CONTENTS

Introduction
I. The Election and Bush in Office Before September 11
II. September 11th and the Saudis
III. Afghanistan and the Pipeline
IV. Terrorism and the Patriot Act
V. The War in Iraq
VI. The Military
VII. Conclusion
Appendix 1. Corrections and Updates to This Document
Appendix 2. Other Resources

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VI. The Military

Moore plays a clip of a reporter saying troops would be kept on duty beyond their original tour, and shows a soldier saying, “I know our numbers in the military have gone down. They talk about retention.” Moore offers no further evidence to support this assertion, because there is none, since retention figures have actually been quite high. As one report put it in April 2004,

Despite a rising tide of combat deaths and the prospect of deployments to Iraq and Afghanistan for years to come, the armed services are meeting their recruiting goals and seeing record re-enlistment. The services say a combination of patriotism and the economy is driving people to the military and keeping them there. “The war is not only not having a negative effect, but it is helping to reinforce the number of people who want to join,” said Cmdr. John Kirby of the Navy’s Bureau of Personnel. The Army, Navy, Air Force, Marine Corps and Coast Guard all met or exceeded their recruiting goals for fiscal year 2003, which ended Sept. 30, and the figures held strong in the first half of fiscal 2004. The Navy, in fact, has done so well that it has cut the desired number of recruits to the lowest level in 30 years, said Lt. Bill Davis with the Navy Personnel Command in Millington, Tenn. Navy re-enlistment rates are at an all-time high, ranging from 62.3 percent of first-term sailors to 88.7 percent of those with 10 to 14 years of service. The Air Force reported that 98 percent of its career enlisted re-upped. And the Army National Guard boasted first-term re-enlistments of 141 percent—meaning members re-enlisted early, usually to take advantage of bonuses. The Coast Guard, which traditionally loses 7 to 8 percent of its force each year through attrition, last year lost just 2.68 percent, said Chief Petty Officer Paul Rhynarb, at Coast Guard Headquarters in Washington. (http://www.mercurynews.com/mld/mercurynews/news/world/8407076.htm)

Recruitment for the infantry units that see the most action in Iraq and Afghanistan has also been quite high (http://www.stripes.com/article.asp?section=104&article=23664). But rather than confront these facts, Moore shows a few more soldiers saying things like, “You never really expect to be deployed this long. I don’t think anybody did”; “I don’t have any clue as to why we’re still in Iraq”; and “If Donald Rumsfeld was here, I’d ask him for his resignation.” We have no way of knowing how badly these sentiments are taken out of context. These soldiers were interviewed by Moore’s crew, but were not told that they were being interviewed for a Michael Moore film. As Moore put it in an interview with The Guardian, “we were able to get film crews embedded with American troops without them knowing that it was Michael Moore. They are totally f***ed” (http://www.guardian.co.uk/uselections2004/story/0,13918,1218376,00.html).

Having used these soldiers, Moore then moves on to imply that they joined the army purely out of economic necessity, and to discuss more generally the military’s recruiting practices. He starts by repeating the false claim that there is a shortage of troops, and saying, “With the war not going as planned, and the military in need of many more troops, where would they find the new recruits?” We then hear a voice say, “Military experts say three times the 120,000 U.S. troops now deployed would be needed to pacify and rebuild the country.” The voice belongs to CBS reporter Bill Plante, in an April 7, 2004 report in which he cited only one military expert, from more than a year earlier. Here’s the transcript:

PLANTE: But some outside military experts say three times the 120,000 U.S. troops now deployed would be needed to pacify and rebuild the country. It’s an argument that began before the war.

General ERIC SHINSEKI (Former Army Chief of Staff): [In a clip from February 25, 2003, before the war began.] I’m saying on the order of several hundred thousand soldiers, you know, a figure that would be required.

General Shinseki put forward his estimate of “several hundred thousand soldiers” needed for postwar Iraq in early 2003, and it upset civilian leaders in the Pentagon who believed, as Deputy Defense Secretary Paul Wolfowitz put it, that “we have no idea what we will need until we get there on the ground” (http://www.globalpolicy.org/security/issues/iraq/attack/consequences/2003/0228pentagoncontra.htm). In any case, General Shinseki’s 2003 guesstimates are not relevant in 2004, and the best-informed “military experts” are the commanders in the field, who have not expressed anything like this sense of the number of soldiers required.

