No End In Sight: Establishing the Consensus “Iraq Story” For Posterity

Five long years have elapsed since the White House began “selling” the war to the American public, and March of 2003 (it seems like a long time ago now) marks the beginning of the U.S. Empire’s invasion of what was once ancient Mesopotamia, the “cradle of civilization”: and, until 1990, the most technologically advanced Arab country in the Middle East.

Documentary filmmaker Charles Ferguson (with Alex “Smartest Boys in the Room” Gibney on board as executive producer and narrator Campbell Scott) sets out to re-tell the story of the U.S. invasion and occupation of Iraq in his new documentary “No End In Sight.”

“This is the story of America’s invasion of Iraq,” he confusingly claims on screen as the film begins. “It is a story of people who tried to save a nation.”

And a well-trodden story it is, too, for anyone who has been following the “public face” of these events for the past five years here in the United States.

Unlike Michael Moore’s “Fahrenheit 9/11,” which baldly chooses sides and “Bush-bashes” with gleeful abandon, Ferguson’s tone is more reserved, though he draws similar conclusions.

But, while Ferguson captures some new faces and powerful voices on camera, there are few surprises embedded in his story.

In fact, interestingly enough, Ferguson’s film hews closely to what might be called the “Establishment Consensus” version of the “Iraq Story.”

You know this story. You’ve heard it before.

First faintly. And now, ever louder, as the Bush administration quacks its way more and more every day into lame duck status.

It goes like this, in a nutshell.

The Iraq War began after the terrorist attacks of 9/11 with good intentions but misleading intelligence information, and turned into a bloody civil war because of a series of strategic blunders by arrogant Bush administration insiders.

This sounds familiar, right?

And this story is now being repeated over and over again now by U.S.-based think tanks, corporate media pundits, and films like Ferguson’s.

To sum up: Iraq is now a horrific and chaotic mess because of five years of blunder after blunder executed by government incompetents with poor communications skills.

The Establishment Consensus position, in a nutshell.

Who is to blame, Ferguson wonders, for the Iraq “disaster”?

No surprises here.

We know their names, if we’ve been watching the Tee Vee.

Ferguson’s film predictably (if quietly) flogs the usual suspects: the Bush/Cheney posse (Wolfie, Condi, and the CIA’s Georgie T, himself a fall guy); Rummy and the Defense Department; Ahmed Chalabi and his I.N.C; Paul Bremer and his “deBaathification” decision; Al Sadr and his radical sectarian propaganda; the 45,000 private contractors in Iraq, more than any other war in U.S. history.

An aside: we are told that many of the black hats (Rice, Garner, Wolfowitz) refused to be interviewed for Ferguson’s film, though he does get some tremendous mileage out of footage from Bush and Rumsfeld press conferences, a time-honored technique in the tool kit of the 21st century documentarian.

The white hats are here in Ferguson’s story, too: State Department policy wonks; loyal but under-armored U.S. combat soldiers on the ground; General Jay Garner and Paul Hughes; un-embedded journalists.

Again, no surprises.

Most moving in Ferguson’s film are the interviews with U.S. Iraq combat veterans, many of whom suffer from the physical and psychological damage of war. In one poignant moment, reminiscent of the searing Vietnam documentary “Hearts and Minds,” Ferguson pulls back on a U.S. soldier reflecting on his battle wounds to show us his missing arm.

But Ferguson is not interested in telling a searing story.

There is no outrage here.

Only detached and clinical analysis, mostly, a wistful sort of reflective nostalgia, and a steadfast determination to hew to this Establishment consensus position.

Why all these mistakes?” asks the filmmaker of insider Jay Garner toward the film’s end.

“I have no idea,” Garner responds. “It is puzzling.”

Indeed.

And meanwhile, the film gives us no analysis of the bigger “whys.”

No mention of global peak oil, declining US domestic oil production, or Operation Iraq Liberation (OIL).

No mention of what Naomi Klein calls “disaster capitalism,” the application of a “shock doctrine” endorsed and funded by both houses of Congress to destroy Iraq - the U.S. Empire’s number one strategic threat in the Middle East.

No mention of the “tapeworm economy,” or the tremendous profit being made destroying, rebuilding, and privatizing Iraq’s assets by the military/industrial/media/energy complex.

(“I don’t do ‘quagmires,’” says Rumsfeld jokingly during one snappy retort at a press conference. But yes, he does, if quagmires are profitable.)

No mention of the dozen enduring U.S. strategic bases now built in Iraq, or the largest embassy in the world – just finishing up – in downtown Bagdhad.

The message of Ferguson’s film is oddly banal: the U.S. invasion and occupation of Iraq turned out to be a mistake (sorry, everybody!), and there is “no end in sight.”

Or, in the words of one Iraqi citizen:

“Saddam hurt us badly, it is true, but what has come is worse than Saddam.”

Perhaps one day, an American filmmaker might tell the whole truth about the Iraq situation.

It hasn’t happened yet.

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“Green Mountain GlobaLocal:” Spinning the very best tunes from Vermont musicians and the world, every Monday night on WMRW 95.1 fm - low power community radio for the Mad River Valley.

Monday, September 17, 2007 - Clear, chilly and cool. Harvest in the air.

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“Green Mountain GlobaLocal:” Spinning the very best tunes from Vermont musicians and the world, every Monday night on WMRW 95.1 fm - low power community radio for the Mad River Valley.

Monday, September 10, 2007 - Patches of fog on the road, chilly and cool. Harvest in the air.

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