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NYT: 9/11 Miniseries Is Criticized as Inaccurate and Biased

By JESSE McKINLEY

SAN FRANCISCO, Sept. 5 — Days before its scheduled debut, the first major television miniseries about the Sept. 11 attacks was being criticized on Tuesday as biased and inaccurate by bloggers, terrorism experts and a member of the Sept. 11 commission, whose report makes up much of the film’s source material.

The six-hour miniseries, “The Path to 9/11,” is to be shown on ABC on Sunday and Monday. The network has been advertising the program as a “historic broadcast” that uses the commission’s report on the 2001 attacks as its “primary foundation.”

On Tuesday, several liberal blogs were questioning whether ABC’s version was overly critical of the Clinton administration while letting the Bush administration off easy.

In particular, some critics — including Richard A. Clarke, the former counterterrorism czar — questioned a scene that depicts several American military officers on the ground in Afghanistan. In it, the officers, working with leaders of the Northern Alliance, the Afghan rebel group, move in to capture Osama bin Laden, only to allow him to escape after the mission is canceled by Clinton officials in Washington.

In a posting on ThinkProgress.org, and in a phone interview, Mr. Clarke said no military personnel or C.I.A. agents were ever in position to capture Mr. bin Laden in Afghanistan, nor did the leader of the Northern Alliance get that near to his camp.

“It didn’t happen,” Mr. Clarke said. “There were no troops in Afghanistan about to snatch bin Laden. There were no C.I.A. personnel about to snatch bin Laden. It’s utterly invented.”

Mr. Clarke, an on-air consultant to ABC News, said he was particularly shocked by a scene in which it seemed Clinton officials simply hung up the phone on an agent awaiting orders in the field. “It’s 180 degrees from what happened,” he said. “So, yeah, I think you would have to describe that as deeply flawed.”

ABC responded Tuesday with a statement saying that the miniseries was “a dramatization, not a documentary, drawn from a variety of sources, including the 9/11 commission report, other published materials and from personal interviews.”

“The events that lead to 9/11 originally sparked great debate,” the statement continued, “so it’s not surprising that a movie surrounding those events has revived the debate.”

Former Gov. Thomas H. Kean of New Jersey, the chairman of the Sept. 11 commission and a consultant on the miniseries, defended the program, saying he thought the disputed scene was an honest representation of a number of failed efforts to capture Mr. bin Laden.

“I pointed out the fact that the scene involving Afghanistan and the attempt to get bin Laden is a composite,” Mr. Kean said, adding that the miniseries format required some conflation of events. But, he said, “The basic fact is that on a number of occasions, they thought they might have been able to get bin Laden, and on those occasions, the plug was pulled for various reasons.”

Mr. Kean conceded that some points might have been more drama than documentary. “Some of the people shown there probably weren’t there,” he said.

Online commentators seized on remarks made last week by Rush Limbaugh, the conservative radio host, who said “The Path to 9/11” had been written and produced by a “friend of mine out in California” named Cyrus. “From what I’ve been told,” Mr. Limbaugh said, according to a transcript on rushlimbaugh.com, “the film really zeros in on the shortcomings of the Clinton administration.”

Reached Tuesday, Cyrus Nowrasteh, the film’s screenwriter and one of its producers, said he had met Mr. Limbaugh on the set of “24,” the serialized thriller on Fox.

“I met him briefly,” Mr. Nowrasteh said, declining to say if the two men were close. “And that’s it.”

As for criticism that his movie was soft on the Bush administration, Mr. Nowrasteh said, “Let the movie speak for itself.”

ABC said it planned to run a disclaimer with the broadcast, reminding viewers that the movie was not a documentary.

But Richard Ben-Veniste, a member of the Sept. 11 commission, said genre confusion would not be a problem for commission members, several of whom saw part of the miniseries last week.

