Uncovered: The War on Iraq
Uncovered: The War on Iraq
| 20 August 2004 (USA)
Uncovered: The War on Iraq Trailers

The feature-length version of producer/director Robert's Greenwald's short documentary phenomenon "Uncovered: The Whole Truth About The Iraq War." The film deconstructs the current American administration's case for war in Iraq through interviews with U.S. intelligence professionals, diplomats and former Pentagon officials, including a former director of the C.I.A., two former Secretaries of Defense, a former ambassador to Saudi Arabia and even President Bush's former Secretary of the Army.

Reviews
bfinn

A fairly devastating expose of the tissue of lies which spewed out from the Bush administration between 9/11 and the Iraq invasion.What gives this film credibility is that it consists almost entirely of interviews with numerous experts - CIA agents, weapons inspectors and US government officials - who contrast what they knew to be the case with the distortions and blatant lies the US government spun to the public, and which are now unravelling. Everything from the entirely non-existent connection drawn between 9/11 and Saddam Hussein - which thanks to Bush a majority of Americans still believe are related - to the non-existent weapons of mass destruction, for which there never was any solid evidence.These experts spoke out at the time, but were ignored by the theoretically free but largely patriotic and unobjective American media, which chose instead to toe the government line for far too long. This is why too many Americans continue to have little grasp of the facts (or indeed of foreign affairs generally), and voted Bush back in.Though I have some admiration for Michael Moore, this is a considerably more intelligent and well-argued film than his, and definitely is the best documentary I have seen so far this year. It's a shame it hasn't received wider exposure.

