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Fahrenheit 9/11 controversy

Fahrenheit 9/11, Michael Moore's 2004 documentary film about Bush, 9/11, and Iraq, has generated controversy and criticisms from a wide variety of sources.

Alternate Fahrenheit 9/11 poster
Contents

Release controversy

Originally planned for distribution by Mel Gibson's Icon Productions , Fahrenheit 9/11 was later picked up by Miramax after Icon released claims to the movie in May 2003, citing image conflicts while claiming the decision to be apolitical. Miramax had earlier distributed another film for Moore, The Big One, in 1997.

In May 2004, Moore announced that Disney (the parent company of Miramax) was blocking the distribution of Fahrenheit 9/11 in North America, citing a contractual clause expressly permitting it to do so in such cases as a prohibitive budget or explicit movie rating. However, Miramax executives indicated this was not the case. Disney stated that both Moore's agent, Ari Emanuel , and Miramax were advised in May 2003 that Miramax would not be permitted to distribute the film. Disney representatives claim that Disney has the right to veto any Miramax film if it appears that their distribution would be counterproductive to the interests of the company.

An unnamed Disney executive said that the film is against Disney's interests not because of government business dealings, but because releasing it would risk being "dragged into a highly charged partisan political battle" and alienating customers. Emanuel stated that Disney chief executive Michael Eisner requested he back out of the Miramax deal, expressing concerns about political fallout from conservative politicians, especially regarding tax breaks given to Disney properties in Florida (e.g., Walt Disney World), where Jeb Bush is governor. Disney also has financial ties to members of the Saudi royal family, who were represented unfavorably in the film. Moore acknowledged in a later CNN interview that Disney had told him they did not want the film the previous year, however, he had been informed by the liaisons to Disney to continue filming, anyway, and they would convince the firm's higher-ups. Seemingly in approval, Disney continued to fund Fahrenheit 9/11 throughout the remaining year of production. Due to these difficulties, distribution for the film was first secured in numerous countries other than the U.S. On May 28, 2004, after more than a week of talks, Disney announced that Miramax film studio founders Harvey and Bob Weinstein had personally acquired the rights to the documentary from Walt Disney Co., after Disney declined to distribute it. One month later, the major rights to the film reverted completely to Lions Gate Films, which in partnership with the Weinstein's newly-formed company Fellowship Adventure Group (which handled its home video distribution via Columbia/Tri-Star Home Entertainment) and IFC Films acquired the film for domestic theatrical distribution, beating out other studios such as Fox Searchlight and United Artists. Furthermore, a settlement was reached so that any profits from the film's distribution that go to Miramax or Disney would be donated to charity. The Weinsteins repaid their parent company for all costs of the film to that point, estimated at around $6 million. They also agreed to be responsible for all costs to finish the film and all marketing costs not paid by any third-party film distributors. Moore called the deal a "fair and equitable solution" and added that he was "grateful to them now that everyone who wants to see it will now have the chance to do so."

After being informed that the film had been rated R by the Motion Picture Association of America, Moore appealed the decision, hoping to obtain a PG-13 rating for the movie instead (the R rating requires anyone under the age of 17 to be accompanied by a parent or adult guardian, otherwise they will not be admitted). Moore's lawyer, former Governor of New York Mario Cuomo, was not allowed at the hearing. The appeal was denied on June 22, 2004, and Gov. Cuomo contends it was because he was banned from the hearing. Some theaters chose to defy the MPAA and allow unchaperoned teenagers to attend anyway. The United States Conference of Catholic Bishops' Office For Film And Broadcasting gave the film its A-III rating, meaning that it is, in their judgment, "morally unobjectionable for adults" (this is the mildest rating typically given by the organization to motion pictures that are rated R by the MPAA). Moore has commented that he is willing to "sneak anyone in." The film was released domestically in June of 2004, thus the U.S. still became the first country to see the film's actual theatrical release, despite the fact that the arrangements for international distribution were finalized earlier. On October 5, 2004, when the film was released to home video, the theatrical distribution rights reverted back to the Fellowship Adventure Group, although Lions Gate still holds the copyright under a dummy company pseudonym (as they have done for their other in-house productions).

Ray Bradbury's title dispute

The title of the film refers to Ray Bradbury's novel Fahrenheit 451 and the September 11 attacks of 2001. The Fahrenheit 451 reference is emphasized by the film's tagline "The temperature where freedom burns" (compare with Fahrenheit 451's tagline, "The temperature at which books burn"). Moore has stated that the title came from the subject of an e-mail he received shortly after September 11th.

