Was it all just a dream?
God bless you, Florida.
Thank you!
Did the last four years not really happen?
Look, there's Ben Affleck.
He's often in my dreams.
And the taxi driver guy.
He was there too.
And little Stevie Wonder,
he seemed so happy,
like a miracle had taken place.
Was it a dream?
Or was it real?
It was election night 2000
and everything seemed to be going as planned.
In New York,
Al Gore is our projected winner.
The Garden State is green for Gore.
We project that Mr. Gore
is the winner in Delaware.
This state has voted with the winner in...
Mike, you know I wouldn't do this
if it weren't big:
Florida goes for Al Gore.
CNN announces that we call Florida
in the Al Gore column.
Then something called the Fox News Channel
called the election in favor of the other guy.
Sorry to interrupt you;
Fox News now projects George W. Bush
the winner in Florida
and thus it appears
the winner of the Presidency of the United States.
All of a sudden the other networks said,
"Hey, if Fox said it, it must be true.
All of us networks made a mistake
and projected Florida in the Al Gore column.
It was our mistake.
Now what most people don't know
is that the man who was in charge
of the decision desk
at Fox that night,
the man who called it for Bush
was none other than Bush's first cousin,
John Ellis.
How does someone like Bush
get away with something like this?
Well first,
it helps if your brother
is the Governor of the state in question.
You know something,
we are gonna win Florida,
mark my words.
You can write it down.
Second,
make sure the chairman of your campaign
is also the vote count woman.
And that her state has hired a company
that's gonna knock voters off the roles
who aren't likely to vote for you.
You can usually tell 'em
by the color of their skin.
Then make sure your side fights
like it's life or death.
I think all of this talk about
legitimacy is way overblown.
And hope that the other side
will just sit by and wait for the phone to ring.
And even if numerous independent investigations
prove that Gore got the most votes...
If there was a statewide recount,
under every scenario,
Gore won the election.
It won't matter,
just so long as all of your daddy's friends
on the Sue-preme Court vote the right way.
While I strongly disagree
with the Court's decision,
I accept it.
What we need now is acceptance.
We have a new President-elect.
Heh.
It turns out none of this was a dream.
It's what really happened.
On the day the joint-session
of both the House
of Representatives and the Senate
was to certify the election results,
Al Gore, in his dual role
as outgoing Vice President
and President of the Senate,
presided over the event that would
officially annoint
George W. Bush as the new President.
If any Congressman wanted to raise
an objection,
the rules insisted that he or she
had to have the signed support
of just one Senator.
Mr. President,
and I take great pride in calling you that,
um, I must object because
of the overwhelming evidence
of official misconduct, deliberate..
The chairman must remind members
that under Section 18,
Title 3 of the United States Code,
no debate is allowed in the joint-session.
Thank you Mr. President,
to answer your question, Mr. President,
the objection is in writing,
signed by a number of members of the Houseof
Representatives,but not by a member of the Senate.
Uh, Mr. President it is in writing
and signed by several House colleagues on behalf
and myself of the twenty-seven thousand voters
of Duval County in which sixteen thousand of them
were African-Americans
that was disenfranchised in this last election.
Is the objection signed
by a member of the Senate?
Not signed by a member of the Senate;
the Senate is missin'.
Mr. President,
it is in writing and signed by myself
on behalf of many of the diverse constituents
in our country,
especially those of the 9th congressional district
and all American voters who recognize
that the Supreme Court,
not the people of the United States,
decided this election.
Is the objection signed by a Senator?
Unfortunately, Mr. President,
it is not signed by one single senator.
Unfortunately,
I have no authority
over the United States Senate
and no Senator has signed.
Mr. President,
it is in writing and signed by myself
and several of my constituents from Florida.
A Senator is needed, but missing.
Is the objection,
uh, in writing and signed
by a member of the House and a senator?
The objection is in writing,
and I don't care that it is not,
it is not signed by a Member of the Senate.
The Chair will advise that the rules do care,
uh, and...
Not a single senator came to the aid
of the African-Americans in Congress.
One after another they were told
to sit down and shut up.
It's a sad day in America,
Mr. President,
when we can't find a Senator
to sign these objections...
Gentleman will suspend,
the gentleman will suspend.
Inauguration coverage 2001 on a nasty
but it could be worse kind of day in Washington.
On the day George W. Bush was inaugurated,
tens of thousands of Americans
poured into the streets of DC
in one last attempt to claim
what had been taken from them.
They pelted Bush's limo with eggs
and brought the inauguration parade to a halt.
The plan to have Bush get out of the limo
for the traditional walk
to the White House was scrapped;
Bush's limo hit the gas
to prevent an even larger riot.
No President had ever witnessed such a thing
on his inauguration day.
And for the next eight months
it didn't get any better for George W. Bush.
He couldn't get his judges appointed;
he had trouble getting his legislation passed;
and he lost Republican control of the Senate.
His approval ratings in the polls began to sink.
He was already beginning to look
like a lame duck President.
With everything going wrong
he did what any of us would do --
he went on vacation.
In his first eight months in office
before September 11th,
George W. Bush was on vacation,
according to the Washington Post,
forty-two percent of the time.
I hit every shot good;
people would say I wasn't working.
It was not surprising
that Mr. Bush needed some time off.
Being President is hard work.
Many folks say you're loafing here in Texas,
that you're taking too long of a vacation.
They don't understand the definition of work.
I'm getting a lot done.
Secondly, you don't have to be
in Washington to work.
It's amazing what can happen with telephones,
faxes, and...
What are you doing the rest of the day?
Uh, Karen Hughes is comin' over,
we're workin' on some things.
And uh, she'll be over here,
we're workin' on these things.
These matters.
I'm workin' on some initiatives.
We're uh...
you'll see.
There'll be some decisions
I'm gonna make while I'm here
and we'll be announcing them as time goes on.
The first I met him he had
some good advice for me.
Governor Bush, it's Michael Moore.
Behave yourself will ya;
go find real work.
And work was something he knew a lot about.
Anyone want some grits?
Relaxing at Camp David.
Yachting off Kennebunkport.
Or being a cowboy on the ranch in Texas.
I love the nature;
I love getting in the pickup
truck with my dogs.
George Bush spent the rest of August
at the ranch where life was less complicated.
I love to dig the soil looking for bugs
and uh, so um, I went out there the other day
and there was Barny buried in this hole
chasing an armadillo.
It was a summer to remember.
And when it was over,
he left Texas for his second favorite place.
On September 10,
he joined his brother in Florida
where they looked at files
and met important Floridians.
He went to sleep that night
in a bed made with fine French linens.
You suppose he's pretty confident
on those numbers on Iraqi security forces?
Make me look young.
Yeah, I got a little bit of sort of ear noise.
Don't turn it up too much,
don't want it to blow my head off.
On September 11th, 2001,
nearly 3,000 people -
including a colleague of mine, Bill Weems -
were killed in the largest foreign attack
ever on American soil.
The targets were the financial
and military headquarters of the United States.
If anyone has any idea, have seen him,
or knows where he is, to call us.
He's got two little babies.
Two little babies.
As the attack took place,
Mr. Bush was on his way to an elementary school
in Florida.
When informed of the first plane hitting
the World Trade Center,
where terrorists had struck just eight years prior,
Mr. Bush decided to go ahead
with this photo opportunity.
When the second plane hit the tower,
his Chief of Staff entered the classroom
and told Mr. Bush the nation is under attack.
Not knowing what to do,
with no one telling him what to do,
and no Secret Service rushing in
to take him to safety,
Mr. Bush just sat there
and continued to read 'My Pet Goat'
with the children.
Nearly seven minutes passed
with nobody doing anything.
As Bush sat in that Florida classroom,
was he wondering if maybe
he should have shown up to work more often?
Should he have held at least one meeting
since taking office to discuss
the threat of terrorism
with his head of counter terrorism?
Or maybe Mr. Bush was wondering
why he had cut terrorism funding from the FBI.
Or perhaps he just should have read
the security briefing
that was given to him on August 6, 2001
that said that Osama bin Laden
was planning to attack America
by hijacking airplanes.
