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?
We want Gore!
Or was it real?
It was election night 2000, and things seemed to be going as planned.
In New York, Al Gore is our projected winner.
The Garden State is green for Gore.
We project Mr. Gore the winner in Delaware. This state has voted with...
Excuse me, one second. I'm sorry to interrupt.
Mike, 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.
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 at the networks made a mistake...
and projected Florida in the Al Gore column.
It was our mistake.
What most people don't know is that the man 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 your campaign chairman...
is also the vote-count woman and that her state hires a company...
to knock voters off the rolls who aren't likely to vote for you.
You can usually tell them by the color of their skin.
Then make sure your side fights like it's life or death.
This talk about legitimacy is way overblown.
President Bush! President Bush!
And hope the other side will just sit by, 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, Gore won the election.
It won't matter, as long as all your daddy's friends...
on the Supreme 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.
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 anoint...
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...
I must object because of the overwhelming evidence...
of misconduct, deliberate fraud and an attempt to suppress voter...
The chair must remind members that under Section 18 of Title 3...
United States Code, no debate is allowed in the joint session.
Thank you, Mr. President. To answer your question...
the objection is in writing, signed by a number of members...
of the House of Representatives, but not by a member of the Senate.
Mr. President, it is in writing and signed by several House colleagues...
on behalf, and myself, of the 27,000 voters of Duval County...
in which 16,000 of them are 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 missing.
It is in writing and signed by myself...
on behalf of many of the diverse constituents...
especially those in 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.
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 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 signed by a member of the Senate.
The chair will advise that the rules do care...
and the signature of a senator...
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 the objections...
- The gentleman will suspend... - New Democratic senators won't sign.
- I object. - The gentleman will suspend.
Inauguration coverage, 2001...
on a nasty, but it could be worse, kind of day in Washington.
- What do we want? - Justice!
- When do we want it? - Now!
On the day George W. Bush was inaugurated...
tens of thousands of Americans poured into the streets of D.C...
in one last attempt to reclaim what had been taken from them.
They pelted Bush's limo with eggs...
Stay back! Get back!
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 struggled to pass his legislation...
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.
Oh, no!
In his first eight months in office before September 11th...
George W. Bush was on vacation, according to The Washington Post...
42 percent of the time.
If 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 a lot of work.
What about these folks that say that you're taking too long of a vacation?
They don't understand the definition of work then.
I'm getting a lot done. You don't have to be in Washington to work.
It's amazing what can happen with telephones and faxes.
Thank you so much.
- Is this to Destiny and Bubba? - Yeah.
What are you doing the rest of the day?
Karen Hughes is coming over. We're working on some things.
And she'll be over here. We're working on a few things, a few matters.
I'm working on some initiatives. We're... You'll see.
There'll be some decisions I will have made while I'm here.
We'll be announcing them as time goes on.
The first time I met him, he had some good advice for me.
Governor Bush, it's Michael Moore.
Behave yourself, will you? Go find real work.
And work was something he knew a lot about.
- Anybody want some grits? - Yeah.
Relaxing at Camp David. Yachting off Kennebunkport.
How you doing?
Or being a cowboy on the ranch in Texas.
I love nature, getting in the truck with my dogs.
Oh, hi.
George Bush spent the rest of August at the ranch...
where life was less complicated.
Armadillos love to dig the soil looking for bugs.
And...
So I went out there the other day, and there was Barney...
buried in this hole, chasing an armadillo.
It was a summer to remember.
Afterward, he left Texas for his second-favorite place.
On September 10th, 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.
Do you suppose he's pretty confident...
on those numbers on Iraqi security forces?
Make me look young.
Yeah, I've got a little, sort of air noise.
Yeah, just don't turn it up too much. I don't want to blow my head off.
I got a mike here if they want to use it.
Testing, one, two. This is the Oval Office. Testing, one, two.
Testing, one, two. This is the Oval Office.
Testing, one, two, three, four, five.
We have something that has happened here...
at the World Trade Center. We noticed a flame...
and an awful lot of smoke...
This is horrible.
- Oh, my God! - Oh, my God.
Oh, my, dear.
Let's go! Let's go, back! Come on, let's go!
Oh, my God!
Save their souls, Lord. Save their souls, Lord.
Oh, they're jumping.
On September 11th, 2001, nearly 3000 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 or they've 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 his photo opportunity.
- Good morning, boys and girls. - Good morning.
Good morning.
Read this word the fast way. Get ready.
- Mad! - Yes. Get ready.
- Calf! - Yeah.
Get ready to read the words on this page without making a mistake.
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 counterterrorism?
Maybe Bush wondered 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 6th, 2001...
which said Osama Bin Laden was planning...
to attack America by hijacking airplanes.
Maybe he wasn't worried, because the title of the report was too vague.
I believe the title was Bin Laden Determined...
to Attack Inside the United States.
A report like that might make some men jump...
but, as in days past, 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 guy 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 better blame it on this guy.
In the days following September 11th...
all commercial and private airline traffic was grounded.
The FAA has taken the 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.
Thousands of travelers were stranded, among them Ricky Martin...
due to appear at tonight's Latin Grammy Awards.
Not even Ricky Martin could fly. But really, who wanted to fly?
No one, except the Bin Ladens.
We had some airplanes authorized to pick up...
Osama Bin Laden's family and other Saudis...
and transport them out of this country.
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 planes...
carried the Saudis and 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's always been portrayed as the black sheep in the family...
that they cut off all relationship with him in 1994.
In fact, things are much more complicated than that.
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. So they're not cut off completely. That's an exaggeration.
We now welcome to Larry King Live...
Prince Bandar, ambassador of the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia to the U.S.
You had about 24 members of Bin Laden's family, and...
- Here? - In America. Students and...
His Majesty felt it's not fair for those innocent people to be subjected...
to any harm, on the other hand, we understood the high emotions...
so, with coordination with the FBI, we got them all 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, it would have been prudent...
to hand the subpoenas out, have them come in, get on-the-record.
You know, get on-the-record.
- That's the proper procedure? - Yeah.
How many people were pulled off airlines after that...
coming into the country who were Middle Eastern...
or they fit a very general picture.
We held hundreds of people for weeks and months at a time.