Ray Bradbury was upset by what he considered the appropriation of his title, saying of Moore, "he stole my title and changed the numbers without ever asking me for permission", and calling Moore a "horrible human being" (both quotes occurred in an interview with the Swedish daily newspaper Dagens Nyheter. [1]). He also reportedly is demanding an apology from Moore and wants the film renamed [2]. However, since Bradbury has not trademarked the title, legal action is unlikely.

When Dagens Nyheter asked him about his own political position, Bradbury replied: "That has nothing to do with it. He copied my title; that is what happened. That has nothing to do with my political opinions." It is not unusual for titles to allude to or quote familiar works of literature. Several of Bradbury's own titles are quotations, although from dead authors: "Something Wicked This Way Comes" (Shakespeare); "I Sing the Body Electric!" (Whitman) and "Golden Apples of the Sun" (Yeats).

Attacks on the film

Move America Forward's letter-writing campaign

The group Move America Forward , which has ties to Sacramento, California PR firm Russo, Marsh and Rogers , the campaign to prevent CBS from showing The Reagans, and the campaign to unseat California Governor Gray Davis, mounted a letter-writing campaign to ask theaters not to show the film, which it compared to "an al-Qaeda training video" [3]. "We've been causing them [the cinemas] an enormous amount of aggravation." said talk radio host Melanie Morgan . [4] However, no theaters reported cancelling their showings.

Citizens United's FEC challenge

Citizens United, a group run by David Bossie, a critic of Bill Clinton, has filed a complaint before the Federal Election Commission charging that ads for the film constitute political advertising and thus may not be aired 60 days before an election or 30 days before a party convention. On August 5, the FEC unanimously dismissed the complaint finding no evidence that the movie's ads had broken the law. [5]

Controversy about the film's content

Some critics contend that Fahrenheit 9/11 contains distortions and untruth. Some say that the movie is propaganda. In response, Moore has published both an extensive list of facts and sources for Fahrenheit 9/11 and a document establishing agreements between the points made in his film and the findings of the September 11 Commission. Both can be found on his personal website as well as several others.

U.S. presidential election, 2000

The introduction to the movie includes a collage of video footage depicting the events surrounding the U.S. 2000 presidential election, particularly those involving the contested Florida recount. This fragment of the movie is presented to convey the illegitimacy of Bush as a president. It includes a newspaper headline reporting that Gore actually received more votes in Florida than Bush did and a quote by Michael Moore expressing his opinion that Gore would have won if the Supreme Court had not interfered with the recount process. However, there are differing views of what would have happened had a recount occurred. The movie shows a clip of CNN legal analyst Jeffrey Toobin stating that "if there was a state-wide recount, under every scenario, Gore won the election." A comprehensive six-month study commissioned by a consortium of media organizations including CNN, The New York Times, and the Washington Post concluded that Gore would have won if there had been a statewide recount of all disputed ballots. The study also concluded that Bush would have won the election under the recount system in place at the time the US Supreme Court intervened to halt the recount, and that Bush would have won under a partial-recount scheme suggested by Gore. For more information, refer to the Florida Ballot Project recounts. In the end, Al Gore won 543,895 more votes overall, but because of the outcome in Florida, Bush was awarded 5 more electoral college votes. [6]

Moore's description of media reports of the poll results has also been criticized. Moore states that John Prescott Ellis, a full cousin of George W. Bush, was a consultant to FOX News that night. He attributes the retractions of the call that Gore won Florida to FOX News, saying “Then something called the Fox News Channel called the election in favor of the other guy.... All of a sudden the other networks said, ‘Hey, if Fox said it, it must be true.’" However, FOX had called Florida for Gore at 7:52 pm EST, just like the other networks, and did not retract this call until 2:16 am, whereas CNN and CBS had both retracted their claims at 10 pm, four hours before FOX. FOX was the first network to call the state for Bush, at 2:16 am, and all other networks had done so within four minutes. To imply, as Moore does, that this retraction was because of FOX has been disputed, as all networks were receiving the same data from the Voter News Service at about the same time. By that time, most networks were not relying primarily on VNS, due to known malfunctions in the service. All the networks later retracted the call for Bush between 3:59 am and 4:07 am.

Saudi flights

Moore implicates the Bush administration in allowing relatives of Osama bin Laden to leave the United States without being thoroughly interviewed by the FBI. In his narration in the movie, Moore states that "At least six private jets and nearly two dozen commercial planes carried the Saudis and the Bin Ladens out of the US after September 13th." While private flights were still generally banned at this time, the movie does not mention that the ban on commercial flights was lifted on September 13. Moore has based this on a book by Craig Unger called House of Bush, House of Saud. Passenger lists can be found here.

Richard Clarke's various statements regarding the approval of the flights

Critics point to various statements and testimony by former counterterrorism chief Richard Clarke, which they contend indicates that Clarke had the initial responsibility which he then passed off to Dale Watson who was the agent in charge of investigating the September 11, 2001 attacks at the FBI.