Or maybe he wasn't worried
about the terrorist threat
because the title of the report was too vague.
I believe the title of the report was
'Bin Laden Determined to Attack
Inside the United States.'
A report like that might make some men jump,
but as in days passed,
George W. just went fishing.
As the minutes went by,
George Bush continued to sit in the classroom.
Was he thinking,
'I've been hanging out with the wrong crowd.
Which one of them screwed me?
Was it the man my daddy's friends
delivered a lot of weapons to?
Was it that group of religious fundamentalists
who visited my state when I was governor?
Or was it the Saudis?
Damn, it was them.
I think I'd better blame it on this guy.'
In the days following September 11th,
all commercial and private
airline traffic was grounded.
The FAA has taken action to close
all of the airports in the United States.
Even grounding the President's father,
former President Bush,
on a flight forced to land in Milwaukee.
Dozens of travelers stranded, among them,
Ricky Martin, due to perform
at tonight's Latin Grammy awards.
Not even Ricky Martin would fly.
But really, who wanted to fly?
No one. Except the bin Ladens.
We had some airplanes authorized
at the highest levels of our government
to fly to pick up
Osama bin Laden's family members
and others from Saudi Arabia;
transport them out of this country.
It turns out that the White House approved
planes to pick up the bin Ladens
and numerous other Saudis.
At least six private jets
and nearly two dozen commercial plans
carried the Saudis and the bin Ladens
out of the U.S.
after September 13th.
In all, 142 Saudis, including 24 members
of the bin Laden family,
were allowed to leave the country.
Osama has always been portrayed as the bad apple,
the black sheep of the family
and that they cut off all relationship
with him around 1994.
In fact things are much more
complicated than that.
You mean Osama has had contact
with other family members?
That's right.
In the summer of 2001
just before 9/11 one of Osama's sons
got married in Afghanistan
and several family members
showed up at the wedding.
Bin Ladens?
That's right.
They have not cut off completely;
that's really an exaggeration.
We now welcome to Larry King Live,
it's good to see him again,
Prince Bandar,
the Ambassador of the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia
to the United States.
We have about twenty-four members
of bin Laden's family and uh...
Here?
In America.
Students and his majesty felt
it was not fair for those innocent people
to be subjected to any harm.
On the other hand,
we understood had the high emotions.
So in cooperation with the FBI, we got them out.
This is retired FBI agent Jack Cloonan.
Before 9/11 he was a senior agent
on the joint FBI-CIA al Qaeda task force.
I as an investigator would not want
these people to have left...
I think in the case of the Bin Laden family
I think it would have been prudent,
hand the subpoenas out,
have 'em come in, get on the record.
You know, get on the record.
That's the proper procedure.
Yeah...
How many people were pulled off of the airlines
after that coming into the country who were what,
that were from the Middle East
or they fit a very general picture.
We held hundreds of,...
We held hundreds and I...
...weeks and months at a time.
Did the authorities do anything
when the bin Ladens tried to leave the country?
No, they were identified at the airport,
they looked at their passports,
and they were identified.
But that's what would happen to you or I if we were...
Exactly. Exactly.
"So a little interview,
Nothing
I don't know about you, but
usually when the police
can't find a murderer
don't they usually want to
talk to the family members
to find out where they think he might be?
You have no idea
where your husband might be?
Well if you hear anything let us know, will ya?
You willing to come downtown
and give us a statement?
This gonna take a while?
'You got the time.'
Mine's worth money, yours isn't...
I asked you a question.
'You're gonna answer 'em not ask 'em.'
Now listen to me cop I pay your salary.
'Alright, sit down, I'm gonna earn it.'
Yeah, that's how cops do it.
What was goin' on here?
I think we need to know a lot more about that.
That needs to be the subject
of a significant investigation.
What happened?
How did it happen?
Why did it happen?
And who authorized it?
Try to imagine what those poor bastards were feeling
when they jumped outta that building to their death.
Those those those young guys and cops
ran into that building,
never asked a question,
and they're dead. And their families lives are ruined.
And they'll never have peace.
And if I had to inconvenience
a member of the bin Laden family
with a subpoena or a grand jury
do you think I'd lose any sleep over it?
Not for a minute, Mike.
And no one would question it.
No, it's right...
Not even the biggest civil libertarians?
No, no.
No one would question it.
It's just, ya know,
you get a lawyer and fine, counselor fine.
Mr. bin Laden this is why I'm asking you;
it's not because I think
it's you're anything,
I just want to ask you the questions
that I would anybody.
Right.
And that's all.
None of this made any sense.
Can you imagine in the days
after the Oklahoma City
terrorist bombing President Clinton
helping to arrange a trip out of the country
for the McVeigh family?
What do you think would have happened to Clinton
if that had been revealed?
Bandar, do you know the bin Laden family?
I do very well.
What are they like?
They're really lovely human beings;
uh, he is the only one I never, I don't know well.
I met him only once.
What was the circumstance under which you met him?
This is ironic, and uh, in the mid-80s,
if you remember,
we and the United States were supporting
the Mujhadeen to liberate Afghanistan
from the Soviets.
He came to thank me for my efforts
to bring the Americans, our friends,
to help us against the atheists,
he said the communists.
He came to thank you
for helping bring America to help him?
And now he may be responsible
for bombing America.
Absolutely.
What do you make of him when you met him?
I was not impressed, to be honest with you.
Not impressed.
No. He was simple and quiet guy.
Hmmm.
A simple and quiet guy.
Whose family who just happened to have
a business relationship
with the family of George W. Bush.
Is that what he was thinking about?
Because if the public knew this
it wouldn't look very good.
Was he thinking,
'You know, I need a big black marker.'
In early 2004, in a speech
during the New Hampshire primary,
I called George W. Bush a deserter
for his time in the Texas National Guard.
In response, the White House
released his military records
in the hopes of disproving the charge.
What Bush didn't know is
that I already had a copy of his military records -
uncensored - obtained in the year 2000.
And there is one glaring difference
between the records released in 2000
and those he released in 2004.
A name had been blacked out.
In 1972, two airmen were suspended
for failing to take their medical examination.
One was George W. Bush.
And the other was James R. Bath.
In 2000 the documents show both names.
But in 2004 Bush and White House
had Bath's name blacked out.
Why didn't Bush want the press
and public to see Bath's name
on his military records?
Perhaps he was worried
that the American people would find out
that at one time James R. Bath
was the Texas money manager for the bin Ladens.
Bush and Bath had become good friends
when they both served
in the Texas National Guard.
After they were discharged,
when Bush's dad was head of the CIA,
Bath opened up his own aviation business,
after selling a plane to a man named Salem bin Laden,
heir to the second largest fortune in Saudi Arabia:
the Saudi bin Laden Group.
W at that time was just starting out
in the world as a business man.
Because he's a guy
whos always tried to emulate his father,
uh, he decided to go into the oil business.
He founded an oil company, a drilling company,
out of west Texas called Arbusto,
which was very very good at drilling dry holes
that nothing came out of.
But the question has always been
where did this money come from?
Now his dad was rich.
His dad could have done this for him.
But his dad didn't do this for him.
There's no indication that his daddy
wrote a check to start him off in this company.
So where did George W. Bush get his money?
One person who did invest in him was
James R. Bath.
Bush's good friend James Bath
was hired by the bin Laden family
to manage their money in Texas
and invest in businesses.
And James Bath himself in turn
invested in George W. Bush.
Bush ran Arbusto into the ground,
as he did every other company
he was involved in.
Until finally one of his companies
was bought by Harken Energy.
And they gave him a seat on their board.
A lot of us have suspected through the years that,
that there has been Saudi oil money involved
in all of these companies:
Harken, Spectrum 7, Arbusto Drilling,
all of the Bush companies.
Whenever they got into trouble
there were these angel investors
who flowed money into the companies.
So the question is why would Saudis
with all the oil in the world go around the globe
to invest in this lousy oil company?
And the thing is it had one big asset,
Harken, Harken had one thing going for it
which is that George W. Bush
was on its board of directors
at a time when his father was
President of the United States.
When you're the President's son
and you've got unlimited access
combined with some credentials
from a prior campaign,
in Washington DC people tend to respect that;
I mean, access is power and, uh,
I can find my dad,
talk to him any time of the day.
