Three days ago marked the fifth anniversary of September 11. The anniversary of a day that rocked everyone from New York to London deserved commemoration and honoring. Some, however, chose the wrong path.
ABC ran a two-part docudrama titled ""The Path to 9/11"" which never should have seen the light of day. Last week, a tremendous controversy began to surround the film, which claimed to be based on findings of the 9/11 Commission.
First picked up by liberal bloggers, the story started to gain traction when three former Clinton aides wrote letters to Bob Iger—the chief executive of the Walt Disney Company, ABC's parent—claiming it was ""fraught with factual errors and fabrications.""
Within a day, Disney/ABC received more than 120,000 petitions asking the film to be pulled due to inaccuracies. This was just the beginning.
The following day, two FBI agents came out against the film. Thomas E. Nicoletti, who retired in 2003 after being a member of the Joint Terrorism Task Force, was hired for the film in July 2005 but quit in less than a month.
""There were some of the scenes that were total fiction,"" Nicoletti said in an interview with The New York Times. ""I told them unless they were changing this, I could not have my name associated with it.""
Another FBI agent refused to be a part of it after reading the script.
""They sent me the script, and I read it and told them they had to be kidding,"" said Dan Coleman, who retired in 2004. ""I wanted my friends at the FBI to still speak to me.""
Two scenes received the brunt of the criticism. The first shows Mohammed Atta, one of the hijackers, at the American Airlines window checking in at Boston's Logan Airport when a warning pops up on the screen. The ticket agent alerts her supervisor who shrugs it off and lets him through. This clearly shows negligence on the part of American Airlines.
Unfortunately, this did not happen. According to the 9/11 Commission Report, the warning showed up on a screen in Portland, Maine for a U.S. Airways flight, not American Airlines in Boston.
American Airlines has since threatened legal action and, in a statement, said, ""This misrepresentation of facts dishonors the memory of innocent American Airlines employees and all those who lost their lives as a result of the tragic events of 9/11.""
The second scene which has drawn ire involves Sam Berger, former national security advisor. In this scene Berger refused to give the order to kill Osama bin Laden even though they had him in sight. This also never happened. No one from the CIA or U.S. military was ever on the ground and saw bin Laden. In fact, the CIA director could not recommend a strike on the camp where bin Laden was believed to be because the information was single-sourced.
ABC knew of the inaccuracies in ""The Path to 9/11"" before it ran and they did nothing besides attach a long disclaimer stating it was a dramatization.
But what good does this disclaimer do to the average watcher? Joe Schmoe will not know fact from fiction. He will think Sam Berger allowed bin Laden to live and American Airlines let Atta on that plane.
""That the film directly contradicts the findings of the 9/11 Commission is troubling,"" said members of the Clinton Foundation in a letter to Bob Iger.
""That it defames dedicated public officials is tragic. But the fact that it misleads millions of people about the most tragic and consequential event in recent history is disgraceful.""
On a day that should have been reserved for remembering and honoring those that died, ABC made the wrong decision by airing this film. It only adds to the lies and myths surrounding the War on Terror. An actual documentary, based solely on fact, would have been much more appropriate.
