Michael Moore's History Better Told by Two Conservative Historians

Simon Jenkins, in the Times (London), July 2 2004:

MICHAEL MOORE'S blockbuster, Fahrenheit 9/11, is the worst good film I have seen.

Opening in Britain after breaking box-office records in America, it ranks among the most savage and sensational antiwar movies. Though I agree with its thrust, the depiction of George Bush over Iraq is flawed. Don't miss it, but turn off your brain first.

Then go quietly home and read a slim volume from two conservative historians, Stefan Halper and Jonathan Clarke. America Alone tells how a small group of neoconservatives contrived to take the greatest nation on Earth to war and kill thousands of people. Their anger is coldly controlled, and far more effective. How much better the Right does outrage than the Left.

Moore's thesis is simple. For more than a decade the Saudi aristocracy invested deeply in Bush family interests in Texas. They wanted to keep close to Washington out of self-protection, as they kept close to the Taleban. After 9/11 George W.

Bush was appalled that his Saudi friends might be threatened by the catastrophe.

He smuggled them out of the country, played down bin Laden's role and devoted all his efforts to blaming Saddam Hussein for 9/11.

These charges are visually spectacular rather than forensic. The Bushes are shown endlessly greeting Saudis, often in sinister slow motion. They bail out young George's business ventures. In return the CIA is ordered to prove the unprovable after 9/11. Soon two thirds of Americans hold Saddam responsible for the attack.

Scares are exaggerated and exploited by the White House (as in Britain) to generate a war psychosis. America is terrorised into confrontation.

This film may be one-sided but then so was the war. It should be compulsory viewing for every politician who orders into the air that most obscene and cowardly weapon, the bomber. Targets are missed everywhere. Bits of babies splatter the screen, interspersed with Donald Rumsfeld boasting his"brilliant accuracy".

The public gets to see not just triumphalist footage of the Pentagon's Apocalypse Iraq, in theatre-shaking ferocity. It sees the human consequence on the ground, the numb bafflement of bereaved families and smashed neighbourhoods. I left the cinema with my contempt for the futility and cruelty of air power reinforced. I also left with a deep respect for many American soldiers, having to risk their lives in the backlash from the bombing yet not afraid to admit their shame at what America was asking them to do....