Having asked where the supposedly newly-needed troops will come from, Moore then answers his own question: “They would find them all across America in the places that had been destroyed by the economy. Places where one of the only jobs available was to join the Army. Places like my hometown of Flint, Michigan.” Flint is not actually Moore’s hometown, he was born and grew up in the wealthier suburb of Davison, Michigan (http://www.usatoday.com/life/movies/news/2004-06-20-moore_x.htm, http://www.smh.com.au/articles/2004/07/09/1089000339554.html?oneclick=true). More importantly, Moore’s assertion that the military seeks out soldiers mostly in poor communities, or that most members of the military are poor is just not true. In fact, the socioeconomic status of people in the military is only slightly lower than that of Americans in general, and recruits actually have a higher level of education than the general population (http://www.dod.mil/prhome/poprep99/html/chapter7/c7-perspective.htm). But as in his previous film, Roger and Me, Moore wants to show us that Flint is poor—which it genuinely is—and so to imply that the military chiefly recruits from poor areas. He shows us one resident saying that parts of Flint look like a war zone, and another talking about all the abandoned buildings in his neighborhood.

We then meet Lila Lipscomb, introduced to us as a woman who works at an employment agency in Flint. She tells us that, “At the end of January of ’04 the unemployment rate in Flint was actually 17%. But you have to take into consideration as well that when your unemployment runs out you’re no longer counted. I would say that we’re probably close to at least 50%.” She is right about the unemployment rate in January 2004 (though it later dipped down to 13.4% in April and stood at 14.2% in August, http://www.michlmi.org/LMI/lmadata/laus/lausdocs/049lf04.htm) but she is wrong in suggesting that the unemployment rate does not count people whose benefits have run out. The rate does in fact include those people (http://stats.bls.gov/bls/glossary.htm#U). Lipscomb then tells us that she recommended the military as an option for her children, since it offered a way to afford college.

Moore then asks people gathered in Flint how many of them have relatives in the military or in Iraq, and many of them raise their hands. We then see a computer-generated commercial for the Air National Guard and students in Flint talking about military recruiters, and we see a pair of Marine recruiters seeking after candidates at a local shopping mall. Moore again suggests and implies that they seek out only the poor.

Without further comment, Moore cuts back to soldiers in Iraq. We see a scene filmed around Christmastime of soldiers forcefully entering a house to seize a wanted man. It is not clear why he is wanted nor what the circumstances are. No one is harmed in the house and the individual is taken away, though his family claims adamantly that he has done nothing wrong. Moore then cuts to a soldier in a different circumstance saying, “As you go back to the old saying, win the hearts and minds of the people. That’s our job. We have to, we have to bring the ideal of democracy and freedom to the country, and show them that the American people are not here to rule Iraq.” The aim of course is to cause us to dismiss this soldier’s comment because of what we have just seen. Moore expects the soldier, expressing the ideal of our desire to bring and secure democracy in Iraq, to sound like a hypocrite when his statement is juxtaposed with the messiness of hunting down individuals wanted for involvement in the insurgency. But the two of course serve the same aim. Moore’s juxtaposition suggests that without purity of means there can be no legitimate action. People who live in the real world should know better.

We then see a little more of the Christmas scene, and Moore cuts back to Lila Lipscomb in Michigan. She tells us that her daughter served in the military in the first Gulf War, and that she’s proud of the United States and puts a flag out every day. Moore draws her out about her son being in the military—she expresses great pride about that—and she says she used to think ill of anti-war protestors. “It was just like they were dishonoring my son,” she says, “and I burned in my soul to tell them, ‘You don’t understand, they’re not there because they want to be there.’ But then I came to understand that they weren’t protesting the men and the women that were there, they were protesting the concept of the war.” Moore is slowly building a picture of the troops as victims. He wants us to believe that they have all enlisted only because they are poor and have no other way to advance in society, and he wants us to believe that they are simply in a desperate situation in Iraq: accomplishing nothing and constantly in danger for no reason. He shows us a few soldiers talking about the risks in a mission they’re about to embark on, and one soldier suggests that young Iraqi men are beginning to band together against the Americans. There is here no sense that the vast majority of the Iraqi population is tremendously grateful to have been liberated from the Saddam Hussein regime, and while (as President Bush put it in a clip mentioned above) they would certainly rather not be occupied, they are on the whole strongly opposed to the violence that kills many more Iraqis than Americans, and are hopeful that the experiment in democracy will succeed. (See, for instance, the Iraqi polling data described here: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A3433-2004Jun24.html.) And the morale of American troops in Iraq is by no means as Moore’s few clips suggest—it is, as is to be expected, mixed (http://www.stripes.com/morale/day1.pdf).