Did the authorities do anything when the Bin Ladens tried to leave?
No. They were identified at the airport.
They looked at their passports, and they were identified.
That would happen to us if we left the country.
- Exactly. - Interview, check the passport.
- What else? - Nothing.
I don't know about you, but usually...
when the police can't find a murderer...
don't they usually wanna talk to the family members...
to find out where they think he might be?
You don't know where your husband might be?
If you hear anything, let us know.
Can you come downtown, give a statement?
- How long? - You've got time.
Mine's worth money. Yours isn't.
- Send a bill. - I asked you a question.
- Answer them. Don't ask them. - I pay your salary, cop.
Sit down. I'm gonna earn it.
Yeah. That's how cops do it. What was going on here?
We need to know more about that.
That needs to be the subject of an investigation.
What happened? How did it happen? Why? Who authorized it?
Imagine what those poor bastards were feeling...
when they were jumping off that building to their death.
Those young guys and cops and firemen...
that ran into that building, never asked a question.
And they're dead. And families' lives are ruined.
- And they'll never have peace. - That's right.
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 sleep over it? Not a minute.
No one would question it. Not even the biggest civil libertarian.
- No, no. It's just... - No one would question it.
You know, you got a lawyer? Fine. Counsel? Fine.
Mr. Bin Laden, this is why I'm asking. It isn't because I think 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 would have happened to Clinton...
- if that had been revealed? - Burn him! Burn him!
Prince Bandar, do you know the Bin Laden family?
- I do, very well. - What are they like?
They're really lovely human beings. He is the only one I never...
I don't know him well, but I met him only once.
What was the circumstance under which you met?
This is ironic. In the mid '80s...
if you remember, we and the United States...
were supporting the mujahideen...
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, the Communists. Isn't it ironic?
He came to thank you for helping bring America to help him.
And now he may be responsible for bombing America.
- Absolutely. - What did you make of him?
- I was not impressed. - Not impressed?
No. I thought he was a simple and very quiet guy.
A simple and quiet guy, whose family 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...
from his time in the Texas Air 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 the White House had Bath's name blacked out.
Why didn't Bush want the press and the 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 Air 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 by the name of Salem Bin Laden...
heir to the second-largest fortune in Saudi Arabia...
the Saudi Bin Ladin Group.
W. at that time was just starting off in the world as a businessman.
Because he's a guy who's always tried to emulate his father...
He went into the oil business. He founded an oil company, Arbusto...
which was 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 Daddy wrote a check to start him off in his company.
So where did George W. Bush get his money?
I'm George Bush.
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 suspected through the years that there has been...
Saudi oil money involved in all these companies.
Harken, Spectrum 7, Arbusto Drilling, all the Bush companies.
Whenever they got in trouble, there were these angel investors...
who flowed money into the companies.
The question is, why would Saudis, who had all the oil in the world...
go around the globe to invest in this lousy oil company?
And the thing is, Harken had one big 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 D.C., people tend to respect that. Access is power.
And I can find my dad and talk to him any time of the day.
Yes, it helps to be the president's son...
especially when you're being investigated...
by the Securities and Exchange Commission.
In 1990, when Mr. 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.
The James Baker law partner who helped Bush...
beat the rap from 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 seat...
on another board, of a company owned by the Carlyle Group.
We looked at which companies gained from September 11th.
We turned up this company, Carlyle Group, 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 D.C.
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.
Shafiq Bin Laden, who is Osama Bin Laden's half brother...
was in town to look after his family's investments in the Carlyle Group.
All of them together in one room, watching...
as the planes hit the towers.
In fact, the Bin Laden family was invested...
in one of their defense funds, which ironically meant...
that as the U.S. increased defense spending, the Bin Laden family...
stood to gain from those investments through the Carlyle Group.
Our commander in chief, President George W. Bush.
With all the weapons companies it owned...
the Carlyle Group was, in essence, the 11th largest...
defense contractor in the United States.
- Thanks a lot. - 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 made a one-day profit of $237 million.
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 adviser...
to Carlyle's Asia board for another two years.
As unseemly as it seems to know that George H.W. Bush...
was meeting with the Bin Laden family...
while Osama was a wanted terrorist, 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.
He receives daily CIA briefings, which is the right of any ex-president...
but very few ex-presidents actually exercise that right. 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?
Or is he representing both?
This company is about money, not conspiracies to run the world...
or engineer political maneuvering and things like that.
It's about making money, and it's about making a lot of money.
And they've done very well.
I could get 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 and will act properly in their conduct.
Okay, 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 over a number of years.
Who are you gonna like? Who's your daddy?
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.
Seems like a very nice reunion with friends.
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?
Because 1.4 billion just doesn't 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 widespread 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.
Investigation should have begun on September 12th.
There's no reason it shouldn't have. Three thousand were dead.
It should've 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 after Pearl Harbor...
and President Kennedy's assassination.
But when Congress did complete its own investigation...
the Bush White House censored 28 pages of the report.
The president is being pressed by all sides to declassify the report.
U.S. officials tell NBC News most of the secret sources...
involve Saudi Arabia.
We've given extraordinary cooperation with Chairmen Kean and Hamilton.
We haven't gotten the materials we needed...
and certainly haven't gotten them in a timely fashion.
Will you testify before the commission?
This commission? You know, I don't, testify? I'd be glad to visit with them.
What it will do is, the hole that's in my heart...
and has been in my heart since September 11th...
I lost my husband of 15 years. I am now by myself.
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 was taking 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. Okay.
Okay.
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 confidant, James A. Baker.
So right here in the center of three important American landmarks...
the Watergate Hotel and office building...
the Kennedy Center over there...
and the embassy of Saudi Arabia.
Yeah.
How much money do the Saudis have invested in America, roughly?
I've heard figures as high as $860 billion.
- Eight hundred and sixty billion? - Billion.
- That's a lot of money. - A lot, yeah.
And what percentage of our economy does that represent?
It seems like a lot.
Well, in terms of investments on Wall Street in American equities...
it's roughly 6 or 7 percent of America.
They own a fairly good slice of America.
Most of that money goes into the great blue-chip companies.
Citigroup, Citibank, the largest stockholder is a Saudi.