Yes, it helps to be the Presidents son.
Especially when you're being investigated
by the Securities and Exchange Commission.
In 1990 when M. Bush was a director
of Harken Energy he received this memo
from company lawyers warning directors
not to sell stock
if they had unfavorable information
about the company.
One week later
he sold $848,000 worth of Harken stock.
Two months later,
Harken announced losses of
more than $23 million dollars.
The James Baker law partner
who helped Bush beat the wrap rom the SEC
was a man by the name of Robert Jordan
who, when George W became President,
was appointed ambassador to Saudi Arabia.
After the Harken debacle
the friends of Bush's dad
got him a seaton another board
of a company owned by the Carlyle Group.
We wanted to look at which companies
um actually gained from September 11th.
Turned up this company Carlyle Group.
The Carlyle Group is a multinational conglomerate
that invests in heavily government regulated industries
like telecommunications, health care,
and particularly defense.
Both George W. Bush and George H.W. Bush
worked for the Carlyle Group,
the same company that counted the bin Laden family
among its investors.
The Carlyle Group was holding
its annual investor conference
on the morning of September 11th
in the Ritz Carlton hotel in Washington, DC.
At that meeting were all of the Carlyle regulars:
James Baker likely, John Major,
definitely George H.W. Bush
though he left the morning of September 11th.
Shapfi (sp) bin Laden,
who is Osama bin Laden's half brother, um,
and was in town to look after his family's investments
in the Carlyle Group --
all of them together in one room
watching as the um,
the planes hit the towers.
And then in fact the bin Laden family
was invested in one of their defense funds which,
ironically, meant as the United States
started increasing its defense spending, um,
the bin Laden family stood to gain
from those investments through the Carlyle Group.
Of all the weapons companies it owned,
the Carlyle Group was in essence
the 11th largest defense contractor
in the United States.
It owned United Defense,
makers of the Bradley Armored Fighting Vehicle.
September 11th guaranteed
that United Defense was going to have
a very good year.
Just six weeks after 9/11,
Carlyle filed to take United Defense public,
and in December, made a one day profit
of $237 million dollars.
But sadly, with so much attention
focused on the bin Laden family
being important Carlyle investors,
the bin Ladens eventually had to withdraw.
Bush's dad though stayed on as senior advisor
to Carlyle's Asia board for another two years.
As unassuming as it seems, uh, to, uh, to,
to know that George H.W. Bush
was meeting with the bin Laden family
while Osama was a wanted terrorist, um,
well before September 11th,
it's very discomforting for Americans
to know that.
George H.W. Bush is a man
who has obviously incredible reach
into the White House.
Um, he receives daily CIA briefings,
which is the right of any ex-President,
but very few ex-Presidents actually exercise
that right -- uh, he does.
And I think in a very real way
they are benefiting from the confusion
that arises when George H.W.
Bush visits Saudi Arabia on behalf of Carlyle
and meets with the royal family
and meets with the bin Laden family.
Is he representing the United States of America
or is he representing an investment firm
in the United States of America,
or is he representing both?
This company's about money.
It's not about conspiracies
to run the world or engineer political maneuvering,
things like that;
it's about making money
and it's about making a lot of money.
And they have done very well.
I want you on the record on this question.
In the White House view
there is no ethical conflict
in former President Bush
and former Secretary of State Jim Baker
using their contacts with world leaders
to represent one of the most well-known
military arms dealers, the Carlyle Group?
The President has full faith
that his family will conform
with all proper ethics laws,
all ethics laws,
and will act properly in their conduct.
Okay, so let's say one group of people,
like the American people,
pay you $400,000 a year to be President
of the United States.
But then another group of people invest in you,
your friends,
and their related businesses $1.4 billion dollars
over a number of years.
Who you gonna like?
Who's your daddy?
Because that's how much the Saudi royals
and their associates have given the Bush family.
Their friends.
And their related businesses
in the past three decades.
Is it rude to suggest
that when the Bush family wakes up in the morning
they might be thinking about
what's best for the Saudis
instead of what's best for you?
Or me?
'Cuz $1.4 billion doesn't just buy a lot of flights
out of the country, it buys a lot of love.
Sooner or later this special relationship
with a regime that Amnesty International condemns
as a wide-spread human rights violator
would come back to haunt the Bushes.
Now, after 9/11, it was an embarrassment
and they preferred that no one ask any questions.
The investigation should have begun
on September 12th;
there's no reason why it shouldn't have.
Three thousand people were dead,
it was a murder,
and it should have gotten started immediately.
First, Bush tried to stop Congress
from setting up its own 9/11 investigation.
It's important for us to
not reveal how we collect information;
that's what the enemy wants.
And we're fighting an enemy.
When he couldn't stop Congress,
he then tried to stop an independent 9/11 commission
from being formed.
The President's position was a break from history.
Independent investigations were launched
within days of Pearl Harbor
and President Kennedy's assassination.
But when Congress did complete
its own investigation,
the Bush White House censored
twenty-eight pages of the report.
The President is being pressed
by all sides to declassify the report.
US officials tell NBC news
most of the secret sources involve Saudi Arabia.
We have given extraordinary cooperation
with Chairmen Kean and Hamilton.
We haven't gotten the materials we needed,
and we certainly haven't gotten them
in a timely fashion.
The deadlines we set have passed.
Will you testify before the commission?
This commission?
Testify, I mean, I'd be glad to visit with them.
What it will do is hold this in my heart,
it has been in my heart since September 11th.
I lost my husband, 15 years.
I'm now by myself.
Um, I need to know what happened to him.
I know what I got back from the autopsy.
That man was my life and I have no plan.
I'd taken a class and they asked me
what was I gonna do in the next five years.
And if I'm not doing something with this,
I don't know what reason I have to live.
So, it's very important.
Very important. 'Kay.
Ignored by the Bush administration,
more than 500 relatives of 9/11 victims
filed suit against Saudi royals and others.
The lawyers the Saudi defense minister
hired to fight the 9/11 families?
The law firm of Bush family confidante,
James A. Baker.
So right here in the center of
three important American landmarks, uh,
the Watergate hotel and office building,
the Kennedy Center over there, and uh,
the embassy of Saudi Arabia.
Wow.
How much money do the Saudis
have invested in America, roughly?
Uh, I've heard figures inside of $860 billion dollars.
Billion.
That's a lot of money.
And uh, what percentage of our economy is that?
That seems like a lot.
Well, in terms of investments on Wall Street,
American equities,
it's roughly six or seven percent of America.
They own a fairly good slice of America.
And most of that money
goes into the great blue chip companies:
Citigroup, Citibank is the largest stock
held by the Saudis.
AOLTimeWarner has big Saudi investors.
So I read where like the Saudis
have a trillion dollars
in our banks of their money.
What would happen if like one day
they just pulled that trillion dollars out?
A trillion dollars,
that would be an enormous blow to the economy.
Could I speak with you for a moment please, sir?
Uh yeah, sure.
Good, how are you doing?
Good
Steve with the Secret Service.
We're just ascertaining information regarding,
are you making a documentary
regarding the Saudi Arabian embassy?
Uh, no.
I am doing a documentary.
And part of it is about Saudi Arabia.
Even though we were nowhere near the White House,
for some reason the Secret Service
had shown up to ask us
what we were doing standing across the street
from the Saudi embassy.
We're not here to cause any trouble or anything.
Uh, ya know, is that...
That's fine.
Just wanted to get some information
on what was going on.
Yeah yeah yeah,
I didn't realize the Secret Service
guards foreign embassies.
Uh, not usually, no sir.
No no, do they give you any trouble?
The Saudis?
Uh, no comment on that one,
I'm not going to answer.
Uh, okay,
I'll take that as a yes.
It turns out that Saudi Prince Bandar
is perhaps the best protected ambassador
in the US.
The US State Department provides him
with a six-man security detail.
Considering how he and his family,
and the Saudi elite own seven percent of America,
it's probably not a bad idea.
Prince Bandar is so close to the Bushes
they consider him a member of the family,
and they even have a nickname for him:
Bandar Bush.