But Moore will not be distracted from his assertion that the troops are victims, and he now argues further that they are victims also of the president’s motives—presumably those Moore ascribed to Bush earlier. He says, “Immoral behavior breeds immoral behavior. When a president commits the immoral act of sending otherwise good kids to war based on a lie, this is what you get.” Rather than tell us what lie he has in mind (since his earlier efforts in this direction were, as already seen, thoroughly dishonest) Moore then shows a scene of soldiers apparently tickling a prisoner, and making fun of another individual, saying, “That one still has a hard-on.” The scene is designed to suggest to us that the soldiers are abusing a prisoner, or perhaps even a corpse. But Moore himself has admitted that this is not the case. As the Canadian newspaper Globe and Mail has put it:

[Moore] revealed that a scene in which American soldiers appear to be desecrating a corpse beneath a blanket may be misleading. In fact, the soldiers had picked up an old man who had passed out drunk and they poked at his visible erection, covered by a blanket. (http://www.theglobeandmail.com/servlet/ArticleNews/TPStory/LAC/20040518/CANNES18/TPEntertainment/Film)

Making fun of a drunk is certainly immature, but it is hardly a war crime, and the way Moore has set up the scene makes it seem far more serious than it is. Moore then shows us soldiers taking a picture with what appears to be a hooded prisoner, though he offers no details.

We next hear a soldier expressing frustration, saying, “To have these people shoot at us, kill us, blow us up, whatever means they can, and I don’t understand it. We’re trying to help these people and it seems they don’t want our help—‘Get out of here’—but the minute something goes wrong with them—‘Oh why weren’t you here?’ ‘Why didn’t you do this?’ You know it’s—I hate this country [Iraq].” This is a profound description of the situation, perhaps more honest than Moore realizes, or else he would not have left it in the film. It may be that Moore is trying to make this soldier sound ridiculous, it is hard to be sure, but the soldier has expressed a deep truth, and he is right: He and other brave men and women like him are truly doing a good and noble deed, and are too rarely appreciated by those they are helping. Moore follows this up with another useful insight into the tremendously difficult burden borne by these soldiers, as a soldier says, “You know, you, you—I feel that a part of your soul is destroyed in taking another life. And yeah that statement is very true; you cannot kill someone without killing a part of yourself.” But rather than reflect upon these thoughts, or hint at the good which these soldiers are serving, Moore cuts back to the United States, to a soldier he has found who has been to Iraq and is unwilling to return.

Moore is speaking to a man in front of the U.S. Capitol, identified on screen as “Cpl. Abdul Henderson USMC, Served in Iraq,” who tells him that if he’s called up to return to Iraq, he will refuse. “I will not let anyone send me back over there to kill other poor people. Especially when they pose no threat to me and my country. I won’t do it.” Though Moore makes it look like Henderson is a full-time Marine, he is actually a reservist in an Air Naval Gunfire Liaison company which had seen action in Iraq (http://www.wltx.com/fyi/fyi.asp?storyid=20006). For now, Moore tells us nothing more about him and, again, the notion that Iraq was never any threat to the United States is simply asserted without argument.

Moore then moves on to a clip of President Bush, in a tuxedo at what is clearly a very fancy occasion, saying, “This is an impressive crowd—the haves and the have-mores. Some people call you the elite. I call you my base.” Moore wants it to appear as though this is some kind of ultra-expensive Republican fundraiser and Bush is openly asserting that he serves the rich, perhaps bolstering Moore’s earlier confused pile of barely-connected allegations about the Iraq war having been begun at the behest of big business. But in fact the context of the clip makes it very clear that Bush is ridiculing precisely the attitude that Moore here exemplifies, and is making fun of the notion that he serves the rich. The clip is from the October 19, 2000 Alfred E. Smith Memorial Foundation Dinner, an annual event in New York at which leading politicians lampoon themselves and each other, all in an effort to raise money for a Catholic charity that offers medical services to the poor. The event took place before the 2000 election, and George W. Bush and Al Gore both made light of the way they had been represented in the press. Here is how one newspaper described the event:

The Vice President [Gore], who spoke first, started right off making fun of his tendency to exaggerate and his boast that he invented the Internet. “The Al Smith Dinner represents a hallowed and important tradition, which I actually did invent,” he deadpanned. Joking about his oft-repeated debate promise to keep Social Security in a “locked box,” he said if he’s elected he’ll put “Medicare in a walk-in closet,” NASA funding in a “hermetically sealed Ziploc bag” and will “always keep lettuce in the crisper.” Bush, whose proposals have been criticized by opponents as benefits for a small percentage of the rich, said as his opening remark he was glad to join those on the “distinguished dais, better known as the top one percent.” “This is an impressive crowd of the haves and have mores,” he said. “Some people call you the elite, I call you my base.” He also made light of his reputation as a non-intellectual perennial frat-boy, saying he noticed that fellow Yale man William F. Buckley Jr., the author, was on the dais. “We have a lot in common,” he said. “Bill wrote a book at Yale, I read one. He started the Conservative Party, I started a few parties myself.” (http://cny.org/archive/ld/ld102600.htm)

So rather than prove Moore’s point, Bush was in fact making fun of it. Moore also does not mention that the event the clip is drawn from raised $1.6 million for that very good cause (http://cny.org/archive/ld/ld102600.htm).