However, Clarke's statements about the flights and how they were approved have varied over time. The following is a chronological summary:

  • September 3, 2003: In his testimony before the Senate Judiciary Committee's Subcommittee on Terrorism , Clarke said: "It is true that members of the bin Laden family were among those who left. We knew that at the time. I can't say much more in open session, but it was a conscious decision with complete review at the highest levels of the State Department and the FBI and the White House."
  • March 24, 2004 [7]: In testimony to the 9/11 Commission, Clarke indicated that the request was not abnormal, "The Saudi embassy, therefore, asked for these people to be evacuated; the same sort of thing that we do all the time in similar crises, evacuating Americans." He goes on to explain that the FBI eventually approved the flights and he describes conversations in which the FBI has said that there was no one who left on those flights who the FBI now wants to interview.
However, under questioning by Commission member Tim Roemer, Clarke appeared to suggest that the White House may have had a role in originating the request for approval: "I would love to be able to tell you who did it, who brought this proposal to me, but I don't know. The two -- since you press me, the two possibilities that are most likely are either the Department of State or the White House Chief of Staff's Office. But I don't know."
  • May 25, 2004: In an interview with The Hill newspaper, published the following day [8], Clarke said "I take responsibility for it. I don't think it was a mistake, and I’d do it again." He went on to say that "It didn’t get any higher than me... On 9–11, 9–12 and 9–13, many things didn't get any higher than me. I decided it in consultation with the FBI."

Critics of Moore have, on the basis of Clarke's statements about the flights, attacked the fact that Moore does not mention Clarke's testimony or the FBI's role in the approval of the flights. Moore's supporters contend that Clarke's statements on the matter have been inconsistent, and that his statement in March that the "request for approval" may have originated in the White House and may have been an executive decision passed down for approval by inferiors.

Since leaving his White House position, Clarke has become a prominent critic of the Bush administration's war on terrorism and the movie includes footage of many of Clarke's statements.

The FBI's denial that it had a role in approving the flights

On May 18, 2004, Washington newspaper The Hill quoted FBI spokesman on counterterrorism John Iannarelli as denying that the FBI had any "role in facilitating these flights one way or another." [9]

The FBI's denial of involvement was repeated to The Hill by another spokesperson, Donna Spiser , in the May 26, 2004 article. She is quoted as saying "We haven’t had anything to do with arranging and clearing the flights." [10] She states that the FBI's involvement was limited to interviewing those people on the flight it thought were of interest: "We did know who was on the flights and interviewed anyone we thought we needed to".

Statements by Commission members regarding the flights

The May 18 article in The Hill, which was published prior to Clarke's May 25 claim of full responsibility, quoted 9/11 Commission vice-chair Lee Hamilton as saying: "We don't know who authorized [the flights]. We’ve asked that question 50 times."

The May 26 article in The Hill another Commission member, Tim Roemer, as being unconvinced by Clarke's claim of sole responsibility for approving the flights: "It doesn't seem that Richard Clarke had enough information to clear it... I just don't think that the questions are resolved, and we need to dig deeper... Clarke sure didn't seem to say that he was the final decisionmaker. I believe we need to continue to look for some more answers." [11]

Alleged lack of cooperation from the White House over Saudi flights investigation

Allegations concerning the Bush administration's refusal to provide information to the 9/11 Commission about the Saudi flights are disputed. The May 18, 2004 article in The Hill [12] says that Democratic Commission member Lee Hamilton "disclosed the administration’s refusal to answer questions on the sensitive subject during a recent closed-door meeting with a group of Democratic senators, according to several Democratic sources." However it also says that Republican Commission member John Lehman "said... that he told the senators the White House has been fully cooperative."

Moore's claim about inadequate interviewing of bin Laden relatives

Moore also claims that the bin Laden relatives were not seriously interviewed by the FBI before being allowed to leave. However, the September 11 Commission has found that 22 of the 26 people on the "bin Laden" flight were interviewed before being allowed to leave the country with many being asked "detailed questions". [13] (section The Saudi Flights p. 12)

A September 2, 2004 CNN news article reported that "However, in a recent interview with the AP, bin Laden's estranged sister-in-law said she does not believe that family members have cut him off entirely. Carmen Binladin, who has changed the spelling of her name and lives in Switzerland, said bin Laden is not the only religious brother in the family, and she expects his sisters support him, too. 'They are very close to Osama,' she said."

Taliban visit

Members of the Taliban are shown visiting Texas during George W. Bush's term as governor. Critics allege that Moore mentions this in order to imply that Bush invited the Taliban. They counter that the Taliban contingent was hosted by oil company Unocal, and their visit to the US was authorized by the Clinton administration, which also met with Taliban members [14] (although the Clinton administration later imposed economic sanctions against the Taliban [15]), and that the Bush governorship did not meet with the Taliban during that time. In the United States, state governors have no authority with respect to the hosting of foreigners in their state.