AOL-Time Warner 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 one day...
they pulled that trillion out?
A trillion dollars? That would be an enormous blow to the economy.
Can I speak to you for a moment, please, sir?
- How are you doing? - Good, how you doing?
Steve Kimball with the Secret Service. We're just ascertaining information.
Are you doing a documentary on the Saudi Arabian Embassy?
No. I am doing a documentary, and part of it is about Saudi Arabia.
Even though we were nowhere near the White House...
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. - Okay.
- You know. Is that...? - No, that's fine.
We just wanted to get some information as far as...
What's going on, yeah.
I didn't realize the Secret Service guards foreign embassies.
- Not usually, no, sir. - No. Do they give you any trouble?
- Saudis? - No comment on that.
Okay, I'll take that as a yes.
Good. Thank you very much.
It turns out that Saudi Prince Bandar is perhaps...
the best-protected ambassador in the U.S.
The U.S. State Department provides him with a six-man security detail.
Considering how he and his family and the Saudi elite...
own 7 percent of America, it's probably not a bad idea.
Prince Bandar was so close to the Bushes...
they considered him a member of the family.
They even had a nickname for him, Bandar Bush.
Two nights after September 11th, George Bush invited Bandar Bush...
over to the White House for a private dinner and a talk.
Even though Bin Laden was a Saudi...
and Saudi money had funded al Qaeda...
and 15 of the 19 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 15 hijackers?
Why would Saudi Arabia become reluctant...
to freeze the hijackers' assets?
The two of them walked 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 our response to al Qaeda. Let me talk about the response...
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 he wanted us to come back...
with the word that there was an Iraqi hand behind 9/11.
They planned to do something about Iraq before they came into office.
Did he ask about any other nations other than Iraq?
No, not at all. It was, Iraq, Saddam, find out, get back to me.
Were his questions more about Iraq than al Qaeda?
Absolutely. He didn't ask me about al Qaeda.
And the reaction you got from the defense secretary, Rumsfeld...
from his assistant, Paul Wolfowitz?
Donald Rumsfeld said, when we talked about bombing...
the al Qaeda infrastructure in Afghanistan...
he said, there are no good targets in Afghanistan.
Let's bomb Iraq.
And we said, but Iraq had nothing to do with this.
That didn't make much difference. The reason they had...
to do Afghanistan first was, it was obvious al Qaeda attacked us.
And it was obvious that al Qaeda was in Afghanistan.
Americans wouldn't stand by if we'd 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 them out of their holes.
We're gonna smoke them out.
- We'll smoke him out of his cave. - Let's rush them and smoke them out.
For all his tough talk, Bush really didn't do much.
Well, what they did was slow and small.
They put only 11,000 troops into Afghanistan.
There are more police here in Manhattan.
More in Manhattan than there are U.S. troops in Afghanistan.
The president botched the response. He should have gone right after Bin Laden.
The U.S. 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?
- Dang! 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.
From the point of view of the U.S. government...
this was kind of a magic pipeline...
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 five and a half 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 sorry to your husband. He must have a difficult time with you.
Here is the Taliban official visiting our State Department...
to meet with U.S. officials.
Why would the Bush administration allow a Taliban leader...
to visit the United States, knowing that the Taliban...
were harboring the man who bombed the U.S.S. 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 adviser to Unocal.
Bush also appointed, as our envoy to Afghanistan...
Zalmay Khalilzad, who was also a former Unocal adviser.
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 carrying natural gas from the Caspian Sea.
Oh, and the Taliban?
Oh, they mostly got away.
As did Osama Bin Laden and most of al Qaeda.
Terror is bigger than one person.
And he's a person who's now been marginalized.
So I don't know where he is.
I just don't spend that much time on him, to be honest with you.
Didn't spend much time on him? What kind of president was he?
I'm a war president. I make decisions here in the Oval Office...
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, like in James Bond...
- filled with poison as weapons. - Good evening.
America is on high alert tonight, just four days before Christmas.
- A possible terror 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.
The FBI is warning ferries may be considered particularly at risk...
for hijacking.
Could these cattle be a target for terrorists?
- Fear works. - Fear does work, yes.
You can 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 orange, up to red, then they dropped it back to orange.
I mean, they gave these mixed messages, which were crazy-making.
The world is changed after September the 11th.
It's changed because we're no longer safe.
Fly and enjoy America's great destination spots.
We have entered what may 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.
- Go down to Disney World in Florida. - It's like training a dog.
You tell him sit down and roll over at the same time, dog doesn't know...
what to do. American people were being treated like that.
It was very, very skillfully 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.
All right. You give me another one.
They will continue, in my view, as long as this administration is in charge...
of every once in a while, stimulating 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 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 room...
finally affordable to the average American citizen.
Protection formerly obtainable only by the wealthy or powerful.
Heck, you can be sitting in here, drinking your finest Bordeaux...
and enjoying life, 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.
It's an 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 30 seconds. It's real easy to put on.
- Here. - Sorry.
That's okay. Real easy to put on, but...
When you first get this chute, you're gonna wanna put it on...
- and try it on a few times yourself. - Jaime's having trouble putting that on.
Is this something that you honestly think, in a moment of panic...
that someone can operate properly?
Oh, yeah. It is. This is actually, Jamie's probably never...
put this thing on before in her life.
It's okay. It's something that, when you get it...
you're gonna wanna put it on several times.
Despite the raising of the terror alert level, residents here continue...
with their Christmas errands.
Frances and her family do some last-minute holiday shopping...
knowing 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 that far away.
I said, that could be something, and Flint could be something, be...
- concerns for people around here. - You never know...
where they're gonna hit, never know.
But one potential target specifically mentioned by the terrorists...
has security officials baffled. It's tiny Tappahannock, Virginia.
Population, 2016.
Such an attack could generate widespread fear...
that even here in rural, small-town America, no one is entirely safe.
On the 6 'o clock news there was an alert in Tappahannock.
- What did the FBI tell you? - Well, they contacted me by phone.
Basically let me know about this, were it Tappahannock.
- That's how it started. - In the so-called chatter they pick up...
they wasn't sure Tappahannock. There's a Rappahannock County...
- Rappahannock River. - There is a Rappahannock...