“As we were watching, we were trying to think how they could have misinterpreted the 9/11 commission’s finding the way that they had,” Mr. Ben-Veniste said. “They gave the impression that Clinton had not given the green light to an operation that had been cleared by the C.I.A. to kill bin Laden,” when, in fact, the Sept. 11 commission concluded that Mr. Clinton had.

Mr. Ben-Veniste said he did, however, approve of the casting. “I like Harvey Keitel,” he said of the actor who plays John O’Neil, the onetime F.B.I. counterterrorism expert who died in the attacks. “I liked him in ‘Mean Streets.’ I’m a fan.”

 

 

This entry was posted on Thursday, September 7th, 2006 at 9:17 AM and filed under Articles. Follow comments here with the RSS 2.0 feed. Skip to the end and leave a response. Trackbacks are closed.

2 Responses to “NYT: 9/11 Miniseries Is Criticized as Inaccurate and Biased”

  1. Michael Butler said:

    “Howard” sent this:HI MICHAEL,

    IT ALWAYS AMUSES ME WHEN PEOPLE TRY TO CENSOR SOMETHING WITH LITTLE OR NO KNOWLEDGE. IT RAISES THE BIG RED FLAG….WHAT ARE THEY HIDING? WHAT DO THEY FEAR? HOW CAN YOU BE FEARFUL OF SOMETHING OF WHICH YOU KNOW NOTHING; EXCEPT THAT CLINTON IS PISSED OFF AND THAT’S ENOUGH OF A REASON TO REACT AND HOPE THAT SIMILAR THINKING PEOPLE WILL DO THE SAME.

    WILL “THINKING” PEOPLE DO THE SAME; I DOUBT IT. AS PARTISAN AS THIS DRAMA=DOCUMENTARY MIGHT BE (AND WE DON’T KNOW THAT YET SINCE THEY ARE STILL EDITING), IT IS A “DRAMA” DOCUMENTARY…..DRAMA AS IN WRITER=CREATED TO MOVE THE STORY ALONG.

    GETTING ALL UPSET ABOUT SOMETHING NO ONE HAS SEEN REMINDS ME OF MY FIRST EXPERIENCE WITH CENSORSHIP. IT WAS TORONTO IN THE 40’S I BELIEVE AND THE CHIEF LIBRARIAN OF TORONTO WAS DEFENDING HER DECISION TO NOT ALLOW LADY CHATTERLEY’S LOVER TO GRACE HER MANY LIBRARIES ALL OVER THE CITY.

    WHEN ASKED IF SHE HERSELF HAD READ LADY CHATTERLEY’S LOVER, SHE RESPONDED BY SAYING…”I WOULD NEVER READ SUCH TRASH”, BUT SHE BANNED IT NEVER=THE=LESS.

    AND GUESS WHAT! WE ALL RAN OUT AND BOUGHT THE BOOK TO SEE WHAT COULD POSSIBLE BE BETWEEN THOSE COVERS THAT WOULD GET THAT KIND OF REACTION..

    SAME THING IS HAPPENING HERE. ALL THE CLINTON BABES AND SYCOPHANTS ARE GETTING THEIR PANTIES IN A KNOT OVER SOMETHING OF WHICH THEY HAVE NO KNOWLEDGE OR EXPERIENCE; THEY HAVE NOT SEE THIS PRODUCTION. THEY WANT TO BAN SOMETHING THAT DOESN’T EXIST EXCEPT IN THEIR MINDS; AMAZING.

    I HAVE TO ASSUME THAT THESE ARE FUNDAMENTALIST LIBERALS. AND I ALWAYS THOUGHT THE MEANING OF BEING A ‘LIBERAL’ WAS ALLOWING AND RESPECTING OTHER PEOPLES’ OPINIONS NO MATTER HOW DISAGREEABLE OR PAINFUL THEY MAY BE.

