Senior senators slam 'Zero Dark Thirty' torture scenes
updated 8:03 PM EST, Thu December 20, 2012
In the new film "Zero Dark Thirty," Jessica Chastain plays a CIA analyst who is part of the team hunting Osama bin Laden.
STORY HIGHLIGHTS
- Sens. Feinstein, McCain, Levin send letter calling new film "grossly inaccurate"
- Letter adds to controversy over depiction of torture as a key to finding bin Laden, Bergen says
- Senate committee has approved 6,000-page classified report on CIA interrogations program
- Bergen says as much as possible of that report should be released to the public
Editor's note: Peter
Bergen is a CNN national security analyst and author of "Manhunt: The
Ten-Year Search for bin Laden, from 9/11 to Abbottabad."
(CNN) -- On Wednesday, three senior U.S. senators sent Michael Lynton, the CEO of Sony Pictures, a letter
about "Zero Dark Thirty," the much-discussed new movie about the hunt
for Osama bin Laden, which described the film as "grossly inaccurate and
misleading."
In the letter, Senate
Intelligence Committee Chairman Dianne Feinstein, D-California, Senate
Armed Services Committee Chairman Carl Levin, D-Michigan, and Sen. John
McCain, R-Arizona, expressed their "deep disappointment" in the movie's
depiction of CIA officers torturing prisoners, which "credits these
detainees with providing critical lead information" about the courier
who led the CIA to bin Laden's hiding place in northern Pakistan.
The senators point out
that the filmmakers of "Zero Dark Thirty" open the movie with the words
that it is "based on first-hand accounts of actual events." The film
then goes on, the senators say, to give the clear implication "that the
CIA's coercive interrogation techniques were effective in eliciting
important information related to a courier for Usama Bin Laden."
Peter Bergen
The senators write that this is not supported by the facts: "We have reviewed CIA records and know that this is incorrect."
Last week, the Senate Intelligence Committee voted to sign off
on the findings of its three-year study of the CIA's detention and
interrogation program, during the course of which the committee's staff
reviewed more than 6 million pages of records about the program.
Based on the findings of that review, Sens. Feinstein and Levin had released a statement eight
months ago that said, "The CIA did not first learn about the existence
of the Usama Bin Laden courier from CIA detainees subjected to coercive
interrogation techniques. Nor did the CIA discover the courier's
identity from detainees subjected to coercive techniques. ... Instead,
the CIA learned of the existence of the courier, his true name and
location through means unrelated to the CIA detention and interrogation
program."
In their letter to Sony,
the three senators write, "(W)ith the release of Zero Dark Thirty, the
filmmakers and your production studio are perpetuating the myth that
torture is effective. ... We believe that you have an obligation to
state that the role of torture in the hunt for Usama Bin Laden is not
based on the facts."
Requests from Sony
Pictures for comment on the senators' letter yielded a response
referring to a statement that the film's director Kathryn Bigelow and
screenwriter Mark Boal had released last week:
"This was a 10-year
intelligence operation brought to the screen in a two-and-a-half-hour
film. We depicted a variety of controversial practices and intelligence
methods that were used in the name of finding bin Laden. The film shows
that no single method was necessarily responsible for solving the
manhunt, nor can any single scene taken in isolation fairly capture the
totality of efforts the film dramatizes. One thing is clear: the single
greatest factor in finding the world's most dangerous man was the hard
work and dedication of the intelligence professionals who spent years
working on this global effort. We encourage people to see the film
before characterizing it."
'Zero Dark Thirty' torture controversy
Political uproar over 'Zero Dark Thirty'
Bin Laden film sparks debate
Kathryn Bigelow talks 'Zero Dark Thirty'
"Zero Dark Thirty" does
indeed show many scenes of the various forms of sleuthing at the CIA
that were necessary to track down al Qaeda's leader.
But the statement from
the filmmakers does not address the fact that eight months ago, the
chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee had publicly said that
based on an exhaustive investigation, there was no evidence that
coercive interrogations helped lead to bin Laden's courier -- which is
clearly what the film suggests, no matter what retrospective gloss the
filmmakers now wish to apply to the issue.
Nor does the statement
indicate if Sony plans to put a disclaimer at the beginning of "Zero
Dark Thirty" explaining that the role of coercive interrogations in
tracking down bin Laden that is shown in the film is not supported by
the facts.
As I outlined in a piece
on CNN.com 10 days ago assessing the role that coercive interrogations
might have played in the hunt for bin Laden, about half an hour of the
start of "Zero Dark Thirty" consists of scenes of a bloodied al Qaeda
detainee strung to the ceiling with ropes who is beaten; forced to wear a
dog collar while crawling around attached to a leash; stripped naked in
the presence of a female CIA officer; blasted with heavy metal music so
he is deprived of sleep; forced to endure multiple crude
waterboardings; and locked into a coffin-like wooden crate.
These are the scenes
that will linger with filmgoers, far more than the scene in the movie
where two CIA analysts discuss what will prove to be a key lead to bin
Laden that surfaces in an old file. Brutal interrogations, of course,
make for a better movie than a discussion at the office.
It is only after
systematic abuse by his CIA interrogators in "Zero Dark Thirty" that the
al Qaeda detainee is tricked into believing that he has already given
up key information, and he starts cooperating and tells them about a man
known as Abu Ahmed al-Kuwaiti, who ultimately proves to be bin Laden's
courier.
"Zero Dark Thirty" opened Wednesday in New York and Los Angeles and will open nationwide in the second week in January.
Let's hope that the
attention that "Zero Dark Thirty" has directed to the issue of what kind
of intelligence was derived from the CIA's coercive interrogations will
help to put pressure on the White House and the CIA to release to the
public as much as possible of the presently classified 6,000-page report
by the Senate Intelligence Committee that examines this issue.
_____________
Full disclosure: Along
with other national security experts, as an unpaid adviser I screened an
early cut of "Zero Dark Thirty." We advised that al Qaeda detainees
held at secret CIA prison sites overseas were certainly abused, but they
were not beaten to a pulp, as was presented in this early cut.
Screenwriter Mark Boal told CNN as a result of this critique, some of
the bloodier scenes were "toned down" in the final cut. I also saw this
final cut of the film. Finally, HBO is making a theatrical release
documentary which will be out in 2013 based on my book about the hunt
for bin Laden entitled "Manhunt."
Follow @CNNOpinion on Twitter.
end quote from:
I was listening to Senator McCain who was terribly tortured in North Viet Nam while held prisoner there for several years during the Viet Nam War say something like, "No useful information at all was gathered about Osama Bin Laden through torture. We all know this. So this is inaccurate in the movie."
The other interesting thing (I haven't seen the movie yet) is that the way Osama Bin Laden was executed without them even trying to imprison him is more like something one does with a double agent. If he wasn't a double agent why execute him? Why not take him prisoner to find out more about his organization? As most people know who have studied about Osama Bin Laden during the 1980s, he became an Afghanistani and Pakistani Folk Hero as a Mujahadeen against the Soviets there when they invaded Afghanistan and he was one of the first to start shooting down Russian jets and helicopters with Stinger types of hand held missiles from the ground. He had "and still has" cult status with many Afghanis and Pakistanis ever since the early 1980s ever since. Just watch Charlie Wilson's War on DVD and realize that the guy shooting the missiles was Osama Bin Laden. So was Osama Bin Laden still an agent for the CIA like he was in the early 1980s? I don't know and likely we will never know now because he was executed instead of questioned.
Zero Dark Thirty Movie Trailer
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