Rather than trouble himself with these facts, Moore reasserts his deception and piles on several more. He says, “While Bush was busy taking care of his base and professing his love for our troops, he proposed cutting combat soldiers’ pay by 33% and assistance to their families by 60%. He opposed giving veterans a billion dollars more in health care benefits, and he supported closing veteran hospitals. He tried to double the prescription drug costs for veterans and opposed full benefits for part-time reservists.”

These charges are all either deeply misleading or false. The “cutting combat soldiers’ pay by 33%” charge refers to so called “imminent danger” bonuses, which are bonuses of $150 a month given to soldiers serving in certain areas, including combat zones. In 2003, Congress and the Bush Administration increased imminent danger bonuses by $75 to $225 a month. In its 2004 budget, the Bush Administration at first proposed not to extend this increase, and so to bring the bonuses back to $150. This is what Moore calls a 33% cut in pay, but in fact it’s not a cut in the basic pay but in the bonus. In any case, the administration eventually reversed itself and this cut never actually took place at all.

The reference to cutting “assistance to their families by 60%” is equally distorted. Congress had passed a one-time increase in the “family separation allowance” given to soldiers with assignments on which their families cannot join them, from $100 per month to $250 per month. Again, the Bush Administration’s budget for 2004 had originally proposed returning these to their original levels, and Moore describes this as a 60% cut. But the administration changed its position, and no “cut” was ever instituted. Neither of these would have counted as cuts in pay, they applied to bonuses which are a very small portion of a soldier’s pay—and in any case, neither actually occurred (http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/chronicle/archive/2003/08/15/PAY.TMP, and on pay levels in the military see http://usmilitary.about.com/cs/joiningup/a/recruiter5.htm).

While in the movie, Moore says that Bush “opposed giving veterans a billion dollars more in health care benefits,” on his website Moore phrases the claim differently, saying Bush “proposed cutting $1.3 billion in veterans’ health care” (http://www.michaelmoore.com/warroom/f911notes/index.php?id=21). The version in the movie is closer to the truth. During the debates about appropriating $87 billion of supplemental funding for the war in Iraq—the bill that Senator Kerry famously voted for before he voted against—legislators made dozens of changes. One of the changes made to the bill would have added $1.3 billion for veterans medical care, but the administration wanted to keep the bill focused on Iraq, so it opposed that addition (http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,100777,00.html). Congress eventually took the $1.3 billion out of the bill. The version on Moore’s website, saying Bush “proposed cutting” money from veterans’ health care, is a complete fabrication. But even the version in the movie is a distortion, for while the White House opposed one particular increase at one particular time, the overall trend has been to make vast increases in veterans’ care (http://www.factcheck.org/article.aspx?docID=144).

As for the charge that Bush supported closing veterans’ hospitals, this is a reference to a recommendation by the Department of Veterans Affairs, following the recommendation of the Independent Commission on Veterans’ Hospitals, that seven specific hospitals in areas with sharply declining populations of veterans be closed because they had become so underutilized that veterans in those areas would be better served in other nearby veterans’ hospitals. The department simultaneously proposed building new veterans’ hospitals in other areas where the veteran population had grown, and building a series of new rehabilitation centers. The total number of veterans’ hospitals would grow, not decline, under this plan, and the system would adjust itself to meet particular needs in particular areas (http://www1.va.gov/cares/).

The claim that Bush “tried to double the prescription drug costs for veterans” refers to a Bush Administration proposal to increase the co-pay for prescription drugs from $7 to $15, for veterans who earn over $24,000 a year. Technically, Moore is correct—it is more than an increase of 100 percent—but in real dollars the accusation comes to seem ludicrous. In any case, the increase never took place (http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A26166-2003Jul21).

As for giving full-time benefits to part-timers, it is true that such a proposal was made as an amendment to the $87 billion supplementary authorization for Iraq war costs, and the administration did originally oppose it (http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,100777,00.html). But Congress left the benefits in the bill, and the president ultimately approved them—and even signed them into law on November 6, 2003 (http://frwebgate.access.gpo.gov/cgi-bin/getdoc.cgi?dbname=108_cong_public_laws&docid=f:publ106.108).

