Uncovered - The War on Iraq

Rating:
Summary: Take a look at the Atrocities of your leader for a change
Review: DEAR. K. B Conger "Unabashed Conservative" (Bellevue, WA USA) - See all my reviews

You think a dictator killing MILLIONS of people isn't sufficient reason to remove him? The fact that he Lies to futher his own personal war, much less his blatant disregard for the lives of his own people, the massacring of the innocent lives or his repeated noncompliance with the UN. Come on people, lets get some perspective. George W Bush needes to be removed and Tony Blair many world leaders recognized that and had the guts to do what was right. I personally applaud them.

There you go.. Much better now. ( The above was complete fabircation from a negative review.)

Rating:
Summary: Good information but be careful
Review: "Uncovered: The Truth About the Iraq War" comes to us from the folks at Moveon.org, the website funded by billionaire gangster George Soros. A sanctuary for far left-wing politicos, Moveon.org dumped millions of dollars into the presidential election of 2004 in an effort to unseat President Bush and his cronies. The organization is still receiving lots of media attention as it shifts attention to the upcoming midterm elections while continuing its assault on the ongoing conflict in Iraq. I always suppress a grin whenever I check Moveon.org's web page or hear someone talking about the site as though whatever information appears there is the equivalent of the holy gospel. Extremists of both stripes--meaning far left and far right--make abundant use of the Internet to spew their venom, and Moveon.org is obviously an extremist site filled with extremist views and literature. Soros's organization relies on "United Frontism," or a process used by fanatics to draw in sympathizers or others with left-leaning views in order to radicalize them. The communists used this practice the world over with overwhelming success. It's standard operating procedure on the far left.

One of the tools drawing in dupes is "Uncovered." Created by Robert Greenwald, "Uncovered" is an occasionally disconcerting documentary about the various evasions, half-truths, and outright lies issued by the White House regarding the invasion of Saddam Hussein's Iraq. The documentary calls forth a plethora of individuals, Joe Wilson and Scott Ritter being the most recognizable, who carry important titles with various alphabet agencies in the federal government. "Uncovered" presents us with dozens of former ambassadors, retired military officers, CIA operatives, magazine editors, defense department wonks, and weapons inspectors. After the devastating attacks of September 11th, argues the documentary, reason went out the window regarding our foreign policy. Bush and his neoconservative hacks took advantage of the tragedy to suppress voices arguing for a calm and measured response, instead favoring hawks who would say or do anything to gain support for an all-out invasion of the Middle East. Iraq sat at the top of the list, in large part due to the efforts of Paul Wolfowitz, a longtime presence in government who agitated for war against Israel's enemies in the region for years before Bush came to power.

"Uncovered" goes on to discuss Secretary of State Colin Powell's infamous speech at the United Nations wherein he laid out the case for invading Iraq, one of President Bush's State of the Union speeches, and the numerous claims made by administration flacks on various news programs about Iraq's nuclear, chemical, and biological weapons capability. The experts in the documentary refute many of these claims on a point by point basis. Iraq tried to buy nuclear materials from Niger? Not according to the experts in this documentary. The Iraqis owned elaborate trucks designed to manufacture chemical weapons? Nope. What about all those hidden stocks of dangerous biological armaments? All gone says Scott Ritter and several others who spent years documenting Hussein's various programs. Saddam and Osama in league with one another? Yeah right. At one point an expert repudiates the claim that Iraq currently possessed nearly 200 tons of deadly materials as "Not a conservative estimate, but a neoconservative estimate." Funny. On and on it goes, as "Uncovered" strives to demolish totally any argument for war made by the Bush administration. I'm quite conservative and I didn't see anything wacky in this program. What I did see were many legitimate concerns about the war.

I should say that I never supported going to war in Iraq. I recall discussing the looming conflict with several associates at the university, and not one of us could think of any adequate reason for going to war against Saddam Hussein at that specific time. One friend believed keeping Saddam in power would be a good thing because his continued presence served as a check on Iran. I cited several historical examples of similar situations, namely powerful countries installing puppet leaders or attempting to impose alien political systems on another nation, and how ALL of them ultimately failed. Whatever the argument, the consensus view was not to invade. I believe that our attempt to remake the Middle East into a bastion of democracy will ultimately fail, and I also believe a lot of American citizens here and abroad will perish in the process. Until our people and our government do something about the real reasons that led to those scurrilous attacks on the Pentagon and the World Trade Center, we can expect a long and protracted conflict stretching into every corner of the globe. And just because we outlasted the Soviet Union doesn't translate into an automatic victory over organized terrorism. At the same time, we can't merely sit back and allow the attacks to go unpunished. No great power ever sits idly by in such a situation. Quite a conundrum, eh?

So what is my problem with "Uncovered"? They are two in number. First, I don't like how the extremists use this documentary to convince viewers to join Moveon.org and other radical organizations so they can be brainwashed with left-wing propaganda. Second, truth is an elusive concept rarely if ever discovered this easily. The situation in Iraq can't be explained solely in administration terms, nor can it be explained solely in Moveon.org's terms. Whenever someone presents you with two diametrically opposite viewpoints, ignore them and look for the truth somewhere in the middle. Greenwald has no exclusive claim to the truth any more than the Bush administration does. Remember this when watching "Uncovered," but by all means watch it if for no other reason than to provide a way to get to that cherished middle ground where the truth must surely lie.