Two nights after September 11th,
George Bush invited Bandar Bush
to the White House for a private dinner and talk.
Even though bin Laden was a Saudi,
and Saudi money had funded al Qaeda,
and fifteen of the nineteen hijackers were Saudis,
here was the Saudi ambassador
casually dining with the President.
On September 13th,
what were they talking about?
Were they commiserating?
Or comparing notes?
Why would Bandar's government
block American investigators
from talking to the relatives
of the fifteen hijackers?
Why would Saudi Arabia become reluctant
to freeze the hijackers' assets?
The two of them rocked out on the Truman Balcony
so that Bandar could smoke a cigar and have a drink.
In the distance, across the Potomac,
was the Pentagon, partially in ruins.
I wonder if Mr. Bush told Prince Bandar not to worry
because he already had a plan in motion.
You come in September 12th,
ready to plot what response we take to al Qaeda.
Let me talk to you about the response
that you got from top administration officials.
On that day, what did the President say to you?
The President, in a very intimidating way,
left us - me and my staff -
with the clear indication
that he wanted us to come back with the word
that there was an Iraqi hand behind 9/11
because they had been planning to do something
about Iraq from before the time they came to office.
Did he ask about any other nations other than Iraq?
No. No no no. No. Not at all. It was Iraq, Saddam,
find out, get back to me.
And were his questions more about Iraq
than about al Qaeda?
Absolutely.
Absolutely.
He didn't ask my about al Qaeda.
And the reaction you got
that day from the defense secretary,
Donald Rumsfeld?
And his assistant, Paul Wolfowitz?
Well, Don Rumsfeld said, uh,
when we talked about bombing the al Qaeda
infrastructure in Afghanistan,
he said there were no good targets in Afghanistan,
let's bomb Iraq.
And we said but Iraq had nothing to do with this.
And that didn't seem to make much difference.
And the reason they had to do Afghanistan first
was it was obvious that al Qaeda had attacked,
and it was obvious that al Qaeda was in Afghanistan.
The American people wouldn't have stood by
if we had done nothing on Afghanistan.
The United States began bombing Afghanistan
just four weeks after 9/11.
Mr. Bush said he was doing so
because the Taliban government of Afghanistan
had been harboring bin Laden.
We will smoke 'em out of their holes.
We're gonna smoke 'em out.
Smoke 'em out.
Smoke him out of his cave.
Let's rush him and smoke him out.
For all his tough talk,
Bush really didn't do much.
But what they did was slow and small.
They put only 11,000 troops into Afghanistan --
there are more police here in Manhattan,
more police here in Manhattan
than there are US troops in Afghanistan.
Basically the President botched the response to 9/11.
He should have gone right after bin Laden.
The US Special Forces didn't get into the area
where bin Laden was for two months.
Two months?
A mass murderer who attacked the United States
was given a two month head start?
Who in their right mind would do that?
Anybody say "nice shot?"
Nice shot.
Hell of a shot.
Or was the war in Afghanistan
really about something else?
Perhaps the answer was in Houston, Texas.
In 1997 while George W. Bush
was Governor of Texas,
a delegation of Taliban leaders from Afghanistan
flew to Houston to meet with Unocal executives
to discuss the building of a pipeline
through Afghanistan bringing natural gas
from the Caspian Sea.
And who got a Caspian Sea drilling contract
the same day Unocal signed the pipeline deal?
A company headed by a man named Dick Cheney:
Halliburton.
The point of view of the US government
is this was kind of a magic pipeline, um,
because it could serve so many purposes.
And who else stood to benefit
from the pipeline?
Bush's number one campaign contributor,
Kenneth Lay, and the good people of Enron.
Only the British press covered this trip.
Then in 2001, just 5 1/2 months before 9/11,
the Bush Administration welcomed
a special Taliban envoy to tour the United States
to help improve the image of the Taliban government.
You have imprisoned the women...
It's a horror, let me tell you.
I'm very sorry to your husband;
he might have a very difficult time with you.
Here is the Taliban official
visiting our State Department
to meet with US officials.
Why on Earth did the Bush administration
allow a Taliban leader to visit the United States
knowing that the Taliban were harboring the man
who bombed the USS Cole and our African embassies?
Well, I guess 9/11 put a stop to that.
When the invasion of Afghanistan was complete
we installed its new president,
Hamid Karzai.
Who was Hamid Karzai?
He was a former advisor to Unocal.
Bush also appointed
as his envoy to Afghanistan Zalmay Khalilzad
who was also a former Unocal advisor.
I guess you can probably see where this is leading.
Faster than you can say Black Gold Texas Tea,
Afghanistan signed an agreement
with her neighboring countries
to build a pipeline through Afghanistan
carrying natural gas from the Caspian Sea.
Oh, and the Taliban?
Uh, they mostly got away.
As did Osama bin Laden and most of al Qaeda.
Terror is bigger than one person.
And he's just, he's, he's a, he's a person
who's now been marginalized,
so, I, I don't know where he is, nor...
and I just don't spend that much time on it,
Ellie, to be honest with ya.
Didn't spend much time on it?
What kinda President was he?
I'm a war president.
I make decisions here in the Oval Office, uh,
in foreign policy matters with war on my mind.
With the war in Afghanistan over
and bin Laden forgotten,
the war president had a new target:
the American people.
We've got an unusual terror warning
from the Feds to tell you about.
Fox News has obtained an FBI bulletin
that warns terrorists could use pen guns
- just like in a James Bond -
filled with poison as weapons.
Good evening everyone,
America is on high alert tonight
just four days before Christmas.
...a possible terrorist threat.
...as bad as or worse than 9/11.
But where?
How?
There's nothing specific to report.
Be on the lookout for model airplanes
packed with explosives.
And the FBI is reporting ferries may be considered
particularly at risk for hijacking.
Could these cattle be a target for terrorists?
Fear works?
Fear does work, yes.
You could make people do anything if they're afraid.
And how do you make them afraid?
Well you make them afraid
by creating an aura of endless threat.
They played us like an organ.
They raised the le-,
the orange and up to red
and then they dropped it back to orange.
I mean, they, they give these mixed messages
which were crazy making.
The world has changed after September the 11th.
It's changed because we're no longer safe.
Fly and enjoy America's great, uh, destination spots.
We've entered what may very well prove
to be the most dangerous security environment
the world's known.
Take your families and enjoy life.
Terrorists are doing everything they can
to gain even deadlier means of striking us.
Get down to Disney World in Florida.
It's like training a dog;
ya tell him to sit down or ya tell him to roll over
at the same time,
the dog doesn't know what to do.
Well the American people are being treated like that.
It was really very very skillfully and,
and ugly in what they did.
We must stop the terror.
I call upon all nations to do everything they can
to stop these terrorist killers.
Thank you.
Now watch this drive.
They will continue, in my view,
as long as this administration's in charge.
Every once in a while
still leading everybody to be afraid,
just in case you forgot.
It's not gonna go down to green or blue.
It's never gonna get there.
There clearly is no way
that anyone can live constantly on edge like that.
The harsh reality facing American families today
is that they're not as safe as they used to be.
Drug dealers and users looking for their next fix.
Gangs who roam the streets
in search of their next victim.
And the growing threat of terrorists means
the need for protection is ever greater.
And now, that protection is here.
Zytech Engineering LLC has developed
and tested a safe, highly affordable
to the average American citizen,
the kind of protection formerly attainable
only by the wealthy or powerful.
Heck, you can be sitting in here
drinking your finest Bordeaux
while chaos is erupting outside.
Every family in America should prepare itself
for a terrorist attack.
Now to escaping from a skyscraper.
John Rivers is the CEO
of the Executive Chute Corporation.
Good morning to you, John.
Good morning, Matt.
Tell me about the product
you're bringing to the market.
It's a, emergency escape chute.
It's an option of last resort.
How high do you have to be in the building
for that chute to actually take effect?
You only have to be on the 10th floor or above.
They can put this on themselves?
Right, they can put this on themselves
in as easy as about thirty seconds...
It's real easy to put on.
It's easy to put on, but uh...
when you first get this chute
you're gonna wanna put it on
and try it on a few times yourself.
