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NO END IN SIGHT:
IRAQ'S DESCENT INTO CHAOS |
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| Actors: Campbell Scott, Richard Armitage, James Fallows, Samantha Power, Barbara Bodine |
| Director: Charles Ferguson |
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Studio: Magnolia Pictures |
| DVD release: 30 October 2007 |
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Runtime: 102 minutes (1 disc) |
| Format: Closed-captioned, Color, Dolby, DVD-Video, Subtitled, Widescreen, NTSC |
| DVD Features: Subtitles (Spanish), Audio Tracks (English, Dolby Digital 2.0 Stereo; English, Dolby Digital 5.1 Surround), Additional interviews, Featurettes (Personal Story: Larry Diamond; Life Under Saddam; De-Ba'athification; Disbanding the Iraqi Army; The First Video Letter Originially Produced for the New York Times Website; The CPA; Kidnapping and Crime; U.S. Military Conduct; Could It Have Been Different?; Was It Worth It?; Consequences), Trailers for "Redacted", "Crazy Love" and "Flawless" |
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Charles Ferguson's No End in Sight, if it accomplished nothing else, would well serve to stoke the fires of indignant fury already burning white-hot in the breasts of those who initially opposed the 2003 U.S. invasion of Iraq. As it is, the sure but quiet damnation of the Bush administration's handling of that ill-conceived and less well-executed war should resonate darkly with every American, regardless of political stripe.
None of the revelations here are bared with hysterical accusations; indeed, the sense of measured frustration from all interviewees is intensified by narrator Campbell Scott's soft delivery of a litany of outrageous missteps. A range of individual ranking insiders, analysts, soldiers, civilians and journalists come together under Ferguson's direction in a devastating portrait of expert advice brushed aside as not in keeping with official policies based on mindsets so far from reality as to be laughable - if the consequences weren't so deadly to the Iraqi people and American soldiers, or so debilitating to the international standing of the U.S.
Ferguson's interview subjects include top officials such as former Deputy Secretary of State Richard Armitage, Ambassador Barbara Bodine and retired General Jay Garner, head of the Office for Reconstruction and Humanitarian Assistance prior to L. Paul Bremer's woeful installation as Administrator of the Coalition Provisional Authority. Bremer, at the behest of the Vice President and the then-Secretary of Defense, issued upon assuming authority several proclamations (such as de-Ba'athification and the dissolution of the Iraqi Army) that undercut and ignored the careful planning and essential knowledge and analyses of those who, despite being understaffed and ill-equipped, had been setting the stage to integrate the Iraqi people themselves, civilian or soldier, into the reclamation of the country before the accelerating devolution into insurgency and lawlessness that now grips the beleaguered nation could take hold.
The contrapuntal voices of informed journalists and authors like Chris Albritton, James Bamford, George Packer, Samantha Power and James Fallows; the matter-of-fact personal experiences of outraged innocent Iraqis including Ali Fadhil and Omar Fekeiki; and the angry, sometimes broken words of members of the military on the ground such as Marine lieutenants Ann Gildroy and Seth Moulton (whose words are the film's final, and piercing), Army Gunner Hugo Gonzalez and Army Specialist David Yancey deepen the view of a willfully mishandled situation that has deteriorated into a morass where resentment and vengeance toward our own nation as invaders breed. This is the most thorough, clear-minded analysis of failed U.S. policy put to film yet, and as a chronicle of the causes for Iraq's degeneration into anarchy and guerilla war at the hands of those charged with running our country is necessary viewing - period.
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