'Zero Dark Thirty' hunts for Bin Laden -- and more

Saw the movie today.....good movie...some minor issues...but hey it's a movie. I did find it interesting that no one ever said SEALs in the movie...not once.

Thought the water boarding scene in "Safe House" was more graphic though.
 
goon175 said:
But, as I have said before, with all the access they were given, this movie should be pretty damn accurate. If it isn't, they need to question their legitimacy as film makers.
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And with this kind of access comes repercussions...

Senate panel to examine CIA contacts with "Zero Dark Thirty" filmmakers

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - After the Senate Intelligence Committee's chairwoman expressed outrage over scenes that imply "enhanced interrogations" of CIA detainees produced a breakthrough in the hunt for Osama bin Laden, the panel has begun a review of contacts between the makers of the film "Zero Dark Thirty" and CIA officials.

In the latest controversy surrounding the film, Reuters has learned that the committee will examine records charting contacts between intelligence officials and the film's director Kathryn Bigelow and screenwriter Mark Boal.

Investigators will examine whether the spy agency gave the filmmakers "inappropriate" access to secret material, said a person familiar with the matter. They will also probe whether CIA personnel are responsible for the portrayal of harsh interrogation practices, and in particular the suggestion that they were effective, the person said.

The intelligence committee's Democrats contend that is factually incorrect.

Zero Dark Thirty is a dramatized account of the hunt for al Qaeda leader bin Laden and the May 2011 U.S. Navy SEAL raid in which he was killed. Government e-mails and memoranda released to the conservative group Judicial Watch show that both the CIA and Pentagon gave the filmmakers extensive access.

But the film has also produced a series of awkward political headaches for President Barack Obama. Early on, Obama's Republican critics suggested it was a gimmick to boost his re-election campaign. But now, some of Obama's liberal supporters are attacking the film and officials who cooperated with its creators for allegedly promoting the effectiveness of torture.

The CIA had no comment on the latest congressional inquiry regarding the film.

One of the intelligence officials whom the documents show as having met with the filmmakers is Michael Morell, the CIA's deputy director at the time and now the agency's acting chief.

Current and former national security officials have said Morell, a highly regarded agency veteran, is a favorite to succeed retired Gen. David Petraeus as the agency's director.

CLOUD OVER MORELL?

But some of the same officials now say the controversy over the film's content has cast a cloud over Morell's prospects.

Last month, Intelligence Committee chairwoman Sen. Dianne Feinstein joined Michigan Sen. Carl Levin, chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee, and former Republican Presidential candidate Sen. John McCain in sharply condemning what they described as "particularly graphic scenes of CIA officers torturing detainees" in Zero Dark Thirty.

The film has been screened in New York and Los Angeles but does not premiere nationwide until January 11.

In a December 19 letter to the chairman and CEO of Sony Pictures Entertainment, which produced the film, the senators alleged it was "grossly inaccurate and misleading in its suggestion that torture resulted in information that led to the location" of bin Laden.

The three senators claim Zero Dark Thirty "clearly implies that the CIA's coercive interrogation techniques were effective in eliciting important information related to a courier" for bin Laden, who would unknowingly lead the agency to his compound in Abbottabad, Pakistan.

The senators assert, however, that their own review of CIA records proves that the story told in the film is "incorrect" and "the CIA learned of the existence of the courier, his true name and location through means unrelated to the CIA detention and interrogation program."

Sony, in response, released a statement from Bigelow and Boal, which said in part: "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."

Boal said in an email that he was unaware of the Senate committee's interest and had had no contact with the panel.

The person familiar with the committee's plan to review administration dealings with the filmmakers said initially this would involve reviewing uncensored copies of CIA records regarding the film. The committee presently does not plan to contact the filmmakers directly, the source said.

A 'DRAMATIZATION'

Last year, the CIA and Pentagon, in response to a freedom of information request from Judicial Watch, released hundreds of pages of internal documents discussing the agencies' arrangements for dealing with Bigelow and Boal.

The documents, many heavily redacted, show that top CIA and Pentagon officials, including Morell and Michael Vickers, now the Pentagon's intelligence chief, talked to the filmmakers.

One Pentagon email exchange with Ben Rhodes, a senior White House national security aide, said Boal had been briefed by CIA officials "with the full knowledge and full approval/support" of Leon Panetta, who served as CIA director and then Secretary of Defense while the film was being prepared.

A second person familiar with the matter said the committee had acquired copies of the CIA records last year.