Most importantly, this litany of distortions leaves the viewer with the impression that veterans and soldiers have somehow been worse off under the Bush Administration than before. But that notion is simply ridiculous, and belied by the most obvious facts. In 2003, the Bush Administration pushed through Congress a pay increase for all active-duty military personnel of 3.7%, with an additional increase for non-commissioned officers as well as increased bonuses (http://www.dod.gov/news/Dec2003/n12092003_200312083.html). The Bush Administration has also increased funding for the Department of Veterans Affairs by a whopping 27% in its first three years, and if the administration’s 2005 budget passes, it will have increased spending on veterans by 37.6% (http://www.factcheck.org/article.aspx?docID=144). This utterly dwarfs the sorts of $8 increases in drug costs that Moore points to. Moore’s assertions are desperate attempts to distort figures to give an appearance that is simply the opposite of the truth.

Moore then mentions that “when Staff Sergeant Brett Petriken from Flint was killed in Iraq on May 26th, the Army sent his last paycheck to his family, but they docked him for the last five days of the month that he didn’t work because he was dead.” This story could not be readily confirmed but it is certainly plausible—it sounds like the sort of tragic bureaucratic error that can so hurt the family of a fallen soldier. But there is no reason to believe (and Moore in no way claims) that this has anything to do with Bush Administration policy in any way. What this story is doing in the film is not clear, although it does stand out as being a plausible and likely true part of an otherwise concocted list of grievances.

Moore does not stop to let us judge his distorted claims, but rather brings back Rep. McDermott to say, “They say they’re not gonna leave any veteran behind, but they’re leaving all kinds of veterans behind,” without explaining what he has in mind. Rather than explain, Moore cuts to a scene at Walter Reed Army Medical Center in Washington, to give the impression that the veterans there have been “left behind.” He shows soldiers saying that not enough attention has been paid to the injured by the public and the press—which certainly seems a valid point—and he shows an interview with a soldier who has lost parts of both arms speaking about his therapy and recuperation. This interview, as it turns out, was done by NBC and aired on an NBC News program. Moore reused the footage without asking the consent of the soldier being shown, Army reservist Peter Damon. Damon and his wife were surprised to learn that the footage appeared in the film, and a family friend told a Boston newspaper, “I was shocked. I would have expected if Peter was in the movie that someone would have at least talked to him about it, which I thought was kind of unfair. … I think for Michael Moore to portray Peter in there without any knowledge is terrible” (http://enterprise.southofboston.com/articles/2004/07/15/news/news/news02.txt). Moore then shows several other recovering injured soldiers, including one who says he used to be a Republican but now, “I’m gonna definitely do my best to insure that the Democrats win control.” Moore offers no context for these soldiers’ remarks, and no further evidence that the injured have been “forgotten.” Counter-evidence, of course, abounds. (Moore might, for instance, have told this story: http://www.techcentralstation.com/071504C.html, http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2004/04/images/20040414-7_a5bu9736-677v.html.)

From here, Moore jumps back to Lila Lipscomb, this time with her husband, Howard Lipscomb, and other family members. We learn the tragic news that their son, Sgt. Michael Pederson, was killed in Iraq on April 2, 2003. Pederson (Moore does not tell us) had enlisted in 1996, and was 26 years old when he died. Lipscomb tells the painful story of speaking with her son before he left, as he shared his concerns and fears, and of later learning that his helicopter had gone down and that he had been lost. Her pain is profound and moving. She tells of screaming, “Why does it have to be Michael? Why did you have to take my son? Why is it my son that you had to take? He didn’t do anything. He wasn’t a bad guy. He was a good guy, why did you have to take my son?” Moore then cuts to a clip of Bush saying, “I can’t imagine what it must be like to lose a son or a daughter, or a husband or wife for that matter. And I—it pains me.” The clip is from an interview Bush did with Diane Sawyer of ABC in December 2003. In response to a question about whether the casualties in Iraq were too high a price, Bush said:

My job is to do everything I can to protect America and Americans. We are at war. And the war on terror is, is the challenge of the 21st century. And we must win the war. And there are different fronts on the war on terror. And I will continue to do what I think is necessary to win that war. I—and the key for me is to remind the loved ones that their troops are getting what is necessary to achieve the objective, that this government’s supporting them. And that we honor their memories, and we will not stop short of the objective until we have achieved the objective. The way to dishonor a memory of a fallen soldier is to quit too early, is to not to see that America is a more secure country and the world is a more peaceful place.

DIANE SAWYER: I guess for the family, how, maybe the question they would ask is, “How much do you suffer with each death?”

BUSH: I can’t imagine what it would be like to lose a son or a daughter or a husband, and, or a wife, for that matter. And I, it pains me. (http://abcnews.go.com/sections/primetime/US/bush_sawyer_excerpts_1_031216.html)

Moore, of course, included only the last part—preferring to look at only the sacrifices of the war out of context.