Rating:
Summary: Fact After Fact
Review: After seeing Michael Moore's, "Bowling For Columbine", I thought I would be prepared for another typical assault on the Bush administration. I was wrong. This documentary may not be as well crafted as Moore's, but it is a damaging piece of hard evidence against those who proposed the war on Iraq. Over twenty FBI, CIA agents and "weapons inspectors" are interviewed clipped in between videos of Bush, Cheney, Rumsfeld, Rice, Ashcroft and the rest of the Bush administration. Some of these folks interviewed worked for decades under many presidents. Most worked under Bush Sr. The evidence is so plainly obvious, it's a wonder anyone sees it differently. It's black and white. Clips of many of the Bush administrators are shown and then later proven to be outright lies. It was almost too much to take in at once. Clinton lied to the American people about his extra-marital affair. The entire Bush administration lied to the world about the war on Iraq.

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Summary: Very scary stuff
Review: Although I agree that Saddam Hussein was a bad man, he was no worse and no more a threat to this country than numerous others who have been ignored by this administration. It is worthwhile to remember that many of the bodies in those mass graves so often cited as evidence of his atrocities were there because George H.W. Bush left them to be slaughtered after the first Gulf war. I have served in uniform for this country for the better part of my life and have been stop lossed from the IRR just last month at the age of 50. Although I'm not thinking of running off to Canada, I have had my doubts about the veracity of the statements presented as justification in the infamous SOTU speech by Bush and the statements of Powell before the UN even prior to watching this movie. Having now see it presented in this way, I feel ashamed of my government and it's policies. That does not make me unpatriotic. I don't have to like Bush to love my country, any more than the neo-cons had to like Clinton to love America. I have also seen "Outfoxed" In many ways it is even more frightening. I recommend you see both. If nothing else, maybe it will open a few eyes, and minds. I hope so. America is based on truth and freedom. That should never be sold out for the interests of a few.

Rating:
Summary: Disturbingly Funny
Review: Every American should see it - Democrats and, especially, Republicans.
Point-by-point explanation of all the lies and deceptions.
It is amazing that people in high office can lie so well with a straight face.
I always knew the Iraq war was the biggest lie ever in the history of the US, but this documentary helps make the case.
The sad part is, most Americans will not see this movie, because they are truly brain-washed.

Rating:
Summary: WMD or No WMD... this needed to be Done!
Review: I fought in Iraq the first 5-months of Operation IRAQI FREEDOM... saw first hand and heard first hand accounts of how the Hussein Regime brutalized people... enough said. UN Sanctions... bogus, useless, not effective, a joke. WMD or no-WMD... who knows, but should we have just waited around until that regime demonstrated that they "did" have them by using them... or killed enough people... like we did with [...]?... Saddam certainly was not on the verge of becoming the 3rd Reich, but the intent was there and the only reason he wasn't is because we canned his [...] in 1991... should have finished the job then... the job now is much tougher because we didn't.

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Summary: Tell It Like It Is
Review: I have seen a number of documentaries critical of the Bush administration's policies, but this is the most objective one of the bunch. An excellent film which just tells it as it is. It just shows you that you don't have to give a leftist slant in order to criticize the administration. What the leaders of this country has said and done is so preposterous that all you have to do is tell the truth.

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Summary: The Intelligence wasn't the failure, it was the system.
Review: I watched this movie with a friend who is a very strong Bush supporter and thought that they would just hate it and denounce the whole thing as "liberal propaganda", but they ended up liking it as much as I did. We both thought that the eveidence presented was convincing and clearly showed that there were intelligence reports inside the CIA that showed that there were serious doubts before the war about Iraq having WMD. How these reports were covered up or altered is not depicted in the movie. They do not try to place blame on anyone in particular, they just point out the fact that the evidence was filtered or altered by the time it got to the decision makers. They present the CIA employees who wrote the original reports and explain how the data therein is different than what eventually became the official record. After you see this, its hard to say that there were "intelligence failures" leading up to the invasion of Iraq. The "intelligence" didn't seem to be the problem. At least some of the intelligence was correct; it was the bureaucracy that seemed to be where the failure occured. The film really does justice to those hard-working CIA employees who got it right and were silenced or lost within the bureaucratic process. Its really well done and worth watching. Highly recomended.

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Summary: A must see for conservatives.
Review: I would like to preface my statements by saying that I supported George W. Bush in the 2000 election and I am still a strong supporter of the war on terror. The clear and present danger represented by terrorism is something Americans must never loose sight of. This movie was brought to my attention by a friend of mine at work who's politics are very far to the left. He begged me to see it and judge for myself. I refused thinking it was just one more piece of partisan nonsense offered up by disgruntled Clintonites. He challenged me by saying that the lion's share of people interviewed on the disc were ex D.O.D. and C.I.A. with distinguished service records. I reluctantly agreed to watch.
After my first viewing I was forced to reconsider everything I believed about the war in Iraq. I find it very hard to argue with men who have spent decades in diplomatic and defense positions, some of whom served George W. Bush's father so well in the first Gulf War. As a conservative I feel a real disconnect from this so called "Neo Con" movement. I still haven't decided if I can hold my nose and vote for Kerry in November, but thanks to this eye opening film, I'm sure I won't be voting for the man I voted for in 2000. Everyone should see this movie.

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Summary: IF SADAAM HAD WMD ...HE WOULD HAVE USED THEM ON US TROOPS...
Review: IF HE HAD WMD HE WOULD HAVE USED THEM ON US TROOPS...DON'T FORGET HE USED THEM ON HIS OWN PEOPLE!ANSWER THAT QUESTION AND ALL WILL BE CLEAR TO ME!