A place called Rappahannock. They got it mixed up.
This is Tappahannock, not Rappahannock.
- Is there any target around here? - Not that we can think of.
- It can happen anywhere. - Wal-Mart.
A big spaghetti supper in here.
Wal-Mart, probably.
Do you feel extra suspicious of outsiders?
Oh, everybody does that.
That's just something that happens.
When I look at certain people, I wonder, oh, my goodness.
Do you think they could be a terrorist?
- Never know what's gonna happen. - Right.
It could happen right now.
Never trust nobody you don't know.
And even if you do know them, you really can't trust them then.
From Tappahannock to Rappahannock...
to every town and village in America, the people were afraid.
And they turned to their leader to protect them.
But protect them from what?
Meet John Ashcroft.
In 2000, he was running for re-election as senator for Missouri...
against a man who died the month before the election.
The voters preferred the dead guy.
So George W. Bush made him his attorney general.
He was sworn in on a stack of Bibles.
Because when you can't beat a dead guy...
you need all the help you can get.
During the summer before 9/11...
Ashcroft told acting FBI director, Thomas Pickard...
that he didn't want to hear anything more about terrorist threats.
Mr. Watson had come to you and said that the CIA was very concerned...
that there would be an attack.
You said that you told the attorney general this fact repeatedly...
in these meetings. That correct?
I've told him at least on two occasions.
And you told the staff, according to this statement...
Mr. Ashcroft told you that he did not want to hear about this anymore.
- Is that correct? - That is correct.
His own FBI knew that summer there were al Qaeda members...
in the U.S. and Bin Laden was sending his agents to flight schools...
around the country.
But Ashcroft's Justice Department turned a blind eye...
and a deaf ear.
But after 9/11, John Ashcroft had some brilliant ideas...
for how to protect America.
The Patriot Act, adopted by Congress and signed by Bush...
six weeks after the attacks...
has changed the way the government does business.
The Patriot Act allows for searches of medical and financial records...
computer and telephone conversations...
and even for the books you take out of the library. But people we spoke to...
say they're willing to give up liberties to fight terrorism.
- Maybe that's a good thing. - It's sad, but it has to be done.
Yes, something needed to be done.
These are the good people who make up Peace Fresno.
A community group in Fresno, California.
Unlike the rest of us, they received an early lesson...
in what the Patriot Act is all about.
Each week, they meet to discuss matters of peace.
They sit around, they share stories, they eat cookies.
Some have more than one.
This is Aaron Stokes, a member of Peace Fresno.
The other members liked him.
He had come to the meetings, he went with us.
We go out on Friday nights and stand on a very busy corner in Fresno.
And he had gone with us, he had handed out fliers.
He went with us in June to a WTO protest.
Then one day, Aaron didn't show up to the meeting.
My friend Dan and I were reading the Sunday newspaper...
and when I picked up the paper, in the local section...
Aaron's picture caught my eye.
The article said that a sheriff's deputy had been killed...
and I saw it had a name that wasn't the right name...
that said that he was a member of the sheriff's antiterrorism unit.
That's right.
The photo of the man in the newspaper...
was not the Aaron Stokes they had come to know.
He was actually Deputy Aaron Kilner, and he had infiltrated their group.
Sheriff Pierce made it very clear that, yes...
Aaron Kilner was assigned to infiltrate Peace Fresno...
that he was able to infiltrate organizations...
that are open to the public.
You could understand why the police needed to spy...
on a group like Peace Fresno.
Just look at them.
A gathering of terrorists if I ever saw one.
This is Barry Reingold, a retired phone worker...
from Oakland, California.
Barry likes to work out in the gym.
Somewhere between his cardio and his strength training...
Barry got political.
We were up in the gym, and it was after we were working out...
and a number of us were talking about 9/11 and Afghanistan...
and Bin Laden, and someone said, Bin Laden's a real asshole...
for murdering those people. And I said, yeah, that's true.
But he'll never be as big an asshole as Bush...
who bombs all over the world for oil profits.
Barry didn't have to worry about the police spying on him.
His fellow weightlifters were more than willing to turn him in.
I was taking a nap, and I guess it was 1:30, 2:00 in the afternoon.
And they came to my place, and I said, well, who's there?
And they said, the FBI. I said, the FBI? Why are they here?
Yes, the FBI had come to see Barry. And they weren't there to Jazzercise.
The FBI said, have you been talking to people about 9/11 and Bin Laden...
and oil profits and Afghanistan? I said, a lot of people are talking...
about these things.
I feel my rights have been, you know, trampled on.
I mean, if you have something to say to me in the gym, well, then fine.
Don't tell the FBI, and they come to my apartment while I'm taking a nap.
There's nothing to be ashamed of here. There's full transparency.
There's nothing about the Patriot Act that I am ashamed of...
in any way, shape or form.
I have a 1-800 number. Call me.
I'm the guy you call if there's a violation or an abuse.
If you've got a poster child on this, I wanna see it. That's what I do.
I'm hired by the people to provide oversight. I provide oversight.
Trent Lott said, the day the bill was introduced...
maybe now we can do things we've wanted to do the last 10 years.
No, a dictatorship would be a heck of a lot easier, no question about it.
I mean, they had all this on the shelf somewhere.
Ideas of things they would like to do. And they got 9/11...
and they said, it's our chance, go for it.
There was an assumption of the administration...
that there had to be a surrender of certain of our rights.
There's troubling definitions in the bill.
First of all, the definition of terrorist, it's so expansive...
- that it could include people who... - Like me.
No one read it. That's the whole point.
They wait till the middle of the night, drop it in the night, print it in the night.
And the next morning when we come in, it passes.
How could Congress pass this Patriot Act without even reading it?
Sit down, my son.
We don't read most of the bills.
Do you really know what that would entail...
if we were to read every bill that we passed?
Well, the good thing, it would slow down the legislative process.
I couldn't believe that virtually no member of Congress...
had read the Patriot Act before voting on it.
So I decided the only patriotic thing to do...
was for me to read it to them.
Members of Congress, this is Michael Moore...
I would like to read you the U.S.A. Patriot Act.
Section 1.
Section 210 of this code reads as follows...
Section 2703C...