We then see Lipscomb read from the last letter she got from her son, written before the war began, in which among other things he criticizes George W. Bush, saying, “We are just out here in the sand and windstorms waiting. What in the world is wrong with George ‘Trying-To-Be-Like-His-Dad’ Bush? He got us out here for nothing whatsoever. I’m so furious right now, mama. I really hope they do not re-elect that fool, honestly.” Lipscomb mentions that the letter was mailed on March 16, 2003, but Moore does not explain that that was three days before the Iraq invasion began—so Pederson’s frustration at being “out in the sand and the windstorms waiting” sounds like the wholly understandable frustration of a soldier impatient with the slow build-up to the invasion.

Nor does Moore mention that Pederson later apologized for these remarks about Bush (http://www.freep.com/entertainment/movies/moore29_20040529.htm). Moore of course offers no other perspectives, no families of lost soldiers who feel differently about the war or about Bush, or even members of this same family who feel differently—like Pederson’s widow, who disagrees with her mother-in-law and says that “hating President Bush is not going to bring Michael back” (http://www.freep.com/entertainment/movies/moore29_20040529.htm). It is impossible to blame Lipscomb for her feelings or her views. But it is quite possible, and appropriate, to blame Moore for the way he presents the plight of the families of lost soldiers here, and for what he leaves out. For him, it is all a way to get back to his corporate conspiracies. He ends this scene by showing Howard Lipscomb saying, “I really feel sorry for the other families that is losing their kids as we speak. And for what? I don’t—that’s the, I guess, the sickening part. For what?” and then jumping to a clip from a Halliburton commercial.

The ad describes some of what Halliburton does in Iraq, and ends with the company’s CEO saying, “We’re serving the troops because of what we know, not who we know.” (The ad is the second one on this page: http://www6.halliburton.com/frontline/mm_video.asp.) As if to beat us over the head, Moore then cuts to a clip of Dick Cheney saying, “I’m very proud of what I did at Halliburton and the people of Halliburton are very proud of what they’ve accomplished. And I frankly don’t feel any need to apologize for the way I’ve spent my time over the past five years as the CEO and chairman of a major American corporation.” Again, by juxtaposition, Moore wants to suggest that something is improper about Halliburton’s involvement in Iraq, but he makes no specific accusation.

Instead, Moore cuts to a corporate conference about rebuilding Iraq, to which, he tells us, Halliburton was invited. It is not clear why it makes sense to focus on Halliburton when discussing this conference, but Moore needs a transition. The conference, held in Arlington, Virginia in December 2003, aimed to bring together representatives of Iraq’s Governing Council with companies hoping to do business in Iraq (http://www.new-fields.com/iraq2/pr1204.htm). He shows us a number of speakers, from companies and government, talking about business opportunities in Iraq, and attempting to appeal to investors. His implication is certainly that there is something unseemly about companies offering services in Iraq, or services to the military, and that making money in this arena is improper. He does not offer any argument to suggest that these companies are somehow the reason the United States went to war in Iraq. And indeed, it would very likely have been more profitable for these companies to deal with the regime of Saddam Hussein than to be part of a complex reconstruction and democratization effort. But Moore just wants us to see that someone is doing business in Iraq and making money. He thinks that should be enough to sour us on the war and the Bush Administration.

Moore then shows us a clip from another Halliburton commercial (the third ad on this page: http://www6.halliburton.com/frontline/mm_video.asp) which ends with an announcer saying, “Halliburton. Proud to serve our troops.” Then, in one of his most peculiar directorial decisions, he cuts to a scene of several elderly women in what appears to be a nursing home, talking about the war. One woman says, “I just read in the paper Halliburton got another contract. Halliburton got another contract which is not being contested at all.” Strange sourcing, an old woman and what she has read in the newspaper. Moore does not explain what he has in mind, but presumably this is a reference to the canard regarding improprieties in a number of “no bid” Halliburton contracts, a charge long ago examined and dismissed (http://www.nationalreview.com/york/york070903.asp).

But old women can’t be wrong, and Moore proves it by cutting to a scene of an American armored car in Iraq, and a reporter’s voice saying, “The United States is now a major player in the Iraqi oil business. American troops guard the oil fields as Texas oil workers assess their potential.” Moore does not mention that all of Iraq’s oil resources have been turned over to the new Iraqi government, and that the new government has looked to several countries, not just the U.S., for training and resources (for instance, http://www.crosswalk.com/news/1276082.html). Instead, he shows us oil workers saying they feel safe, and a soldier saying the civilian contractors get paid more than soldiers do. Both are likely true, but it is far from clear how they make whatever point Moore is seeking to get across here. Finally he cuts back to the conference in Virginia, and again shows various executives and officials talking about the potential business opportunities in the new Iraq. The snippets he patches together are, it seems, aimed at making us see these people as war profiteers, and in no way as investors in a burgeoning democracy. They’re simply the villains.

