DC
9/11: Time of Crisis is a film for cable television written
by Republican Lionel Chetwynd that was designed for release
on 9/11/03 and aimed at creating the impression that President
George Bush (played by Timothy Bottoms) was galvanized
by the events of that day to become that kind of a strong
leader needed by the nation to fight the "war on terrorism." Based
primarily on interviews with top White House officials,
the movie pretends to be a docudrama, with titles indicating
the day of the tragedy and subsequent days as new directions
were undertaken by Bush to reorient the national government
to prevent any 9/11 attack from recurring. However, the
authenticity of the characterizations of various members
of the administration is highly questionable; the film
portrayals are very much at variance with what the public
has viewed at press conferences. There are even contradictions
in Bush, who at various times exhibits fears and tears,
while at other times he seems fearless and macho. Nobody
will believe that Cabinet members and Vice President Dick
Cheney (played by Lawrence Pressman), possibly the most
intelligent of his entourage, simply bowed their heads
and said, "Yes, Mr. President" during the 9/11
aftermath as he formulated an overreaction to the events
in the form of a monomaniacal restructuring of domestic
and global governance around the issue of terrorism, something
that even his friends will doubtless decry as cinematic
hyperbole. Possibly the most disturbing glances into the
decisionmaking process of the Bush administration reveal
that the president's response was knee-jerk aggressive
retaliatory action rather than a considered review of alternative
policy options. After the most disastrous security failure
in American history, Bush displays little chagrin concerning
those who ignored warning signs (but then he and his transition
team paid little attention to what the Clinton administration
said about Al Queda during briefings just before he took
office). Thus, DC 9/11: Time of Crisis stands in marked
contrast with Cuban Missiles Crisis decisionmaking, as
in the highly authentic The Missiles of October (1974)
docudrama, where different options were debated with such
eloquence that the ultimate response redounded to the benefit
of the United States and the world. Bush seems exclusively
interested in pounding military targets and, without a
shred of evidence, in linking the 9/11 attack with Saddam
Hussein (whose secular rule made his regime an enemy of
Al Queda). He assumes that the terrorists are mindlessly
insane, angry at American freedoms rather than at certain
policies of the United States, and he then goes on to display
a penchant to bully other countries into signing on as
vassals in an American crusade (which in 2003 is increasingly
is accused by Europeans as a unilateralist empire). Bush,
thus, never considers that his actions commit the United
States to a state terrorism that will galvanize recruitment
by Islamic organizations around the world while canceling
more civil liberties inside the United States than any
American president in history, thus in effect accomplishing
some of the goals of Al Queda far more effectively than
the 9/11 attacks. Instead of serving as a tribute to George
W. Bush as the man of the hour, DC 9/11: Time of
Crisis,
directed by Brian Trenchard-Smith, serves to illustrate
the kind of disinformation that his administration prefers
to dispense to the American people. If the film is viewed
at the Republican convention in 2004, there will be a much
larger audience, but the effect may even disaffect moderate
Republicans into switching parties to save the country
from further disasters. MH
I
want to comment on this film