Jamie's havin' a little trouble puttin' that thing on,
I wanna mention.
I mean, is, is this something that,
that you honestly think that in a moment of,
of panic that someone can,
can operate properly?
Oh yeah.
Yeah, it is.
It's it's, this is actually, uh,
Jamie's probably never put this thing on
before in her life, so...
It's okay.
Don't worry about it.
It's it's something that
when you get it
you're gonna wanna put it on several times.
Well despite the raising of the terror alert level,
residents here in Saginaw are continuing
with their Christmas errands.
Francis Troik and her family
do some last minute shopping
knowing that al Qaeda is planning to attack America.
She says being in Saginaw doesn't make her
feel any safer than if she was in New York City.
Midland is close by,
and I said Detroit's not far,
not that far away.
I said there ain't gonna be someone in Flint,
that's gonna be concerned for people out here.
You, you never know where they're gonna hit.
You never know where they're gonna hit.
But one potential target specifically mentioned
by the terrorists has security officials baffled.
Its tiny Tappahannock, Virginia, population 2,016.
Such an attack could generate widespread fear;
that even here in rural small-town America,
no one is entirely safe.
On the six o'clock news there was something
about a terrorist alert in Tappahannock.
What'd the FBI tell you?
Well they contacted me by phone,
uh, basically let me know
they're worried 'bout Tappahannock.
That's how it started.
In their so-called chatter
that they picked up they wasn't sure...
Tappahannock... there's a Rappahannock County,
this is the Rappahannock River.
There is a Rappahannock,
a place called Rappahannock,
and they got it mixed up.
Is there any terrorist target around here?
Not that we can really think of.
It can happen anywhere.
We have a Wal-Mart here.
We have spaghetti supper in here (?).
Carwash probably.
Are you real suspicious of outsiders?
Oh yeah, everydody does it!
On March 19, 2003, George W. Bush
and the United States military
invaded the sovereign nation of Iraq.
A nation that had never attacked the United States.
A nation that had never threatened
to attack the United States.
A nation that had never murdered
a single American citizen.
To find this, this piece of my neighbor,
young girl, age twenty, some part of her body.
That's all.
There is a lot of innocent civilians that were killed.
And I think that's because, uh the US Army,
ya know, we came in, and we knew
it wasn't gonna be easy,
and they much pretty much at first shot anything
that moved.
More happens, and the fighting starts, ya know,
it's kinda like we're pumped up, motivated, ready to go...
It's the ultimate rush
cuz you're going into the fight to begin with,
and then you got a good song playing in the background
and uh, that gets you real fired up.
Ready to do the job.
You can hook your CD player up
to the tank's internal communications...
To the Charlie Box.
So that way when you put your helmet on
you can hear it through the helmet.
This is the one we listen to the most.
This is the one we travel, we kill the enemy.
Drowning Pool, 'Let the Bodies Hit the Floor,'
is just fitting for the job that we're doing.
We picked The Roof Is On Fire because uh,
basically it symbolized Baghdad bein' on fire and uh,
and at the time we wanted it to burn to get Saddam
and his regime out.
The roof is on fire...
we don't need no water let the mother fuckers burn...
burn mother fucker... burn.
This is a whole totally different picture here
being pushed into the city,
urban warfare in a tank, you know.
Civilians... civilians, it gets...
you don't know whose the enemy...
This is a lot more real and true
than a video game.
A lot of people thought it was gonna be,
"Oh yeah, look through the sight and shoot."
No. A lot of this is face to face
and especially ridin' by after some of the bombs
that went off and seein' all the people
on the side of the road blow'd up.
All the smells around you,
I mean from the people lyin' dead rotted...
it's a lot more gruesome than you think.
We called in some artillery and some napalm
and things like that.
Some innocent women and children got hit.
We met them on the road
and they had little girls with noses blown off
and uh, husbands carrying their dead wives
and things like that
And that was extremely difficult to deal with
because you're like, you're like,
"Shoot. What the hell do we do now?"
The targeting capabilities and the care
that goes into targeting is,
is as impressive as anything anyone could see.
The care that goes into it,
the humanity that goes into it...
Honestly, I think we should just trust our President
in every decision that he makes
and we should just support that.
You know?
And, um, be faithful in what happens.
Do you trust this President?
Yes, I do.
Britney Spears was not alone.
The majority of the American people
trusted the President.
And why shouldn't they?
He'd spent the better part of the last year
giving them every reason
why we should invade Iraq.
Saddam Hussein has gone to elaborate lengths,
spent enormous sums, taken great risks to build
and keep weapons of mass destruction.
Saddam Hussein is determined
to get his hands on a nuclear bomb.
Nuclear weapon.
Nuclear weapon.
Nuclear weapon.
Active chemical munitions bunkers.
Mobile production facilities.
We know he's got chemical weapons.
He's got 'em.
He's got 'em.
He's got 'em.
Huh, that's weird.
Because that's not what Bush's people said
when he first took office.
He has not developed any significant capability
with respect to weapons of mass destruction;
he is unable to project conventional power
against his neighbors.
We are able to keep arms from him.
His military forces have not been rebuilt.
Saddam Hussein aids and protects terrorists.
Including members of al Qaeda.
There was a relationship between Iraq and al Qaeda.
Saddam
al Qaeda
Saddam
al Qaeda
Saddam
al Qaeda
Saddam
Saddam
Saddam
al Qaeda
It is only a matter of time
before terrorists states armed
with weapons of mass destruction
develop the capability
to deliver those weapons to US cities.
What we're giving you are facts and conclusions
based on solid intelligence.
This is a man who hates America.
This is a man who cannot stand what we stand for.
His willingness to terrorize himself.
He hates the fact, like al Qaeda does,
that we love freedom.
After all, this is a guy that tried
to kill my dad at one time.
They simply got people to believe
that there was a real threat out there,
when in fact there wasn't one.
You get told things every day that don't happen.
It doesn't seem to bother people.
Of course, the Democrats were there
to put a stop to all these falsehoods.
I will vote to give the President the authority he needs.
The United States is prepared to lead a Coalition
of the Willing that will do it.
When I say we will lead a Coalition of the Willing
to disarm him if he chooses not to disarm, I mean it.
Who is in that Coalition of the Willing?
You will find out who is in the Coalition of the Willing.
The Coalition of the Willing roll call:
the Republic of Palau.
The Republic of Costa Rica.
The Republic of Iceland.
Of course none of these countries has an army or,
for that matter, weapons.
So it looked like
we'd be doing most of the invading stuff ourselves
But then there was also...
Romania. The Kingdom of Morocco.
Morocco wasn't officially a member of the Coalition,
but according to one report,
they did offer to send 2,000 monkeys
to help detonate landmines.
These are men of vision.
The Netherlands.
And I'm incredibly proud to call 'em allies.
Afghanistan.
Afghanistan?
Hm. Oh yeah, they had an army.
Our army!
I guess that's one way to build a coalition:
just keep invading countries.
Yes, with our mighty coalition intact,we were ready.
One could almost say it's the mother of all coalitions.
Fortunately we have an independent media
in this country who would tell us the truth.
The rallying around the President, around the flag,
and around the troops clearly has begun.
And we're gonna win!
You really have to be with the troops to understand
the kind of adrenaline rush they get.
I just want you to know I think Navy SEALS rock.
The pictures you're seeing
are absolutely phenomenal.
When my country's at war, uh,
I want my country to win.
Iraqi opposition has faded
in the face of American power.
What you're watching here
is truly historic television and journalism.
It was absolutely electrifying.
They actually had to strap me in
with my camera in the back of the plane.
An awesome synchronized killing machine.
There is an inherent bias in the coverage
of the American press in general.
Am I slanted and biased?
You're damned well bet I am.
But one story the media wasn't covering
was the personal story of each and every soldier
who was killed in the war.
The government would not allow any cameras
to show the coffins coming home.
That kind of story is a downer,
especially when you're getting ready
for a party on a boat.
My fellow Americans,
major combat operations in Iraq have ended.
In the battle of Iraq,
the United States and our allies have prevailed.
There are some who feel like if they attack us
that we may decide to leave prematurely.