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Michael DeZubiria

My brother's girlfriend has a sticker on the back of her car which reads 'If you're not completely appalled, you haven't been paying attention.' This is a movie for those people who are not completely appalled, because if you've been paying attention then you already know most of what this movie has to say. Or maybe I've just been paying attention too much. I never for a second bought the ludicrous story of weapons of mass destruction, not from day one. I had a friend of several years in Fresno that I longer talk to because we got in such a heated discussion about Bush's upcoming war. He thought that at a time of crisis it was important that America supports it's president, I was sure, and still am, that supporting a president as he makes such a massively wrong move could only make it worse. Just because a moron made his way into the White House is no reason to show the world that we are an entire country of morons, because we are not.I like that the movie stays away from the hard line tactics of Michael Moore, placing words in people's mouths and making dangerous assertions in order to get his point across. Moore has good points and its important that people see them, but his methods are not the greatest. Uncovered: The War on Iraq is made up of the testimony of 27 government officials, most of whom were involved in the events that led to this ridiculous war in Iraq, as well as lots of archive footage of top Bush administration officials putting their feet so far in their mouths that they may need to have them surgically removed.It was mere months before Bush gave Hussein his 48 hour warning that both Colin Powell and Condoleeza Rice stated that Saddam had no weapons and no means of obtaining any weapons. Next thing you know he is an imminent threat who could launch WMDs within 45 minutes of giving the order. How can people be so blind? When Fahrenheit 9/11 was released, the right wing, particularly radio talk show hosts (keep your eye out in Uncovered, by the way, for footage of Michael Savage, one of the most hate-filled and nakedly racist men ever allowed near a radio microphone in the history of the medium), were so shocked and frightened that they immediately denounced it as things like a 'pack of lies' (Rush Limbaugh). My question would be something like, Did Bush ever say 'Some call you the elite, I call you my base'? Did he ever say that or was that another of Michael Moore's lies? In Uncovered: The War in Iraq, Director Robert Greenwald leaves no room for such hollow and weak arguments. The film is literally packed with video evidence of top Bush administration officials stating their reasons for the war, which gradually change as their faulty intelligence becomes apparent. First we went to war to rid Hussein of WMDs, then we were in Iraq to free the Iraqi people, then when that failed too we were there to make America safer, which has also failed. What's next?Oh yeah, Saddam Hussein is a villain and the world is better off without him. Which renders very difficult to explain the footage of Donald Rumsfeld, the SITTING SECRETARY OF DEFENSE, SHAKING HANDS WITH HIM. Hussein was a brutal dictator, that is not a subject of debate, but neither is the fact that Iraq and Hussein had absolutely nothing to do with 9/11. This has been staring Bush and America in the face since 9/12. Hussein was an ENEMY of Osama bin Laden. But is the world really better off without Hussein in power? I'll be the first to say that the world may very well be better off without him, but there are two things that I can also say for certain – Iraq is not better off without him, and America is not better off without him. Iraq has become a haven for terrorists and insurgents and is massively unsafe for everyone within the nation's borders, and Bush has demolished the image of America as a benevolent force in the eyes of the world. We are no longer a benevolent force, we are the bully that no one likes.Hussein had no weapons on mass destruction and Iraq was not a terrorist nation UNTIL America INVADED AND OCCUPIED IT. As Bush himself said in front of lots of rolling cameras, he wouldn't be happy if he were occupied either. But hey, the first rule of politics is that the man who orders the execution never drops the blade, so Bush's total lack of any kind of military combat experience will make no difference as he sends thousands of young Americans to their meaningless deaths with the flick of a pen and an arrogant smirk for the passing cameras. Bush went to war in Iraq, among other selfish reasons, to finish what his father left undone when he lost in 1992 to Bill Clinton, and the movie ends with a powerful quote from a book by George H. W. Bush himself, which stated that a ground war in Iraq would have led to an occupation that would result in countless American deaths and no end in sight. Evidently his son is so against accumulating knowledge that he doesn't even read books written by his own father. Here's something that really gets me, people attack Clinton because bin Laden was offered to him but he wanted to pursue legal means rather than reckless military action, like Bush, so bin Laden wasn't captured and later attacked us on Bush's watch. Rather than go after bin Laden to clean up what supposedly was Clinton's mess, Bush diverts the vast majority of funds and military force AWAY from the pursuit of bin Laden in order to 'use 9/11 as a reason to go after Iraq' (Rumsfeld's words), attacking and removing from power a man who had absolutely nothing to do with 9/11. Way to go, Bush, because of what you've done, the insurgents planting roadside bombs in Iraq and killing our troops are acting in SELF DEFENSE. The election, which takes place a mere 8 days after the time of this writing, is the most important election in American history. Lives are at stake, and the mere act of voting Bush out of office can perform miraculous work in repairing at least some of the decades and decades of damage that he has done to this country in his four illegitimate years in office. He has destroyed America's image in the eyes of the world, and in the catastrophic event that he wins a second term (whether by being elected for the first time, or by being wrongly appointed again), we will effectively show the world that we as a country agree with his illegal tactics and arrogant foreign policy. It is absolutely IMPERATIVE that this does not happen, and films like Uncovered: The War on Iraq are exactly what we need to stop it.

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erinwestonfilm

Do you remember us going into Iraq, supposedly in search of Weapons of Mass Destruction? Do you remember when the failure to find any WMDs caused the purpose of the war to shift to Iraqi Freedom? And now that Iraq is NOT free, and it is clear there never was a connection between Saddam and Al Queda, our President says the invasion was ALWAYS about making America, and the rest of the world, a safer place... Don't you believe it. Robert Greenwald's UNCOVERED: The War on Iraq is a thorough, even-handed dissection of what the Bush administration said; when they said it; how they twisted the truth for their own purposes; and how we, as a nation, were manipulated by our own leaders into invading a country, killing thousands of its people, and (justifiably) incurring the outrage of an entire world. And for what? EVERY American should see this movie before they go to the polls in November. Knowledge is power; get powerful.

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rtf3310

Another poor attempt to destroy a triumph in humanity, and modern day politics and social policies. Perpetuating the belief that the government owes an explanation for everything that is done. Totally disregarding the positives that come from the Bush administration removing a tyrant from power. Don't expect all the facts, 99% of the movie is based on these "high officials in the government" speculations. (Majority of which are not in any position of power anymore, and wouldn't have any facts surrounding the invasion)All in all, it's another movie about how bad Bush is, and how much we're lied to. And never forget that biological weapons ARE weapons of mass destruction. This seems to be forgotten frequently throughout the "movie".

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