Moore also links the Bush Presidential Administration with the Taliban by reporting that this Administration met with Taliban representatives in the United States in early 2001. The Bush administration contends that its primary goal in these meetings was to encourage the Taliban to extradite Osama bin Laden.

War on Iraq

The film presents the war on Iraq as an attack on a sovereign nation that has never murdered a single American citizen. The film makes a case against components of the Bush Doctrine, specifically against the concepts of pre-emptive war combined with American unilateralism. The film also contends that the focus of the United States should have been directed elsewhere - that the primary aim of United States' military and foreign policy should have continued undistracted on its efforts to find, capture and destroy Al-Qaida, their leader Osama bin Laden, their close allies and influential sympathizers, rather than attacking, invading and occupying Iraq.

Critics point out that the film does not mention the history of repression, aggression, and alleged war crimes under the rule of Saddam Hussein, nor Iraq's reported noncompliance with numerous United Nations resolutions ([16]). On the other hand, Moore has frequently stated his opinion that Hussein was a "bad man" and a tyrant, though this opinion is not mentioned in the film; to the contrary, Moore presents Hussein's Iraq as a happy country. Moore has stated that noting Saddam's crimes was unnecessary considering that mainstream media have continually pressed this point themselves, making it public knowledge. Many critics and opponents alike consider this issue a red herring due to the fact that, despite the criminal acts committed by Saddam, the unprovoked invasion of a sovereign nation is still a violation of international law.

Bush, Unocal, and the war in Afghanistan

Moore alleges connections between George W. Bush's decision to begin the U.S. invasion of Afghanistan and Unocal's desire to build a gas pipeline in the country. Moore asks: "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." Moore goes on to say 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."

However, when Bush took office in 2001, Unocal had already withdrawn plans for the proposed pipeline in Afghanistan. Unocal formally withdrew its support from the project after the U.S. missile strikes against Afghanistan in August 1998 [17], reiterated its position in 1999 [18] after several inaccurate media reports, and reiterated its position again in 2002. The United States Energy Information Administration reports that no major Western companies have expressed interest in reviving the Trans-Afghanistan Pipeline plan [19]. However, in 2002 Hamid Karzai and Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf agreed to revive plans of a trans-Afghan gas pipeline; Alim Razim, Afghanistan's minister for Mines and Industries, described UNOCAL as the "lead company" in the revived plans, although they continue to deny renewed involvement.

Furthermore, both Unocal and Karzai have denied through spokesmen that they ever had a business relationship of any kind; this claim appears to have originated in the French newspaper Le Monde and resurfaced in the American Christian Science Monitor. The allegations have also been widely repeated in European newspapers, although UNOCAL has consistently denied them.

Secret Service guarding Saudi embassy

During a scene filmed outside of the Saudi Embassy in which Moore is discussing the level of Saudi investment in the U.S. economy with Craig Unger, they are approached by uniformed Secret Service officer Steve Kimbell. Kimbell explains that he is just ascertaining information, and asks Moore if he is doing a documentary regarding the Saudi Arabian embassy. In voiceover narration, Moore notes that "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." Moore responds to the officer by saying, "I didn't realize the Secret Service guards foreign embassies," to which the officer replies, "Uh, not usually. No, sir." Moore continues in voiceover: "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."

Critics contend that the movie leaves viewers with an inaccurate impression that the Secret Service plays no role in protecting any other embassy. That statement is not made in the movie, but the critics claim that Officer Kimbell's comment, which is an explicit part of the movie, is wrong and should have been corrected by Moore.

Under Public Law 91-217 section 202, passed in 1970, the uniformed division of the Secret Service plays a role in protecting "foreign diplomatic missions located in the metropolitan area of the District of Columbia" (among other things) [20], [21]. However, this does not mean that all embassies receive full-time on-site Secret Service protection (as opposed to area patrols), nor that all the embassies so protected receive the same number of personnel. Neither side has offered a conclusive comparison of the level of security attention given to the different embassies to shed light on Officer Kimbell's statement (that other embassies are "not usually" treated this way) or on Moore's speculation that Prince Bandar might be the best-protected ambassador in the United States.

In addition, Article 22, Section 2 of the Vienna Convention on Diplomatic Relations, adopted in 1961 and ratified by the United States, reads, "the receiving State is under a special duty to take all appropriate steps to protect the premises of the mission against any intrusion or damage and to prevent any disturbance of the peace of the mission or impairment of its dignity."

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Last updated: 10-29-2005 02:13:46