My job is to secure the homeland. That's exactly what we're gonna do.
But I'm here to take somebody's order.
That's you, stretch. What would you like?
- Right behind you. - I'm gonna order some ribs.
We all know you can't secure the homeland...
on an empty stomach. And in order to remain secure...
everyone needs to sacrifice.
Especially little Patrick Hamilton.
I'm sure each of us has our own airport-security horror story.
But here's my favorite.
The terrorist threat that was posed by his mommy's breast milk.
I thought if I put a little bit on my lips, that would be sufficient...
because obviously I'm tasting it. She looked at me, and I felt like...
she was telling me, chug that. She goes, you need to drink more.
And of a 4-ounce bottle, I wound up drinking...
2 more ounces of breast milk...
that then, because it's touched my lips, has to be tossed.
While homeland security was making sure breast milk...
was kept off our planes...
they were also doing everything possible to ensure no one...
could light a firebomb onboard.
- I can bring that on the plane? - Actually, yes, you're fine.
One too many books of matches.
You can have four books and two lighters.
When we already have the experience of the shoe-bomber...
who would have blown up an airplane...
if he had a butane lighter, according to the FBI...
why would Transportation Security Agency say it's okay...
to take four books of matches and two lighters...
as you board a plane? I'm guessing somebody put pressure on...
to say, when an airplane lands, people wanna light up...
so don't take their lighters away.
Let me see if I got this straight.
Old guys in the gym, bad. Peace groups in Fresno, bad.
Breast milk, really bad.
Matches and lighters on the plane? Hey, no problem.
Was this really about our safety? Or was something else going on?
This is where the Pacific Ocean meets the shores of Oregon.
Over 100 miles of beautiful, open coastline on our border.
And, thanks to the budget cutbacks...
the total number of state police protecting it...
One.
Part-time.
Meet Trooper Brooks.
I maybe get a chance to hit this stretch of highway...
once, maybe twice a week during my shifts.
You know, just to even drive up here and look.
You know, I mean, as far as I know, there's lots of things they could do.
I don't even wanna suspect, because it just makes me ill inside.
Back at the state trooper patrol office, thanks to the budget cuts...
Trooper Kenyon had to come in on his day off...
to catch up on some paperwork.
For the most part, especially during summer, when people show up...
this is what they get. They close the door.
They can read the sign about the office closure.
It just basically explains that due to our cutbacks...
our office is not open for administrative business.
There's a sign that explains when the office is closed...
they can use the phone booth to get in touch with our dispatch.
Ironically enough, that phone is a piece of junk.
It doesn't work very well, so half the time...
they pick up the phone and dispatch gets static.
They don't hear anything.
For Tuesday, there'll be no troop on patrol.
Wednesday, there'll be no troop on patrol.
Thursday, there'll be no troop on patrol.
You get calls all the time.
People will call in a suspicious vehicle...
or somebody looking suspicious.
And I don't hardly ever respond to that anymore.
I just don't have the time to do it.
I asked, how many people do we have in Oregon...
on duty tonight?
And we had eight troopers...
on for the entire state of Oregon, working.
I think Oregon is a prime example that homeland security...
is not as secure as what people would like to believe.
Nobody's sent me a manual that says, here's how you catch a terrorist.
If I had that manual, I'd read it. But I don't. So...
Yeah.
The Bush administration didn't hand out a manual...
on how to deal with the terrorist threat...
because the terrorist threat wasn't what this was all about.
They just wanted us to be fearful enough...
so that we'd get behind what their real plan was.
Four minutes.
- Right from the top. - All right.
- How much time? - Three minutes.
- Okay, folks. - Thirty seconds.
- Stand by. - Fifteen seconds.
Ten, nine, eight, seven, six, five...
four, three, two, one.
My fellow citizens...
At this hour, American and coalition forces...
are in the early stages of military operations...
to disarm Iraq...
to free its people and to defend the world from grave danger.
On my orders, coalition forces have begun striking...
selected targets of military importance...
to undermine Saddam Hussein's ability to wage war.
On March 19th, 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.
We're going to find this, I think this piece of my neighbor.
Young girl, age 20.
I think it's the other part of her body. That's all.
There is a lot of innocent civilians that were killed.
And I think that is because the U.S. Army...
we came in, and we knew it wasn't gonna be easy.
And pretty much at first shot anything that moved.
When war happens and fighting starts...
it's like we're pumped up, motivated, ready to go.
It's the ultimate rush.
Because you know you're going into the fight...
then you got a good song playing in the background.
And that gets you real fired up. Ready to do the job.
You can hook your CD player up...
to the tank's internal communications system.
When you put your helmet on you can hear it through the helmet.
This one we listen to the most.
This is the one, when we travel, we kill the enemy...
Drowning Pool. Let the bodies hit the floor...
is fitting for the job.
We picked the roof is on fire...
because it symbolized Baghdad being on fire.
At the time we wanted it to burn to get Saddam and his regime out.
The roof, the roof, the roof is on fire.
We don't need no water, let the motherfucker burn.
Burn, motherfucker, burn.
This is a totally different picture here being pushed into the city.
Urban warfare in a tank.
Civilians.
The civilians...
You don't know who's friendly, who's the enemy.
This is a lot more real and true than just a video game.
People thought it was gonna be, look through the sight and shoot. No.
A lot of this is face to face.
Especially riding by after some of the bombs went off...
and seeing all the people on the side of the road bloated up.
And all the smells around you from the people lying dead, rotted.
It's a lot more gruesome than you think.
We called in with some artillery and some napalm and things.
Some innocent women and children got hit.
We met them on the road, and they had...
little girls with noses blown off, and...
and...
husbands carrying their dead wives and things like that.
That was extremely difficult to deal with. You're like...
Shoot. What the hell do we do now?
The targeting capabilities and the care that goes into targeting...
is as impressive as anything anyone could see.
- Got him. - Good. Second one.
Get the other one.
The care that goes into it, the humanity that goes into it.
Honestly, I think we should just trust our president...
in every decision he makes, and we should support that.
You know? And 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 them. He's got them. He's got them.
Huh, that's weird.
Because that's not what Bush's people said when he first took office.
