It's 2006. After 4 years in Iraq, there are over 3000 American deaths and countless others suffer. This Charles Ferguson documentary investigates the start and the execution of the war in Iraq. Many of the people involved are interviewed although the big names from the administration do not participate. The research is very detailed and extensive. It's laid out in a straight forward timeline. It's relatively easy to follow but it doesn't talk down to the audience. This is really an extended news report. It's a real indictment of the insular Bush administration. It's a solid report for anybody willing to listen.

The documentary offers a social service in dealing with problems and issues of national importance. This is not only a documentary at a time when there is an unusually high degree of consensus about what is important, but also a documentary about what makes this time indeed so significant. And luckily, it is a fundamentally irrefutable one.Software entrepreneur Charles Ferguson makes his debut as a filmmaker here, an impressive one, and not just owing to the tremendously ambitious feel of the graphics, such as the title cards. The amount of dizzying information condensed into such a tightly composed 102 minutes results in a greater understanding of it all. He gets to the root of the fast deterioration of U.S.-occupied Iraq into pure madness, as L. Paul Bremer's disbanding of all of Iraq's military entities, "De-Ba'athification," and not providing enough troops resulted in no authority, no order. It was the Islamic fundamentalists that moved to fill this void, so their ranks ballooned with many disillusioned Iraqi people.We are making a haven for terrorists out of Iraq. Yes, we got rid of Saddam, but what we put in his place is far, far worse. Not only for Iraq, but for us and our allies, or what we have left of them. With no police force or national army to maintain order, ministries and buildings were looted. What hit me the hardest while watching this film was that among them were Iraqi museums, holding precious artifacts from some of the earliest human civilizations.Ferguson's film shows us just how chilling those signals were to most Iraqis. Did American forces even intend to maintain law and order? The destruction of libraries and records ruined the bureaucracy that existed before our invasion. They had to start from scratch to reassemble the government infrastructure. And Rumsfeld rejected the looting as no worse than rioting in an American city.Does Bush read? He doesn't seem to have read anything vital to his intentions. Over 30 people are interviewed here, most of them former Bush followers who have since come down to earth and become embittered by what they experienced. So many of them claim that the inexperience of the pivotal representatives of the Bush administration, and their dissent to investigate, recognize or receive input from more experienced participants was at the core of the devastating invasion effort. And those who voted for them would later protest that Obama had too little experience to be President.The social impact of cinema is reinforced by the documentary, which pushes aesthetics to one side in the face of social movements and upheavals. It might be argued that since Bremer, Rumsfeld, Dick Cheney and Paul Wolfowitz refused to be interviewed for the film, Ferguson only gives us one side of the story. But the assembled qualified footing of the people he did interview, and their composed, comprehensive emphasis on fact, makes such an argument puzzling.

One of the most honest documentaries I have ever seen, I never feel the documentaries personal politics or beliefs bleeding through in anyway, are multiple news channels and mediums around the country could really take notes from this honest and truthful reporting. It's unfortunate that some of the key players in this story refused to be interviewed, I wouldn't expect the president but if anyone involved in this quagmire really believed that they handled it correctly you would think they would step forward to defend it. No one does so I would assume no one believes this is the case. Sure, to be fair some of this was reported by our news channels but it was done in such an anti-Bush administration way that it just felt like more bashing and blowing things out of proportion as had been done for years. If they would have put that aside as these documenters have in this film and just report the story and get first hand accounts then maybe more Americans would truly understand what went wrong in Iraq and what we have done since to begin to fix it. Sure as the commander and chief ultimately Bush is to be held accountable, but he is just one man and as anyone who has worked with people under them, there are times when you have to delegate authority to people under you, and you chose the best people you can and sometimes they screw it up, and it comes back on you. That's the way it is, but that doesn't mean that Bush ever wanted all this, he made a bad choice in putting his faith in people who made bad decision. Also to be fair this was like no other war we had fought before and a rebuilding effort like we had never seen. Now choosing to go to war that's another issue for another time. Anyway, this was a very fair uninteresting look into why and how things went so wrong in Iraq.

This is the story that the White House would rather you not see. This Oscar-nominated film gives the true picture of the death and destruction of a country that was no threat to us. It is very clear throughout this film that Bush, Cheney, Rumsfeld, and Wolfowitz were either 1. The most incredibly incompetent people ever to serve in government, or 2. war criminals. I leave it to you to choose.Not only does the film show the utter incompetence of our so-called leaders, but the absolutely ignorant decisions made by those they appointed (Paul Bremer at the best example) and how those decisions have contributed to the quagmire we are currently involved in.Almost a million people have dies and a country destroyed, as well as the economy of the US in the toilet. The entire mess can best be summed up by the Special Jury Prize given at the Sundance Film Festival: "In recognition of the film as timely work that clearly illuminates the misguided policy decisions that have led to the catastrophic quagmire of the U.S. invasion and occupation of Iraq." Nothing more than this shows that our country has been taken over by the same fascists that ran Germany, Italy and Japan during WWII. Of course, that should be no surprise as Bush's grandfather traded with the Nazis.Everyone should see this film to know just why we are now the most hated country on Earth.