They don't understand what they're talking about
if that's the case.
Let me finish.
Um, there are some who feel that the conditions
are such that they can attack us there.
My answer is bring 'em on.
The United States just plannin' on walkin' in here
like it was gonna be easy and all but,
it's not that easy to conquer a country, is it?
The renewed battle for control of Iraq raged
for fourth day today with street clashes
in nearly every corner of the country.
Iraq could become, quote, another Vietnam.
Officials they see evidence
that Sunni and Shite extremists might be joining forces.
They're not happy they're occupied.
I wouldn't be happy if I were occupied either.
Two Japanes aid workers and a journalist kidnapped
by men calling themselves the Mujhadeen Squadrons.
They've threatened to burn these hostages alive
if Japan does not withdraw its troops from Iraq
within three days.
What's happened?
Well, they attacked our convoy.
The Pentagon might keep up to twenty-four thousand troops
in combat beyond their tour.
I know our numbers in the military have gone down.
They talk about retention.
You never really expect to be deployed this long.
I don't think anybody did.
I don't have any clue as to why we're still in Iraq.
If Donald Rumsfeld was here,
I'd ask him for his resignation.
With the war not going as planned,
and the military in need of many more troops,
where would they find the new recruits?
Military experts say three times the 120,000 US troops
now deployed would be needed
to pacify and rebuild the country.
They would find them all across America
in the places that had been destroyed by the economy.
Places where one of the only jobs available
was to join the Army.
Places like my hometown of Flint, Michigan.
And I was watchin' TV one day
and they showed like some of the buildings
and areas that had been hit by bombs,
and things like that,
and when I was watchin' I got to thinkin'
there's places in Flint look like that,
and we ain't been in a war.
Look at the neighborhood I live in.
Most of them are abandoned.
I mean, that's not right.
You want to talk about terrorism?
Come right here.
President Bush,
right here, come.
Come right here.
He's knows about this corner -- I e-mailed him.
At the end of January of '04
the unemployment rate in Flint was actually 17%.
But you have to take into consideration as well
that when you're unemployment runs out
you're no longer counted.
I would have to say
that we're probably close to at least 50%
not working or under-employed.
Because being under-employed is just as dangerous...
So my family has gone through the welfare system
when it was jobs-central;
in the mid-80sI came through
the job training partnership program
here at jobs central and I went to a secretary school.
Years later I'm the executive assistant
to the president of the agency.
Interesting.
My mother used to tell me all the time,
"Why do you always go for the underdog?
It was because the underdog is who needed me.
The people who don't have anything,
that's who I have to fight for
and that's who I've fought for my entire life.
I started taking my children and telling my children
the military is a good option;
I can't afford to have you go to college,
I can't pay your way, financial aid will not help you,
so I as a mother started teaching my children
about the options that the military could do...
They would take them around the world,
they would see all of the things
that I as a mother could not let them see,
they would pay for their education
as I as their mother and their father could not pay for.
The military is a good option for kids in Flint.
The military is an excellent option
for people in the city of Flint.
How many of you have a friend
or a family member in the service?
Anybody currently serving overseas?
There's like an army or navy recruiter
that's up there almost every week.
It's in the lunchroom, recruiting students
from the lunchroom.
I'm going into the Air Force myself,
I'm goin' to take the year off probably after high school
and then just go and make a career.
I wanna be an aircraft maintenance technician.
I ran into a recruiter and, uh,
there was something I noticed about it
and this is kind of on another, it's just,
I noticed it was odd.
It was more like he was hiring me for a job
than recruiting me for the army.
It was the way he approached me...
approached a friend of mine...
It was at Borders Books & Music.
He just came up, it was, it was his business card.
He had business cards made for the army and everything.
Meet Marine Staff Sgt. Dale Cortman
and Sgt. Raymond Flower.
They are two of the many recruiters
assigned to Flint,Michigan.
They're very busy these days.
Look at him, he's runnin' around already.
Yeah. Whatta we got here?
A little gangsta.
Yeah. Probably going over to the Courtland Mall now.
They decided not to go
to the wealthier Genesee Valley Mall in the suburbs.
They have a hard time recruiting people there.
Instead, they went to the other mall.
Let's go in through Mervin's.
And then we'll walk...
... straight down...
... straight back...
Gents, you know we're looking at ya, right?
You guys ever think about joining up?
Thought about goin' to college
to play basketball or something like that.
You gonna do it?
I think, oh yeah, especially to play basketball.
Good.
You can play ball for the Marine Corps as well,
travel around the world,
gettin' on Marine Corps basketball teams.
David Robinson was in the military as well.
Was he?
Yep. So you can definitely hook it up.
Right now there's somebody out there
who wants to be a Marine
but has no idea how to do it.
Where do you work at?
I work at KFC.
Really?
You can hook us up with some deals?
Yeah.
They're waitin' to get recruited.
I don't know,
I'm probably gonna try to get a little career
in music or somethin'.
Career in music.
Maybe we can get you a career in music.
You know what the Marines go for --
I'm sure you know who Shaggy is, right?
Yeah.
You know anything about him?
Yeah, he's a Jamaican, uh,
yeah...
How about a former Marine?
Whoa.
Did you know it?...
You definitely need to know a discipline
if you're gonna get into music,
especially discipline with the money.
If you're makin' money
you need to manage that money.
So come in the office, we can sit down and talk...
show you everything we know about the Marines.
Sound like a plan?
What do you got goin' on later this afternoon?...
How about tomorrow?...
Say around ten o'clock Monday morning?
Yeah, that sounds pretty good.
Want me to come pick you up?
Better to get 'em when they're one's and two's...
Hey pal.
Ladies, you ready to join up.
Oh, he's young, he's young.
We got two over here.
Right over by the red van.
You go that way, I go this way, we'll corner 'em.
You're in the ninth grade?
Yes sir.
Man, you look older than ninth grade.
So, alright. Well, here's my card...
You ever thought about bein' a Marine, man?
Uh, thought about it, but I got a wife and kid now.
Even more reason to join.
What I want to do man, real quick,
is just get some information from you
so I can scratch you off my list sayin'
I've already talked to you and you're not interested.
Is that cool?
Yeah.
What's your name?
Phone number.
What's your address?
Add another one to the list.
However, you know,
one would love to have the chance to experience
college life you know and stuff young people can do
without having the risk of dying in the process,
I guess I can say candidly.
The holidays do add a little bit more friction
as opposed to just another night,
in that we want to give our guys a little time off,
a little time to relax.
However, we are in a combat zone.
My soldiers do recognize that fact.
Everybody's a little bit nervous about it, I guess.
We're professionals, we're gonna take care of you.
I promise.
Every house here has the right to have weapons.
The maximum is one AK-47
We always expect the targets to be armed.
Rock and roll.
No no no no, where is she going?
I'll go with her.
Where is she going?
She's going call him?
Yes.
No no no no, just where is he at? Right now.
Not on the phone...
is he in the house? is he in the house?
Ma'am!
Is he in the house?
He is? He is in the house? Where?
Get up there! Second Floor, Second Floor!
GO GO GO!
Watch out there, watch out, watch out.
This is Sahib? Is this Sahib?
Sahib.
Alright, Stand Up.
What has he done?
He is just a college student.
Clear!
Alright, Calm down.
This is the target! Bring him out!
As you go back to the old saying
'Win the hearts and minds of the people.
That's our job. We have to-- we have to bring the--
the idea of democracy and freedom to the country.
And, show them that the American people
are not here to-- to rule Iraq.
I start doing evidence turn in..
that process takes about three hours.
So uh, that's going to be it for the night!
And that includes Christmas eve.
We all love you, Santa.
Merry Christmas PRT, Merry Christmas!
Santa came to Iraq just for you guys.
We'll try to keep the skies clear for you, Santa.
Do you consider yourself a proud American?
Absolutely. I'm an extremely proud American
I think I'm probably more proud than the average joe.
When I put my flag up I can't allow it to touch the ground.
Because I know the lives that were lost and the blood
that was shed so that I could be here and have a flag.
Right, how often do you put the flag up?
Every single day, every single day.
I started when my daughter was in Desert Storm.