He hasn't developed capability...
with respect to weapons of mass destruction.
He's unable to project conventional power against his neighbors.
We're able to keep arms from him. Military forces haven't 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. The al Qaeda. Saddam. Saddam. Saddam. Al Qaeda.
It's only a matter of time before terrorist states...
armed with weapons of mass destruction...
develop the capability to deliver those weapons to U.S. cities.
We're giving you facts and conclusions...
based on solid intelligence.
He's a man who hates America.
This is a man who cannot stand what we stand for.
There's 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 got people to believe there was a threat when in fact there wasn't one.
You get told things every day that don't happen.
It doesn't seem to bother people.
The Democrats were there to put a stop to all these falsehoods.
I'll vote to give the president authority he needs.
United States is prepared to lead the 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's in that coalition of the willing? - You will find out who's in it.
The Republic of Palau.
The Republic of Costa Rica.
The Republic of Iceland.
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.
- 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 2000 monkeys...
to help detonate land mines.
These are men of vision.
The Netherlands.
And I'm proud to call them allies.
Afghanistan.
Afghanistan?
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, the flag and the troops has begun.
And we're gonna win!
You have to be with troops to understand the adrenaline.
I want you to know, I think Navy SEALs rock.
The pictures you're seeing are absolutely phenomenal.
When my country's at war, 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 had to strap me in with my camera at 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 damn 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.
Get out of the way!
Move! Move! Move! Move!
162, the number of troops killed by hostile fire.
- 244 U.S. troops... - 384 U.S. troops lost their lives...
- Total killed, 484. - Died in the line of duty, 500...
631 American troops...
More than 825 troops have been killed in Iraq.
The largest number of American military deaths since Vietnam.
There are some who feel like that if they attack us...
that we may decide to leave prematurely.
They don't understand, if that's the case.
Let me finish.
There are some who feel like the conditions are such...
that they can attack us there.
My answer is, bring them on.
The United States was planning on walking through 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 a fourth day today...
with street clashes in nearly every corner of the country.
Iraq could become another Vietnam.
Officials say they see evidence that Sunni and Shiite extremists...
might be joining forces.
They're not happy they're occupied.
I wouldn't be happy if I were occupied either.
Two Japanese aid workers and a journalist...
kidnapped by men calling themselves...
the Mujahideen Squadrons.
They threatened to burn the hostages alive...
if Japan does not withdraw its troops from Iraq within three days.
What's happened?
They attacked our convoy.
You wanna give us your name?
Hamill, Thomas.
The Pentagon might keep up to 24,000 troops in combat...
beyond their tour.
I know our numbers in the military have gone down.
They talk about retention.
I never expected 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 U.S. 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.
I was watching TV one day...
and they showed some of the areas that had been hit by bombs.
And while watching, I got to thinking...
there's parts of Flint that look like that.
And we ain't been in a war.
Look at the neighborhood I live in.
Most of them are abandoned. You know, I mean...
That's not right. You wanna talk about terrorism?
Come right here. President Bush, right here. Come right here.
He knows about this corner. I e-mailed him.
At the end of January of '04...
the unemployment rate in Flint was 17 percent.
But you have to take into consideration as well...
that when your unemployment runs out you're no longer counted.
I would say that we're close to at least 50 percent...
not working or underemployed.
Because being underemployed is just as dangerous.
My family has gone through the welfare system...
when it was Job Central.
In the mid '80s I came through the job training partnership program.
I went to a secretary school.
Years later, I'm 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.
People that don't have anything, that's who I have to fight for.
And that's who I have 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'd see all the things that I, as a mother, couldn't let them see.
It'd pay for their education that I, as their mother and father, couldn't pay.
The military is a good option for kids in Flint.
The military is an excellent option for the people of Flint.
How many of you have a friend or a family member in the service?
Anybody currently serving overseas?
- A brother of mine. - My cousin.
Yeah, cousin.
- Where's your brother? - Iraq.
Germany.
My cousin got shipped off to Iraq, like, three days ago.
Dang.
There's, like, an Army or Navy recruiter...
or Marines recruiter up there almost every week...
in the lunchroom recruiting students at the lunchroom.
There are people with a calling.
Most serve one weekend a month and two weeks a year.
Earning money for college.
Protecting their community.
In the Army National Guard...
you can.
I'm going into the Air Force.
I'm gonna take a year off after high school.
And then make a career. I wanna be an aircraft maintenance technician.
I ran into a recruiter, and there was something I noticed about it.
And this is kind of on another, I noticed it was odd.
More like he was hiring me than recruiting me for the Army.
It was the way he approached me. I was in Borders Books and Music.
He came up like he was handing us a business card.
He had business cards made for the Army.
Meet Marine Staff Sergeant Dale Kortman...
and Sergeant Raymond Plouhar.
They are two of the many recruiters assigned to Flint, Michigan.
They're very busy these days.
Look, he's running away already.
- He's seen us coming. - Yeah.
What have we got here?
- Need a little gangster. - Yeah.
We're heading over to the Courtland Mall right now.
They decided not to go to the wealthier...
Genesee Valley Mall in the suburbs.
They have a hard time recruiting young people there.
Instead, they went to the other mall.
- Let's go in through Mervyn's. - In through Mervyn's.
And then we'll walk straight down and straight back and then go down...
Gents, you know we're looking at you, right?
You guys ever think about joining up?
I thought about going to college and playing basketball.
- You any good? - Yeah. Especially basketball.
Good. You can play ball for the Marine Corps.
Travel around the world for the Corps basketball team.
- David Robinson was in the military. - Oh, was he?
Yeah, you can definitely hook it up.
Right now somebody out there wants to be a Marine but has no idea how to.
- Where you work at? - I work at KFC.
- Sweet. Hook us up with deals. - Yes.
They're waiting to get recruited.
I was gonna try a career in music or something.
Career in music? Maybe we can get you a career in music.
Let the Marines go for it. I'm sure you know who Shaggy is.
- You know anything about him? - Yeah, he's the Jamaican singer.
How about a former Marine?
Did you know it?
You need to know discipline if you're gonna get into music.
Especially discipline with the money.
If you make a million, you need to manage that money.
Come to the office, we can talk...
show you everything about the Marines.
