview any foreign voices (besides Clare Short, the wimpy UK Development Secretary who failed to follow up on her promise to resign rather than go to war), shows just how narrow-minded American political discourse can be. It seems that the Democratic types who play the Good Cop in US democracy consider disgruntled American government officials, spies and soldiers to be the fiercest and most effective critics of US policy. Unfortunately, the US electorate is probably so unaware and unconcerned with the rest of the world, except as an object of fear and scorn, that this is probably the best strategy for defeating Bush. The words of foreigners are too easily dismissed by corporate US media and conservative pundits on narrowly-veiled racist grounds. Meanwhile, the overwhelmingly white, male, English subjects of this video will make it past phase one, at least, of the middle-class blinders.

Again, however, this film does effectively undermine Bush's claims that Iraq had weapons of mass destruction, and casts doubt on whether even the White House actually believed it. While the narrowness of the film's focus is a bit of a liability, it also, to be sure, makes it more thoroughly convincing - that is, if you appreciate logic in your war-making. The very power-base we expect to worship Bush (and war, for that matter) is in fact contradicting him.

It's moving when the intelligence community, on which US security rests, denounces the president's actions as lies and propaganda, not to mention bad for US security. Specific points, for instance: Bush's State-of-the-Union claim that Iraq had 30,000 chemical warheads, based on finding 16 actual warheads, was obviously a whimsical extrapolation; most of Iraq's toxins and bio-agents have shelf-lives that would put them well-expired long ago; and so on. Nothing earth-shatteringly new, but the assembly in this doc makes the overall case quite solid and coherent.

I also appreciate the old-school, activist-video aesthetic, with the occasional soft focus, inconsistent sound, and even a lot of footage that looks like it was copped at low resolution from the internet. These distractions are minimal and actually increase the impression, however accurately, that this video was not made by corporate media: TV wouldn't tolerate such lapses in so-called "production value." On the other hand, the unexpected bursts of voice-over narration and unexplained intrusions of TV-news-style snappiness were annoying; they were probably needed to fill in narrative gaps which none of the interviews were obliging enough to spell out. There's also plenty of wallpaper, i.e. footage of what looks like US soldiers fighting in what looks like Iraq, unexplained and not coordinated with the topic at hand. It's lazy technique, somewhat dishonest and unevenly executed.

In all, "Uncovered" is a nice smashing of Bush's WMD arguments and lies. Although we're given the tantalizing idea that misleading congress is in fact criminal, nothing goes so far as to suggest that Bush committed a capital war crime by attacking Iraq or that his treasonous lies could lead to his execution; rather, there's the roundabout suggestion that we had international law in place with which new US policy doesn't conform. Oil isn't mentioned, in fact there's no hint or proposal regarding Bush's motivation for the invasion. The human suffering of war is suggested only with sad but restrained images of the dead and injured. The narrow scope of debate, and the limited voices, suggest that if the people who made this video were to win the next US election, their changes would be much more superficial than we might hope.

Buy Uncovered online or book a screening in your area.

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FLICK HARRISON is a filmmaker / writer in Vancouver. His digital feature film “Sex, Drugs, Love, Marx…” is available for screening anywhere! See his trailers, articles, and more at armed rabble.org! His column on politics and film appears biweekly on Vive le Canada.

Note: MoveOn.Org Center for American Pro... drool American yahoo Uncovered armed rabble.org