Uncovered: The Whole Truth About the Iraq War

As I write this review on April 3, 2004, one of the major headlines for the weekend concerns Secretary of State Colin Powell's admission that--in typical Bush-administration-doublespeak--“now it appears not to be the case that it was solid”--“ it” being the evidence for the mobile biological weapons lab testimony he presented before the UN Security Council on February 3, 2003 in a series of hard data accusations that were used weeks later to justify the U.S.'s unconstitutional preemptive war against Iraq. Watching Robert Greenwald's Uncovered: The Whole Truth About the Iraq War in this context it's hard not to feel both anger and frustration over a neo-conservative administration that vastly overestimated Iraq's threat to America (nil), underestimated the consequences of its war of “liberation,” and today stands clueless as the U.S. teeters on the edge of a global conflict between itself (and Tony Blair) and the Arab world. Greenwald was inspired to make Uncovered when he noticed the Bush administration's shift in language around July 2003 from absolute certainty that Iraq had weapons of mass destruction to absolute certainty that Iraq was developing “programs” for the creation of WMDs to the “we strongly believe” backpedaling in fall of 2003. The film's format is simple: news footage of Bush, Powell, Dick Cheney, Donald Rumsfeld, Condi Rice, and Paul Wolfowitz spinning the “evidence” before and after the so-called “cessation of major fighting” is intercut with comments from over 20 experts, including former UN inspectors, CIA agents, government officials, and others, including former Ambassador Joseph Wilson (target of a nasty smear campaign by the White House). These are not ranters and ravers, and I suspect that more than a few have strong Republican backgrounds; what they share in common is a mostly dispassionate willingness to point out the huge disconnect between the Bush administration's case for invading Iraq and the actual truth. For me, Uncovered's defining moment comes when a reporter asks Bush, “Is U.S. credibility on the line over weapons of mass destruction in Iraq?”, to which the President responds, “Uh…I'm not exactly sure what that means.” I'm no expert on foreign affairs, but even I can answer that one: yes, it is, and it's shot. DVD extras include 34 minutes of cogent bonus interview footage. At $9.95, multiple copies would be wise here as we approach Election Day 2004. Highly recommended. Aud: H, C, P. (R. Pitman)