I have the same flag flying on my front porch
and the same yellow ribbons
praying and hoping that my child would come home safe
and that everybody's child would come home safe.
And she did.
And she did.
You have other family members
that have been in the military?
Absolutely. Uncles, aunts, cousins, brothers, father.
A very strong military background.
Very strong, my family was--
my family is what I consider part of the backbone of America.
It's families like mine and it's not just my family
there's hundreds of families,
millions of families out here
that this country was founded on their backs.
I have known to be a conservative democrat.
Yeah, yeah.
That's what you'd consider yourself now.
Yeah.
It's a great country.
It's a great country. It's a great country.
The cross that I choose to wear,
you'll notice that it's a multicultural--
multicoloured cross.
That's because I believe
that all God's people come in many colours.
And my family itself is multicultural.
You have a daughter that went into the military?
Into the military.
Then your firstborn son in the military?
Thats quite a gift to the country,
you know, from your family.
That's exactly right.
So having a son in the Army.. pretty proud thing.
Oh, you know what? He made it.
What was your reaction to the protesters
to say the Gulf war or Vietnam..
I always hated the protesters.
I always hated the protesters.
It was just a slap in my face.
It was just like they were dishonouring my son.
And I burned in my soul to tell them
you don't understand.
They're not there because they want to be there.
But then I came to understand
that they weren't protesting the men
and women that were there,
they were protesting the concept of the war.
I know I'm a soldier and I'm here to do a job.
I've been a soldier for a while..
Once you have to go and do your job
and you see the things that you see..
I'm saying there's some disillusionment in that.
Battalion Commander fully expects us
to be attacked in some type of way.
Before we get to.
So far it's been pretty calm, not much has happened,
but be aware that they can and they probably will.
They're beginning to organize themselves
just in neighbourhoods.
The kids get together a lot-- well,
I can't say Kids but-- guys about 17-18.
Starting to come together and they hate us just--
why I'm not really sure.
Immoral behavious breeds immoral behavior.
When a president commits the immoral act of sending
otherwise good kids to war based on a lie,
this is what you get.
Hey, are you ticklish?
Ali Baba still has a hard-on.
Why are you touching someone else's dick?
He touched his dick!
To have these people shoot at us, kill us, blow us up,
whatever they can and not understand it
we're trying to help these people
and it seems they don't want our help--
'get out of here'--
but the minute something goes wrong with them
'oh why weren't you here why didn't you do this'
you know it's-- I hate this country.
You know, you feel that a part of your soul
is destroyed in taking another life.
And-- yeah that statement is very true you--
cannot kill someone without killing a part of yourself.
If you get called up will you go back to Iraq?
No.
Why not?
No.
What repercussions do you face if you don't--
It's possible jail time.
That's one possible thing.
Are you willing to risk that?
Yes. Yes I will not let my person--
I will not let anyone send me back over there
to kill other poor people.
Especially when they pose no threat to me
and my country.
I won't do it.
This is an impressive crowd,
the haves and the have-mores.
Some people call you the elite, I call you my base.
While Bush was busy taking care of his base
and professing his love for our troops,
he proposed cutting combat soldiers pay by 33%
and assistance to their families by 60%.
He opposed giving veterans a billion dollars more
in health care benefits,
and he supported closing veteran hospitals.
He tried to double the prescription drug costs
for veterans and opposed full benefits
for part-time reservists.
And when Staff Seargeant Brett Petriken
from Flint was killed in Iraq on May 26th,
the army sent his last paycheck to his family,
but they docked him for the last five days of the month
he didn't work, because he was dead.
They say they're not going to leave any veterans behind,
but they're leaving all kinds of veterans behind.
To say that we're forgotten--
I know we're not forgotten.
But missed?
Yes.
Yes, you know there has been a lot of soldier
that have been missed, you know,
they've been skipped over.
I think they should get the proper coverage
that they deserve.
They have the death toll but they're not showing
the amount of people that have been injured
and been amputated because of the injuries.
Like I still feel like I have hands.
The pain is like--
my hands are being crushed in a vice.
But they do a lot to help it
and they take a lot of the edge off of it.
And it just makes it a lot more tolerable.
I was injured in late April while on patrol in Baghdad.
Um, could of guys come out and ambushed us.
I got nerve damage and stuff like that.
I've got a lot of pain.
I'm constantly in pain.
um-- take a lot of morphine.
It helps with that stuff.
I'm doing-- doing you know, just readjusting.
Getting life back on track.
You know what I'm saying?
I'm not going to do what it is I did before.
Um, I-- I was a republican for quite a few years.
And um, and for some reason they uh--
they conduct business in a very dishonest way.
I am going to be incredibly active
in the democratic party down
where I live once I get out. So..
I'm going to definitely do my best
to insure that the Democrats win control.
Iraq and Baghdad--
I didn't know any of those things.
And he-- we were in a hallway.
And in the upstairs of our house
and he was crying and he said
that he was really scared
and that he didn't want to have to go to Iraq.
So we were able to have a whole conversation
about sometimes some fear is healthy
because it keeps our senses about us.
And that's when he told me
that he had not told anyone else
but he knew he was going to Baghdad.
We were as everybody, we were glued to the TV.
Just glued completely glued to the television
in hopes of seeing a glimpse of him.
'Can't you please go over to where the Helicopters are?
Can't you please let us see him?'
Then that night it was about 10 something.
I went upstairs to the bedroom
and I was laying in bed
and I was flipping the channels with the remote
and all I heard was
'Black Hawk down in south-central Iraq.'
What I can tell you at this hour is that last night
the Army did indeed lose a Black Hawk helicopter.
We're being told by officers on the ground
that there were six occupants inside the Black Hawk.
Well the next morning I got up and I said
'You push those thoughts out of your mind.
Okay Jesus, I need you to come here.
I need you Jesus you've got to help me through this.
The Army called me
and I remember getting on the phone
and him saying-- asking me was I Lila Lipscomb,
and I said yes,
and he said 'mother of Sargeant Michael Patterson?'
and I remember dropping the telephone.
And all that I can honestly say is
that I remember is 'Ma'am, the United States Army
the Secretary of Defense regretfully informs you...
' That's all I know.
The grief grabbed me so hard
that I even fell on the floor.
And I was alone,
I didn't have anybody to pick me up.
So I even crawled over to my desk
I was hanging on and I remember screaming
'Why does it have to be Michael?
Why did you have to take my son?
Why is it my son that you had to take?
He didn't do anything.
He wasn't a bad guy.
He was a good guy,
why did you have to take my son?
Uh-- I uh--- I-- I-- I can't imagine
what it must be like to lose a son or a daughter..
or a husband and.. or wife for that matter.
And I-- it pains me.
You have his last letter?
Mmhmm.. and it was mailed March 16th
but I didn't get it until probably a week
until he was killed.
'Hello, Hey Mama.
Well, sorry I haven't been able to call.
They took the phone seven days ago.
I got the letter and box.
That is so cool,
your first grandson came the same day
your oldest son did.
How is everyone?
I'm doing fine, we are just out here
in the sand in the windstorms waiting.
What in the world is wrong with George?
Trying to be like his dad. Bush.
He got us out here for nothing
whatsoever I'm so furious right now.
Mama, I really hope they do not re-elect
that fool honestly.
I am in good spirits and I am doing okay.
I really miss you guys.
Thanks for the Bible and books and candy.
I really look forward to letters from you guys.
Well tell all the family "Hello" and that I am doing fine.
We don't expect anything to happen any time soon.
I cannot wait to get home and get back to my life.
Tell Sputnik congrats
and I'll see my first nephew soon.
As soon as I get back to the states.
Hope you guys are doing okay.
And keep sending the mail,
it makes getting through the days easier.
Well, I'm on my way to bed
so I will write you guys soon.
I love and miss all of you guys.'
I want him to be alive, and I can't make him alive.
Because your flesh just aches.
You want your child, it's out of sync,
a parent is not supposed to bury their child.
I feel sad for our family because we lost our son.
But I really feel sorry for the other families
that is losing their kids as we speak.
And for what?
I don't-- that's the, I guess, the sickening part.
For what?