- Sounds like a plan? - What you got going this afternoon?
How about tomorrow? 10:00 Monday morning?
- That sounds pretty good. - You want me to pick you up?
It's better to get them when they're in ones and twos...
and work on them that way.
Ladies, ready to join up?
Green hat right behind us.
- Looks young. He's young. - Yeah.
We got two over here...
right over by the red van.
You go that way, I go this way, we corner them.
- You're in the ninth grade? - Yes, sir.
Man, you look older than ninth grade.
All right, here's my card.
You ever thought about being a Marine, man?
I've thought about it. I've got a wife and kid now.
Even more reason to join up.
What I want to do, man...
is get information from you so I can scratch you off my list...
saying I've talked to you, and you're not interested. Is that cool?
What's your name? Phone number? What's your address?
Add another one to the list.
However, one would love to have that chance to experience college life.
You know, stuff young people can do without having the risk...
of dying in the process, I guess I can say candidly.
The holidays add a bit more friction, as opposed to just another night...
in the fact we wanna give our guys a little time off, time to relax.
However, we are in a combat zone, and 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.
Maximum, one AK-47.
We always expect the targets to be armed.
Rock 'n' roll.
These are fucking bolt cutters.
This goddamn thing to pry doors open.
Pop this in there...
Hey, Adele, just hold up.
No, no, no, no.
Where's she going?
- I'll go with her. - Where's she going?
She's gonna call him.
She's gonna call him? No, no, no. Where is he at right now?
Not on the phone. Not on the phone.
Is he in the house? Is he in the house?
- Passerelli! Passerelli! - Is he in the house?
He is? He is in the house? Where?
- This is him? - Get up there, second floor!
Watch out. Go, go, go! Watch out, Adele, watch out.
I have one coming up.
That's Suheib Al Douri?
- What's your name? - Suheib.
- This is Suheib. Yeah. - This is Suheib.
- This is Suheib? - Yeah.
Stand him up. Get up.
Tell them to calm down, please. We will not be long.
We appreciate your cooperation. This is the target.
Suheib Al Douri. Bring him out.
We have to, 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 ideal of democracy and freedom to the country...
and show them that the American people are not here to rule Iraq.
I start doing evidence turn-in. That process takes about three hours.
So that's gonna be it for the night.
That concludes Christmas Eve.
Merry Christmas, PRT. Merry Christmas.
Santa came to Iraq just for you guys.
Trying to keep skies clear for you, Santa.
Do you consider yourself a proud American?
Absolutely.
I'm an extremely proud American. I'm probably more proud...
than the average Joe.
When I put my flag out, 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.
- How often do you put the flag out? - Every single day. Every day.
I started when my daughter was in Desert Storm.
I had the same flag...
flying on my front porch and the same yellow ribbons.
Praying and hoping every day that my child would come home safe.
And everybody's child would come home safe.
- And she did. - And she did.
Have other family members been in the military?
Absolutely. Uncles, aunts...
cousins, brothers, father.
- Very strong military family. - 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...
that this country was founded on their backs.
I have been known to be a conservative Democrat. Yeah.
- That's what you consider yourself? - Yeah.
- Yeah, it's a great country. - It's a great country. It's a great country.
The cross that I choose to wear is a multicultural, multicolor cross.
That's because I believe that all God's people come in many colors.
And my family itself is multicultural.
You have a daughter who went into the military.
Then your first-born son, in the military.
That's quite a gift to the country from your family.
So having a son in the Army, pretty proud thing.
Oh, you know what? He made it.
What was your reaction to protestors during the Gulf War or Vietnam?
I always hated the protestors.
It was just a slap in my face.
It was just like they were dishonoring my son.
And I burned in my soul to tell them, you don't understand.
They're not there because they wanna be there.
But then I came to understand they weren't protesting the men...
and women 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 was saying, there's some disillusionment in that.
Battalion commander fully expects us to be...
attacked in some type of way...
before we get to FARP Shell.
I know that so far it's been pretty calm.
Not much has happened.
But be aware that it can, and it probably will.
They're beginning to organize themselves, just in neighborhoods.
The kids get together a lot. Well, I can't say kids...
but guys about 17, 18...
starting to come together.
They hate us. Why, I'm not really sure.
Immoral behavior 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, is he ticklish?
Don't tell me you don't know.
To have these people shoot at us, kill us, blow us up...
whatever, means they can.
And I don't understand it.
We're trying to help these people, and it seems...
they don't want our help. Get out of here!
The minute something goes wrong, why weren't you here?
Why didn't you do this? You know, it's...
I hate this country.
You know, you... I feel that a part of your soul...
is destroyed in taking another life.
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.
What repercussions do you face if you don't?
Possible jail time.
That's one possible thing.
- Are you willing to risk that? - Yes.
Yes, I...
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 percent...
and assistance to their families by 60 percent.
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.
When Staff Sergeant 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 gonna leave any veteran behind...
but they're leaving all kinds of veterans behind.
To say we're forgotten, I know we're not. But missed? Yes.
Yes. There's a lot of soldiers that have been missed...
that have been skipped over.
Didn't get the proper coverage they deserved.
There's a death toll, but not showing the injured or amputated.
- I still feel like I have hands. - Yeah.
And the pain is like my hands are being crushed in a vise.
But they do a lot to help it...
and they take a lot of the edge off it.
It makes it a lot more tolerable.
I was injured in late April on patrol in Baghdad.
A couple 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.
I take a lot of morphine...
to help with that and stuff.
I'm doing...
Doing, you know, just readjusting.
Getting life back on track.
You know what I'm saying?
I'm not gonna do what it is that I did before.
I was a Republican for quite a few years.
And...
for some reason, they...
they conduct business in a very dishonest way.
I'm gonna be incredibly active in the Democratic Party...
down where I live once I get out.
I'm gonna definitely do my best...
to ensure that the Democrats win control.
Iraq, Baghdad, I didn't know anything of those things.
And we were in the hallway in the upstairs of our house...
and he was crying and said that he was really scared.
And he didn't want to have to go to Iraq.
So we had a conversation about, sometimes some fear is healthy...
because it keeps our senses about us.
That's when he told me he hadn't told anybody 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 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.