We are then taken back to the nursing home, where the same elderly woman again expounds upon the passing scene, saying, “Today on the news, Rumsfeld was saying and, uh, wol—, wolf—, Wolfowitz was saying, ‘Oh, the Iraqi people are much, much better off. Isn’t it better that we got rid of Saddam and now the Iraqi people can do what they want to do and really be free?’ Will they ever be free? No they’ll not be free. And where are the, are the weapons of mass destruction? It was an—we were duped. We were really duped. And these poor people—the young men and women who are being killed there—it’s unnecessary.” Again Moore offers no evidence beyond this woman’s understanding of the news. He offers no evidence to challenge the proposition that the Iraqi people are better off than they were under the regime of a vicious tyrant who starved and tortured them while diverting precious funds to military uses and to his own enjoyment. The fact that a plurality of Iraqis thinks that even now, in the uncertain transition period, they are better off, and that 63% believe that five years from now, when that period has passed, they will be better off than they were under Saddam Hussein’s regime (while only 10% expect to be worse off) is also not mentioned (http://i.a.cnn.net/cnn/2004/WORLD/meast/04/28/iraq.poll/iraq.poll.4.28.pdf). All we get is this old woman’s opinion that everything is rotten and nothing will ever work out.

Moore then cuts to a scene of President Bush saying, “They died in a just cause, for defending freedom, and they will not have died in vain.” We are to presume that this is a remark about soldiers giving their lives in Iraq, and of course given what the elderly woman just told us, we are apparently supposed to see the president’s comment as ridiculous. But Bush’s remarks are neither about Iraq (though they certainly would also apply to American soldiers in Iraq), nor are they ridiculous. They are from a speech given at the Special Forces training center in Fayetteville, North Carolina, in March 2002 (a year before the war in Iraq had even begun), and they honor the sacrifices of Special Forces soldiers in Afghanistan. Bush said:

Our Special Operations forces know the danger that awaits them. This is a dangerous battle that we face, a dangerous war. And I’m proud of the courage, not only of the soldiers who volunteer for battle, but for the loved ones who remain behind. Not only am I proud of our soldiers, I am proud of the wives and husbands and sons and daughters and moms and dads. And, on behalf of a grateful nation, we thank you, as well. (Applause.) We appreciate your courage and your sacrifice. Two young men from the Special Forces were recently laid to rest, Chief Warrant Officer Stanley Harriman and Air Force Tech Sergeant John Chapman. I want their families to know that we pray with them, that we honor them, and they died in a just cause, for defending freedom, and they will not have died in vain. (Applause.) Because of such soldiers, a vicious regime has been toppled in Afghanistan, and an entire people have been liberated from oppression. Because of American soldiers and our brave allies and friends who have fought beside them, the Taliban is out of business. (Applause.) (http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2002/03/20020315.html)

Given this context, it is hard to see what Moore’s point is meant to be. But he hardly worries about it.

Instead, he cuts to a scene in Washington, D.C., where Lila Lipscomb has come for a conference, and where we see her take some time to visit the park across the street from the White House. We see her speak with one of the ever-present tented protestors near the White House (the group that called for nuclear freeze decades ago, and is still there, 24 hours a day, protesting whatever happens to be going on at the time). Lipscomb mentions her son to the woman (who seems barely sane and says “Bush is a terrorist”) and then another woman passing by enters the scene and says “this is staged,” trying to disrupt the filming of what she seems to think is a staged conversation. She challenges Lipscomb about the story of her son’s death, but backs off when Lipscomb offers details. It is a tense and interesting scene, but Moore does not tell us that immediately afterwards the woman apologized to Lipscomb, and the two hugged (http://myroomtowrite.blogspot.com/2004/07/alice-in-wonderland.html).

This is followed by footage of the grieving mother, one of the most grippingly emotional moments of the film. It is worth remembering, during this scene, that Moore has not always been so concerned for families of American soldiers. Indeed, in April 2004—around the same time he was filming these scenes, and very likely after filming the scene with Lipscomb by the White House—Moore wrote on his website, “I’m sorry, but the majority of Americans supported this war once it began and, sadly, that majority must now sacrifice their children until enough blood has been let that maybe—just maybe—God and the Iraqi people will forgive us in the end” (http://www.michaelmoore.com/words/message/index.php?messageDate=2004-04-14). A very different sentiment indeed.