The committee originally obtained the uncensored records at the request of Republicans, who were looking for evidence that intelligence or Pentagon personnel inappropriately shared classified information with the filmmakers, this source said.

Other Congressional Republicans, most notably Representative Peter King, outgoing chairman of the House Committee on Homeland Security, complained loudly about dealings between the Obama administration and the filmmakers following reports it would be released shortly before the 2012 Presidential election. Ultimately, the film was not released until after the election.

Two days after the Senators made public their letter to Sony, the CIA released a statement by Morell, who said that Zero Dark Thirty was a "dramatization, not a realistic portrayal of the facts," and that while the agency had "interacted" with the filmmakers, it did not "control the final product."

Morell's statement was equivocal on whether "enhanced interrogations" had produced information critical to finding bin Laden.

"Whether enhanced interrogation techniques were the only timely and effective way to obtain information from those detainees, as the film suggests, is a matter of debate that cannot and never will be definitively resolved," Morell added.

(Editing by Warren Strobel and Todd Eastham)
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Now I have a headache -- When stuff of this nature is portrayed too accurately, everybody screams foul. But if it's not accurate they get upset, too. WTF??

I like Morell's open-ended statement, though. Brings more speculation than closure. LOL!
 
The enhanced interrogation techniques did not directly result in the information used to kill UBL. Those techniques were used over a period of weeks and months to soften the terrorist in question, and as a result, that terrorist ended up giving full-on classes on how AQ worked and the people involved. It wasn't this classic "TELL US WHO YOU WORK FOR" interrogation scenario.
 
Ravage said:
I'm expecting a hype after the Gdańsk harbor interrogation scene. There was a hype due to the rumor of secret CIA prisons in Poland.
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In the movie it was a cargo vessel. It's probably elsewhere now (if it were true).

Hope you guys pay your analysts enough coz to me, at least, that's one heck of a really exhausting job.
 
ThunderHorse said:
Accepted truths of war, their hands are dirty because they sanctioned it and they're attempting to clean the grime off.
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Seems more like bipartisan politics to me. All the enhanced interrogation mess was squarely placed on a Republican administration and now it's coming out that this led to actionable intelligence on Bin Laden's location stealing some Democratic glory for the raid.
 
Brian1/75 said:
Seems more like bipartisan politics to me. All the enhanced interrogation mess was squarely placed on a Republican administration and now it's coming out that this led to actionable intelligence on Bin Laden's location stealing some Democratic glory for the raid.
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I think they are more worried about possible breaches of TTP's ... Bad guys will watch this movie too. We can call a spade a spade here.. They (film makers) didn't lick the SOP's/TTP's from a stone.
 
Rapid said:
to drink your vodka. :ninja:
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DRRRRRRRAAAAIINNNNNNAAAGGGGGEEEEEEEEEE!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Drained dry, I'm so sorry. If you have vodka and I have vodka, and I have a straw, there it is...and my straw reaches accrrrooooooosssss the North Sea and starts to drink your vodka.
I. DRINK. YOUR. VODKA!!!!!! IDRINKITUP!!!!!!!!!!!
 
Just saw this update on the AQ/Taliban handbook for TTPs and SOPs:

- When it's night time and you are in a house and all of a sudden the power goes out, do not, I say again, DO NOT take a peek when you hear your name being whispered in the corridor or outside your room. If you must then wear a steel mask. Chances are you will be shot in the face by them four-eyed aliens who come in the night!
 
My initial reaction after seeing who directed was it would be another peice of crap, overhyped hollywood crap, however, after seeing the responses in this thread I am kinda keen to check it out when it opens down here.
 
Watched the movie last night. Overall I would give it a 6.8 out of 10. As you would think most of the movie is following the CIA investigations and interrogations. The last 45 mins is the mil stuff with the obvious outcome. Some things they said bugged me but I'm sure it sounds cool to most people, hence why Hollywood would put it in. Hopefully Lone Survivor will turn out better.
 
PattyW said:
Watched the movie last night. Overall I would give it a 6.8 out of 10. As you would think most of the movie is following the CIA investigations and interrogations. The last 45 mins is the mil stuff with the obvious outcome. Some things they said bugged me but I'm sure it sounds cool to most people, hence why Hollywood would put it in. Hopefully Lone Survivor will turn out better.
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What bothered you? I didn't hear anything objectionable, and I'm glad they were honest enough to have characters say they wanted to kill people.
 

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