MOBIUS STRIP: NO END IN SIGHT

"No End in Sight." is a documentary,written and directed by Charles Ferguson and narrated by Campbell Scott. The film is about Bush’s trumped up fiasco of a "war" in Iraq, Since March 2003, the debacle in Iraq has cost over 3,770 American military lives and has left thousands severely maimed for life; over 100,000 (possibly more) Iraqi civilian deaths; countless wounded and traumatized, and at least a thousand deaths of US and foreign contractors, as well as the displacement - - both in-country and to other countries - - of millions of Iraqis, not to mention destroying 5,000 years of irreplaceable historical artifacts and records.

Director Ferguson has crafted a clear, well-organized chronology of events, with Scott's spare narration. He interviews many of the people involved in the planning of the invasion and subsequent events (many US government officials responsible for orchestrating the attack refused to be interviewed). Ferguson also includes countless film clips from various sources. The film shows where we are now, and interviewees speculate on how if ever this tragedy will end. And yet, "No End" never asks why - -what was the real reason behind the Bush administration’s push to invade a country that had neither attacked nor posed an immanent threat to the US. WMDs and links to 9/11 aside, George W. Bush based America’s invasion on his admitted God-given belief that America's goal is to fulfill its capitalist imperialist agenda for world domination. To accomplish this, the American government must appear to be helping other countries achieve the American version of democracy and freedom whether or not they ask for it. And Ferguson includes a clip, with Scott’s voice-over, of the discussion among George Junior’s honchos of killing Saddam Hussein for his assassination attempt on his father as another reason for the invasion. Since 9/11, under the guise of national security, the Bush administration, with bipartisan approval, has passed and is passing draconian laws on its own people and undermining the U. S. Constitution in the process.

Since Michael Moore’s "Fahrenheit 9/11," there have been and are many documentaries on the Iraq invasion and its consequences. "No End" is one of the latest. Ferguson includes historic archival clips of Republican neo-cons led by Dick Cheney, Paul Wolfowitz, and Donald Rumsfeld (all of whom figured prominently in the senior Bush’s cabinet) at meetings where, it was later revealed, they contrived to twist facts, manipulate the media, and fudge intelligence reports to convince the American people through scare tactics of the necessity to launch a preemptive strike on Iraq. None of these architects had had any military experience, none had ever been to Iraq, none spoke Arabic, or knew the culture. Watching these deluded warmongers in action makes one’s skin crawl. It appears that our government leaders and our elected representatives have no intention of ending the war and bringing the troops home despite what the people want and believe they voted for in 2006. Both parties recently okayed an increase in military spending in Iraq.

To see the once beautiful, thriving, cosmopolitan, magical city of Baghdad reduced to rubble is shocking and heartbreaking. The Green Zone, however, where well- protected American officials live and where the American puppet Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki officiates, is like Palm Springs East, replete with Burger King, Pizza Hut, and Starbucks, spas and health clubs. It is barricaded by impenetrable concrete walls. Outside the Zone, the filmmaker takes us through miles and miles of streets lined with bullet and bomb scarred buildings where we see its people wandering among broken concrete and exposed rebar, and children sitting forlornly in doorways of what’s left of their homes. Ferguson does not spare us from scenes of the city’s morgue where at least seventy bodies of civilians are brought every day. One Iraqi man says, "The dead are lucky, because they are dead."

Early in the film there’s a clip of seasoned four-star General Shinseki who had successfully commanded troops in Bosnia and was interviewed for the film, meeting with Department of Defense’s Donald Rumsfeld prior to the invasion. Rumsfeld asked his advice on troop levels needed in Iraq. Rumsfeld ignored him and went with his own idea of a "lean, mean" military. Dedicated, experienced professionals, both military and otherwise, were appointed to work with the Iraqi people and its leaders after the invasion and removal of Saddam Hussein, to stabilize their country. Col. Paul Hughes and Gen. Jay Garner were to work with the Iraqi military, and Barbara Bodine would head the Office of Reconstruction and Humanitarian Assistance (ORHA). They spoke Arabic and agreed to be interviewed for the film.
By summer of 2004, the appointment of J. Paul Bremer changed the tenor of the invasion. Wreaking his egomaniacal aggrandizement, he undermined the work of Hughes, Garner and Bodine’s ORHA, renaming it the Coalition Provisional Authority (CPA). On camera Hughes tells of having 300,000 Iraqi soldiers’ signed commitments to assist Americans to stabilize Iraq, and help control the incipient insurgency. The first of Bremer’s disastrous acts was to disband this army without notifying Hughes, causing almost a half-million men their jobs. They disbanded - - with their guns. Hughes states in the film that Paul Wolfowitz, Walter Slocombe (a Rumsfeld crony), and Rumsfeld made the decision.in secret. Ironically, according to Colin Powell, Bush was never advised. Slocombe, in Washington, tells the interviewer that for Hughes to have that many signed applications was preposterous. No one, he said, can possibly conduct that sort of enterprise.