I was in bed, flipping the channels with the remote.
All I heard was, Black Hawk down, 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 are being told by officers on the ground...
that there were six occupants inside the Black Hawk.
The next morning I got up, and I said...
You push those sad thoughts out of your mind.
Okay, Jesus, I need you to come in.
I need you, Jesus. You gotta 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 Sergeant Michael Pedersen?
And I remember dropping the telephone.
And all I can honestly say 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 literally fell on the floor.
And I was alone. I didn't have anybody to pick me up.
So I literally crawled over to my desk...
and 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 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?
I... I... I... I'm...
I can't imagine what it must be like to lose a son or a daughter...
or a husband and... or a wife, for that matter.
And I... it pains me.
Do you have his last letter?
It was mailed March 16th...
but I didn't get it until probably a week before 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 and 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 am 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 am 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.
But your flesh just aches.
You want your child. It's out of sync.
A parent is not supposed to bury their child.
I feel, I feel sad for my 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... 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.
Let me tell you about Halliburton, the company I ran.
I'm proud of what I did at Halliburton.
The people are proud of what they've accomplished. I, frankly...
don't feel any need to apologize...
for the way I've spent my time over the last five years...
as the CEO and chairman of a major American corporation.
This is also an attempt to divert attention...
from the fact they have no energy policy.
And as the secretary of energy said, we were caught unawares.
In the middle of the war, Microsoft, DHL and other corporations...
invited Halliburton to a conference...
to figure out how much money could be made in Iraq.
Having worked this...
effort, even since before the, the invasion...
the liberation of Iraq started.
You, industry, are definitely a vital part of that effort.
We appreciate your interest in this. We need you.
Lots of you are small businesses and you are struggling.
How do we get a piece of this? You big guys are gonna get it.
The rest of us will have subcontracting capability or none at all.
USTDA is for you.
Once that oil starts flowing...
and money coming, gonna be lots of money.
It's the second-largest reserve of oil in the world.
No question of how much money's there.
I've been getting complaints from Iraqi firms and American firms.
The lack of transparency, the corruption.
I think the profits American companies are making, the main companies...
are so overwhelming.
I mean, when you have a line item for a million dollars...
and you subcontract it out for 50 or 60 or $70,000...
that's a huge profit.
It's the American taxpayer that's gonna pay for that.
And it's gonna get better. Start building relationships.
Because it's gonna get much better...
as the oil flows and their budgets increase.
Good news is, whatever it costs, the government will pay you.
War is always good for certain companies...
that are in the war, the business of war.
We're very proud of the work we are doing,
supporting U.S. government and military.
The real heroes of the campaign and the reconstruction...
are the men and women of the U.S. Armed Forces.
We're proud of being any part 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. - That's right.
Which is not being...
contested at all.
Because nobody knows.
Well, it's in the paper, 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. We don't feel any risk.
We feel we're being well protected here, or we wouldn't be here.
It's no secret. I mean...
I make anywhere between 2 and 3000 a month.
A Halliburton employee out here driving a bus...
can make between 8 and 10,000 a month. Explain that one to me.
For 40 hours a week.
Driving the same two-and-half-mile route.
Go figure.
Where's the justification in that?
There's no other single area of the world today...
with the opportunity for business, new business...
similar to the opportunity that's available today in Iraq.
The president went in, did what he did.
We're all supporting him and our troops.
We wanna make sure that the efforts and the lost lives...
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, a dangerous situation.
Good for business, bad for the people.
Today on the news, Rumsfeld was saying...
and Wolfowitz was saying...
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 weapons of mass destruction?
It was a... We were duped. We were really duped.
And these poor people...
the young men and women who are being killed there.
- It's unnecessary. - That's a disgrace.
- That's it. No more. - That's a disgrace.
They died in a just cause, for defending freedom...
and they will not have died in vain.
Lila had called to tell me she was coming down from Flint...
to Washington D.C. to attend a jobs conference.
On her break, she said she was going to go...
and pay a visit to the White House.
Bush killed children. Iraqi children.
- My son, killed. - Killed my people in Spain, yesterday.
- Lies kill people. Your children too. - Yes, my son.
They have no business to do in Iraq now. They're killing...
- all these young Americans. - Yes.
For what? For oil. Bush is a terrorist.
- No, he isn't. This is all staged. - Yes, he is.
- This is all staged. - My son.
- Where was he killed? - You tell me my son is not a stage.
- Where was he killed? - He was killed in Karbala.
April 2nd. It's not a stage. My son is dead.
There are a lot of other people too.
Blame al Qaeda.
What did 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.
Ignorance that we deal with, with everyday people.
Because 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 suffer.
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, Michael. How are you doing? - Good.
- John Tanner, from Tennessee. - Very nice to meet you.
- What y'all doing? - I'm here with Corporal Henderson.
- United States Marine Corps. - Corporal, I was in the Navy.
- 1968 to '72. - Okay.
We had Marines guarding the base.
- 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've got all the brochures. - One of them has got two children.
See, there's not many congressmen that have kids over there.
In fact, only one. You know.
So we just thought maybe they...
- You guys should send your kids first. - That's right.
- What do you think about that? - I don't disagree.
You don't? Oh, good. Well, take some brochures.
- At least take a Marine brochure. - Thank you.
- Pass it around. - Yeah, well...
Encourage the fellow members if they're for the war to get behind it.
- Send their own. - Thank you.
Thank you, sir. Thank you very much.
Congressman? Michael Moore.
- How you doing today? - Good.
I'm trying to get members of Congress to get their kids to enlist in the Army...
and go over to Iraq.
Congressman.
Congressman Castle? Congressman Castle?
Congressman. Congressman.
Congressman Doolittle, Michael Moore.
I was wondering if...
Is there any way to...?
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 wanna 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 that very system.
They serve so that we don't have to.
They offer to give up their lives so that we can be free.
It is remarkable, 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.
Around Tikrit, Baghdad 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 of whether the war is not real or if it is.
Victory is not possible.
The war is not meant to be won. 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 intact.
There's an old saying in Tennessee.
I know it's in Texas, probably in Tennessee.
Fool me once...
shame on...
shame on you.
You fool me, we can't get fooled again.
For once, we agreed.