You've heard a lot about Halliburton lately
Criticism is okay.
We can take it.
Criticism is not failure.
Our employees are doing a great job.
We're feeding the soldiers, we're rebuilding Iraq.
Will things go wrong?
Sure they will, it's a war zone.
We're serving the troops because of what we know,
not who we know.
Well let me tell you about Halliburton,the company I ran.
I'm very proud of what I did at Halliburton
and the people of Halliburton are very proud of
what they accomplished.
And I uh-- frankly uh-- don't feel any need
to apologize for the way I've spent my time
over the past five years as the CEO and chairman
of a major American corporation.
This is also an attempt to divert attention
away from the fact they have no energy policy!
And of the secretary of energy said:
'We were caught unawares!'
In the middle of the war, Microsoft, DHO,
and other corporations
invited Halliburton to a conference
to figure out how much money
could be made in Iraq.
Having worked this uh,
uh effort even since before the invasion the,
the uh liberation of Iraq started.
You in this trade are definitely
a vital part of that effort.
We appreciate your, your interest in this.
We need you.
Now lots of you are small businesses
and you're struggling.
How do we get piece of this big action?
All of you the big guys are gonna get it
and the rest of us will have
subcontracting capability or no, none at all.
... USDDA is for you.
Once that oil starts flowing and money coming,
it's gonna be lots of money.
It's the second largest reserve, oil, in the world.
There's no question about how much money's there.
I've been getting complaints from Iraqi firms
and from American firms,
that the lack of transparency, the corruption...
I think the profits that American companies
are making, the major, the main companies,
are so overwhelming.
I mean, like when you have a line item
for a million dollars
and you subcontract it out for fifty,
or sixty, or seventy thousand dollars,
that's a huge profit. And it's the American
taxpayer that's gonna pay for that.
And it's gonna get better.
Start building a relationship,
because it's gonna get much better
as the oil flows and the budget increase
and the good news is whatever it costs
the government will pay you.
War is always good for certain companies...
I mean that are in the war, the business of war.
We're very proud of the work we're doing.
Again it's supporting the US government and the US military
And the real heroes of the campaign, the real heroes of the
reconstruction are the men and women of the US armed forces.
And we're very proud to be any part of that
that we can, in supporting them.
Halliburton delivers hot meals,
supplies, clean clothing,
and communications to our soldiers
so they can be a little closer to home.
It's a girl!
Halliburton. Proud to serve our troops.
I just read in the paper Halliburton got another contract...
Halliburton got another contract...
it, which is not being... contested at all.
Because nobody knows.
Well, it's in the papers, so somebody knows.
But that's after it happens;
after the fact, it's too late.
The United States is now a major player
in the Iraqi oil business.
American troops guard the oil fields
as Texas oil workers
assess their potential.
It's a safe environment to work in.
Uh, we don't feel any risk,
we feel like we're being well protected here
or we wouldn't be here.
It's no secret, I mean,
I make anywhere's,
I don't know,
between two and three thousand a month.
A Halliburton employee out here drivin' a bus
can make all between eight and ten thousand a month.
Explain that one to me.
For forty hours a week...
driving the same two-and-a-half mile route.
Go figure. Where do you,
where's the justification in that?
There's no other single area of the world today
with the opportunity for business, new busness,
similar to the opportunity
that's available today in Iraq.
The United States is now a major player
in the Iraqi oil business.
American troops guard the oil fields as Texas oil
workers assess their potential.
The President went in and did what he did,
and we're all supporting him and our troops,
and we wanna make sure that, you know,
the efforts and the lost lives...
it wasn't for no reason.
If it wasn't for the oil nobody would be there.
Nobody would worry about it.
Unfortunately, at least for the near term we think
it's gonna be a good situation and, a dangerous situation.
Good for business, bad for the people.
Today on the news,
Rumsfeld was saying and, uh, wol--, wolf--,
Wolfowitz was saying,
"Oh, the Iraqi people are much much better off.
Isn't it better that we got rid of Saddam
and now the Iraqi people can do what they
wanna do and really be free?"
Will they ever be free?
No they'll not be free.
And where are the, are the weapons
of mass destruction?
It was an... we were duped.
We were really duped.
And these poor people - the young men and women
who are being killed there - it's unnecessary.
- I, I'm, that's it... no more.
-... disgrace...
They died in a just cause,
for defending freedom,
and they will not have died in vain.
Lila had called to tell me
that she was coming down from Flint to Washington,
DC to attend a jobs conference.
On her break she said she was going to go
and pay a visit... to the White House.
My son killed...
Bush lies. Kill people. Your children too.
Bush is a terrorist.
No he isn't. This is all staged.
This is all staged.
- Where was he killed?
-...you tell me my son is not a staged.
- Where was he killed?
- He was killed in Karballah.
- April 2nd is not a stage. My son is dead.
- There are lot of other people...
- What'd that woman yell at you?
- That I'm supposed to blame the al Qaeda.
The al Qaeda didn't make a decision
to send my son to Iraq.
The ignorance that we deal with with everyday people
'cuz they don't know - people think they know -
but you don't know.
I thought I knew but I didn't know.
I need my son.
God, it's tougher than I thought it was gonna be,
to be here.
But it's freeing also because I finally have a place
to put all my pain and all my anger
and to release it.
I guess I was tired of seeing people like Lila Lipscomb,
especially when, out of the 535 members of Congress,
only one had an enlisted son in Iraq.
I asked Corporal Henderson of the United States
Marine Corps to join me on Capitol Hill
to see how many members of Congress
we could convince to enlist their children
to go to Iraq.
- Congressman. I'm Michael Moore.
- Hey Mike, how you doin'? I'm good. John Tanner.
Nice to meet you.
Very nice to meet you.
- What are ya'all doin'?
- I'm here with our Corporal Henderson, US Marine Corps...
I was in the Navy years ago.
- You have kids?
- Yeah.
Is there any way we can get them to enlist?
And go over there, and help out with the effort?
I have all the brochures...
- Well I've got two children...
- Yeah, yeah, well, see there's not many Congressman
that've got kids over there.
In fact, only one, you know, so we just thought maybe um,
you know, that, you guys should send your kids there first.
What do you think of that idea?
- I don't disagree with it.
- Oh you don't?
Uh, good, well here, take some brochures, then here...
Take a Marine brochure.
Pass it around. Encourage fellow members, ya know,
if they're for the war to get behind it,
ya know, and send their own.
- Thank you,...
- Thank you, sir. Thank you very much.
Congressman? Michael Moore.
- How are you doing?
- Good good. Tryin' to get members of Congress to,
get their kids to enlist in the Army,
and, go over to Iraq.
Congressman? Congressman?
Of course, not a single member of Congress
wanted to sacrifice their child
for the war in Iraq.
And who could blame them?
Who would want to give up their child?
Would you?
Would he?
I've always been amazed that the very people
forced to live in the worst parts of town,
go to the worst schools,
and who have it the hardest
are always the first to step up,
to defend.
They serve so that we don't have to.
They offer to give up their lives
so that we can be free.
It is remarkably their gift to us.
And all they ask for in return
is that we never send them into harm's way
unless it's absolutely necessary.
Will they ever trust us again?
He had used weapons.
We know where they are,
they're in the area around Tikrit and Baghdad and,
and, east, west, south and north.
There is a tie between Iraq and what happened on 9/11.
The struggle can only end with their complete
and permanent destruction.
We wage a war to save civilization itself.
We did not seek it.
But we will fight it.
And we will prevail.
George Orwell once wrote,
that it's not a matter
"if the war is not real, or if it is.
Victory is not possible.
The war is not meant to be won,
but it is meant to be continuous."
"A hierarchical society is only possible
on the basis of poverty and ignorance,
this new version is the past
and no different past can ever have existed.
In principle the war effort is always planned
to keep society on the brink of starvation.
The war is waged by the ruling group against
its own subjects
and its object is not the victory
over either Eurasia or east Asia
but to keep the very structure of society
in tact."
There is an old saying in Tennessee, I know it's in Texas,
it's probably in Tennessee that says,
"Fool me once, shame on, shame on you.
It fool me, we can't get fooled again."
For once, we agreed.