Bremer’s second egregious act was "de-Baathification," decimating Iraq’s infrastructure, tossing aside the very people who made city services, school, hospitals, education, communications work. Now, thousands of civilians had nothing with which to sustain their families. The film shows scenes of angry Iraqi men shouting in the streets that they have no money, no food, nothing! It should have come as no surprise that many angry, young Iraqis joined the insurgency, which Rumsfeld & Co. denied, saying that there were some "bitter-enders. Bremer hired non-Arabic speaking MBAs fresh out of college to fill the vacancies. Ferguson interviews a woman hired as a traffic planner. When asked if she had any experience, she says "No" but felt it was a "great opportunity to travel and make money." Bodine and Hughes continued advising neighborhood leaders and visiting Iraqis in their homes. After a while Bodine was told she was "hard to work with" and her position went to one of Bremer’s non-Arabic-speaking MBAs. The vacuum left by the disbanded Iraqi Army and "de-Baathification" was soon filled by Moqtada al-Sadr and his Mahdi Army.

The film includes a clip where, in a rare speech early into his Czarship, Bremer promises Iraqis that soon they would have 24-hour-electricity, fresh, clean, running water, sanitation, and jobs. None of this ever materialized. To this day, electricity is sporadic, at most, four hours a day. Ferguson interviews several Marines who said helping Iraqi civilians rebuild the infrastructure proved impossible because of Bremer’s arrogance, detachment and ineptness. Bremer’s Coalition Provisional Authority was allocated 18 billion dollars to rebuild Iraq. As of the film’s making only one billion had been spent. No one can account for the other 17 billion.
Early on, looting began in earnest. Every store, shop and office in every building was stripped bare, down to the walls. Iraq army officials knew where the munition dumps were; these, also were summarily looted. Ferguson includes the memorable clip of a whining Rumsfeld, saying that democracy is "messy" and that the looting wasn’t as bad as shown on TV. "You see the same shot over and over again of a man running out of a building with a vase! There can’t be THAT many vases!" A soul-wrenching shot shows the museum director crying over his looted museum, saying that armed American soldiers just stood around and watched while cases were smashed, artifacts ripped from walls and floors. Yet, the oil ministry was heavily guarded by American soldiers.

In May, 2003, Italian UN leader in Iraq, Sergio Vieira de Mello established his headquarters outside the Green Zone, accessible to Iraqi leaders and civilians alike. Its employees spoke Arabic. Narrator Campbell Scott explains that de Mello’s attempts to meet with Bremer in the Palace were thwarted. Bremer did not return his phone calls and was inaccessible. On August 2003, a truck bomb went off directly below de Mello’s office, killing him and twenty-two others, and wounding over a hundred. Shortly thereafter, the UN pulled out.
A fact few Americans are aware of is that, at the time of the film’s making, there were 45,000 civilian contractors in Iraq. The US military considers them the wild cards - - free, without any government guidelines or supervision. "No End" includes a short clip taken by one of these contractors from inside their vehicle. We ride along as it careens down the road, indiscriminately shooting rounds wildly at buildings and cars while the driver and passengers whoop and holler. Ferguson’s documentary tells of the insurgents’ killing and burning of four contractors, dragging them through the streets. He spares us footage of their charred bodies hanging from a bridge. Things couldn’t get any worse, but of course they did. Yet if you listened to Rumsfeld, Cheney, Wolfowitz, and Bush the war was going along swimmingly, progress was being made. You see a grinning, death's-head Rumsfeld giving his "quagmire" response, and replying to hapless soldiers whose buddies were being blown up in their un-armored Humvees, that "you go to war with the army you have, not the army you wish you had . . ."

We must bear in mind, however, that if America declared victory in Iraq with its infrastructure restored, and the various ministries and the historic museum unscathed, and there were few civilian or military deaths, this movie would not have been made. Instead, there would’ve been an entirely different film: America, wearing an American flag on its puffed up chest and backed by a gazillion American flags, would boast proudly on TV of America’s victory. We would see parades in every city and town, confetti, soldiers and sailors kissing strange women beside fountains and statues of fallen heroes. But no, we don’t want that film either. It would only serve to inspire America on to the next war. Oh, wait, despite films like "No End," the spate of incriminating and damning evidence of the horror that is Iraq, and the opinions of the majority of Americans and the world, the drumbeats are pounding for war with Iran.