    BUT BECAUSE OF THE BIG HUBBUB, I WILL MAKE SURE TO TIVO THE SHOWS AND I AM CERTAIN MOST OF AMERICA WILL DO THE SAME AND ON BEHALF OF ABC TV, I MIGHT AS WELL THANK ALL OF YOU FOR GIVING THIS PRODUCTION THE ROCKET FUEL IT NEEDS TO WIN BOTH NIGHTS, NOT HAVING SPENT EVEN ONE PENNY ON PROMOTION.

    I AM NOT LEFT NOR AM I RIGHT; I URGE THOSE SUPER FANS OF BILL CLINTON’S TO RELAX. HE CANT BE RE=ELECTED NO MATTER HOW MUCH YOU WANT HIM BACK IN POWER.
    . There is growing opposition to the airing of this very misleading show. Pres. Clinton has been refused the right to see it, yet has still managed to get enough information about it to send a letter opposing its airing and detailing the inaccuracies.
    I LOVE THE ABOVE SENTENCE WHICH I LIFTED FROM THE “APPEALS LETTER”. CLINTON HAS NOT EVEN SEEN IT; ALL HIS INFORMATION IS PURE THIRD PARTY HERESAY AND SPECULATION, BUT LET’S ALL GET CRAZY JUST LIKE THE OLD DAYS.
    IT’S A “DRAMA” DOCUMENTARY DESIGNED TO ENGAGE AND ENTERTAIN AND GET RATINGS FOR SPONSORS.
    IF YOU WANT DOCUMENTARIES, GO TO THE HISTORY CHANNEL.
    SIGNED,
    HOWARD

    From: Michael Butler [mailto:michael@michaelbutler.com]
    Sent: Thursday, September 07, 2006 7:06 PM
    To: Special@aruba.islandtechnologies.net
    Subject: Fwd: upcoming ABC 9/11 show

    Begin forwarded message:

    From:
    Date: September 7, 2006 9:59:43 PM EDT
    To:
    Subject: upcoming ABC 9/11 show

    Michael:

    Don’t know if you were aware of this or not. There is growing opposition to the airing of this very misleading show (I won’t dignify it with the term documentary). Pres. Clinton has been refused the right to see it, yet has still managed to get enough information about it to send a letter opposing its airing and detailing the inaccuracies.

    I thought you might want to know about it if you didn’t already and maybe to pass it along to your list of contacts who might want to add their two cents. I hope this reaches you—I took a stab at your email address at Orlok.

    Best regards,

    Judi

    http://www.ThinkProgress.org/TellABC

    Posted on 08-Sep-06 at 1:52 pm | Permalink
  2. Ian Alterman said:

    Michael:

    Are those your words or his? In either case, I must respectfully disagree with the writer in the strongest possible terms. Would we not have censored Hitler’s propaganda if we had had the chance? Would we have allowed “the people” – who, let’s face reality, as a whole are not generally savvy enough to distinguish “truth” from “fiction” in many cases – to “make up their own minds” about it?

    I am as against censorship in general as anyone. However, just as our so-called Constitutional rights are not “absolute” (hence, despite the right to free speech, you cannot yell “fire” in a crowded theater if there is no fire), the concept of censorship is not “absolute”; there are times – admittedly exceptional, and difficult to discern – when “putting the kibosh” on something is justified.

    As the government and the corporate-controlled media continue to build a phony history of 9/11 in order to continue to support the phony “official story” of those events – via films like “Flight 93” and “World Trade Center” and numerous news and “entertainment” programs – it is not simply justified but CRITICAL that we stop this kind of Orwellian historical revisionism in its tracks.

    To do otherwise – to allow this type of propaganda to continue to subliminally brainwash the average person into continuing to believe the “official story” and the hopelessly compromised 9/11 Commission Report – is tantamount to doing nothing, and betrays some of the very principles that Hair and the 1960s stood for.

    Thus, I am shocked at the comments in the all caps portion of the above.

    Peace.

    Posted on 09-Sep-06 at 5:01 pm | Permalink

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