Shock and Awe

Year: 2017

Actors: Tommy Lee Jones, Jessica Biel, Milla Jovovich, Woody Harrelson

Duration: 90 min

Journalists investigate the assertions by the Bush Administration concerning Saddam Hussein's alleged possession of weapons of mass destruction as an excuse for the 2003 invasion of Iraq.in Sep 2001, the NY Twin Towers were demolished in a terrorist attack. John Walcott (Rob Reiner) is the bureau head for the Knight Rider news service in Washington. John sends reporters Warren Strobel (James Marsden) and Jonathan Landay (Woody Harrelson) to investigate. From the beginning the word from the State Dept is that Iraq is behind the attacks and while Osama is in Afghanistan.Most of the administration's case for that war made absolutely no sense, specifically the notion that Saddam Hussein was allied with Osama bin Laden. That one from the get-go rang all the bells - a secular Arab dictator allied with a radical Islamist whose goal was to overthrow secular dictators and re-establish his Caliphate? The more we examined it, the more it stank. The defense department sent an ex-service man on a mission to Europe to find links between the WTC bombing in 1993 and Iraq. Walcott gets independent verification from his sources in Afghanistan that US military resources are being diverted to Iraq. Walcott meets Joe Galloway (Tommy Lee Jones) a war correspondent from the Vietnam war, who now works for the administration. Walcott makes Joe an offer to work for him.Walcott runs a story on the possible outcomes of a US invasion of Afghanistan. He theorizes that the invasion, with an intention to instate Ahmed Chalabi as the leader of Afghanistan, will only lead to a break up of Iraq into mini states, trapping US troops in a civil war. An analyst from the Pentagon comes forward and says that Donald Rumsfled is leading a parallel intelligence effort, with Chalabi and the Israelis to gather whatever flimsy evidence against Iraq to justify and invasion.The second thing was rather than relying entirely on people of high rank with household names as sources, we had sources who were not political appointees. One of the things that has gone very wrong in Washington journalism is 'source addiction,' 'access addiction,' and the idea that to maintain access to people in the White House or vice president's office or high up in a department, you have to dance to their tune. That's not what journalism is about. We had better sources than she (Judith Miller) did, and we knew who her sources were. They were political appointees who were making a political case.I first met him (Ahmed Chalabi) in '95 or '96. I wouldn't get dressed in the morning based on what he told me the weather was, let alone go to war. - John WalcottWalcott sees evidence of all major networks siding with the Bush administration on the Iraq story, but still marshals his troops to ensure that they are asking the right questions and are finding facts to support or disprove the administrations claims. They finally get a source to admit that VP Dick Cheney is lying when he says that there is evidence to support the existence of WMDs in Iraq. So, Walcott activates Joe to get him the contradictory evidence.There is sufficient evidence to suggest that the administration is ignoring seasoned Middle East experts and Nuclear experts to make theories of their own to justify the invasion of Iraq. US moves the UNSC for a resolution against Iraq in 2003. On more than one occasion Strobel and Landay worry that their work is flawed and maybe everyone else is right. But they can't refute the evidence right in front of their eyes. They meet Chabali and come convinced that he has no plan beyond getting back to power in Iraq.Eventually, Walcott, Strobel and Landay were proven right. Iraq has been at war for 17 years since the invasion. $2 Trn spent, 36,000 Americans killed, 1 million Iraqis killed, 0 WMDs found. Knight Ridder Washington reporters Warren Strobel (James Marsden) and Jonathan Landay (Woody Harrelson) received the Raymond Clapper Memorial award from the Senate Press Gallery on February 5, 2004, for their coverage of the questionable intelligence used to justify war with Iraq

Genre: Action   Biography   Drama   History   Thriller   War