The film then cuts to a scene of Moore walking around the Capitol with Cpl. Abdul Henderson (who appeared earlier) and we hear Moore say, “I guess I was tired of seeing people like Lila Lipscomb suffer, especially when, out of the 535 members of Congress, only one had an enlisted son in Iraq. I asked Corporal Henderson of the United States Marine Corps to join me on Capitol Hill to see how many members of Congress we could convince to enlist their children to go to Iraq.” In fact, there are at least two children of Members of Congress fighting in Iraq: Brooks Johnson, son of Senator Tim Johnson (http://www.chron.com/cs/CDA/ssistory.mpl/special/iraq/1830586), and Duncan Hunter, Jr., son of Rep. Duncan Hunter (http://www.hillnews.com/news/052003/ss_hunter.aspx). And those are just in Iraq. At least seven members of Congress have been confirmed to have children in the military (http://web.naplesnews.com/03/04/naples/d930340a.htm) and of course they do not have control over whether their children are deployed in Iraq or not. Moore also does not tell us how many members of Congress actually have children, and children of military age, and how many perhaps have older children who formerly served in the military or younger children too young to serve in Iraq now.

What’s more, the fact that two Members of Congress have children serving in Iraq means that a Member of Congress is actually more likely than the average American to have a child serving in Iraq, according to calculations from Dave Kopel (http://www.davekopel.com/Terror/Fiftysix-Deceits-in-Fahrenheit-911.htm).

Moore also does not mention that many Members of Congress are already intimately acquainted with the difficulty of asking troops to fight and die, since 156 members of Congress have themselves served in the military (see http://veterans.house.gov/vetlink/memberstats.htm for statistics on House members, and http://veterans.house.gov/vetlink/seanatestats.htm for statistics on Senators).

In any case, Moore has now set out to get members of Congress to enlist their children. We first see him approaching Rep. John Tanner, who says he doesn’t disagree with Moore’s desire to have more children of members of Congress join the military, and who takes a brochure along with him when he leaves. Next, Moore approaches Rep. Mark Kennedy. We see Moore tell Kennedy what he’s doing, Kennedy looks at him, and then the scene changes. But this is not what happened. After Rep. Kennedy complained to a newspaper, Moore was forced to release the transcript of his actual exchange with Kennedy, which was left out of the movie:

CONGRESSMAN KENNEDY How are you doing?

MM: I’m trying to get Members of Congress to get their kids to enlist in the Army and go over to Iraq. Is there any way you could help me with that?

CONGRESSMAN KENNEDY: How would I help you?

MM: Pass it out to other Members of Congress.

CONGRESSMAN KENNEDY: I’d be happy to. Especially those who voted for the war. I have a nephew on his way to Afghanistan.

MM: Because there is only one member who has a kid over there in Iraq. This is Corporal Henderson, he is helping me out here.

CONGRESSMAN KENNEDY: How are you, good to see you.

MM: There it is, it’s just a basic recruitment thing. Encourage especially those who were in favor of the war to send their kids. I appreciate it.

CONGRESSMAN KENNEDY: Okay, bye.
(http://www.michaelmoore.com/warroom/smackdown/index.php?id=12)

This could potentially have made Kennedy look better than Moore would want him to, and would also have reminded viewers that Members of Congress have family members other than children in the military, and that there are people in the military serving in places other than Iraq.

Moore continues to accost Members of Congress—including some who are busy speaking on cell phones, such as Rep. Michael Castle, who walks by. Moore does not mention that Castle does not even have children (http://www.house.gov/castle/bio.html).

Moore then tells us, “Of course, not a single Member of Congress wanted to sacrifice their child for the war in Iraq. And who could blame them? Who would want to give up their child? Would you? Would he? [Footage of President Bush with his two daughters].” These are strange claims. Obviously, no parent wants to “sacrifice” their child anywhere, and in any case no parent forces their child to serve or not serve in the military: we have a volunteer force, and soldiers themselves decide whether to join. And it is odd to suggest that “not a single Member of Congress” wanted to have a child serve in Iraq, since Moore himself just noted that at least one (in fact two) members actually do have children serving there, and (as Moore did not note) others have children in the military serving elsewhere.

But no matter. Moore continues, “I’ve always been amazed that the very people forced to live in the worst parts of town, go to the worst schools, and who have it the hardest are always the first to step up, to defend us. They serve so that we don’t have to. They offer to give up their lives so that we can be free. It is, remarkably, their gift to us. And all they ask for in return is that we never send them into harm’s way unless it’s absolutely necessary. Will they ever trust us again?” Thus Moore once again implies, without strictly asserting, that most people who join the military are poor, which is not true (http://www.dod.mil/prhome/poprep99/html/chapter7/c7-perspective.htm), and that the war in Iraq was not necessary.

  Continue to Section VII. Conclusion 

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