ABC Airs 9/11 Film -- Contested Scenes Remain

By: E&P Staff The first part of the controversial "The Path to 9/11" movie aired as scheduled on ABC on Sunday -- despite pleas that it be halted by several top officials in the Clinton administraton, among others -- and while several last-minute cuts were made, the key scenes that enraged many liberals remained essentially intact.

E&P had seen a review copy earlier this week. After the edits, the finalized first half of the film (at two hours and forty minutes) was, at most, only about a minute shorter than the review copy.

The final film revealed trims at certain points, and some new dialogue, but key scenes extremely critical of former Clinton national security advisor Sandy Berger and Secretary of State Madeline Albright retained most of their bite.

"Despite admonitions from members of the 9/11 Commission, 9/11 family members, and public officials from across the political spectrum, ABC/Disney chose fiction over fact and entertainment over education in airing their TV show," Clinton Foundation spokesman Jay Carson said in a statement Sunday.

As ABC had promised, the film included a kind of disclaimer, shown on the screen (though only about three times), noting that the film is "not a documentary" and includes "fictonalized scenes," "representative characters" and "time compression." It also de-emphasized its earlier claims that it was mainly based on the official 9/11 Commission Report.

Many critics, including some conservatives, had stated that they objected to any fictonaliizing of 9/11. At the same time, many conservatives were also monitoring the edits as the movie aired, concerned about ABC caving in to liberals' demands.

The two scenes that received the most attention this week involved, first, a near-attack on bin Laden's camp in Afghanistan called off by Clinton aide Sandy Berger; and another in which Secretary of State Madeleine Albright was fingered for tipping off bin Laden about a missile attack by notifying Pakistan in advance.

The Berger scene, after some trims, remained largely intact, as he rebuffs pleas by CIA to order the kidnapping of bin Laden when a "snatch" team is nearby -- but it no longer shows him ending the conversation by suddenly cutting the phone call. The filmmakers did edit out many of the shots from Afghanistan that underscored how close we allegedly were to bin Laden's camp. (That may be because, according to the 9/11 Commission, this specific episode did not take place.) But that scene still cut directly to our ally, Afghan rebel Massood, calling Americans back in Washington "cowards."

The Albright scene has new dialogue, and some old dialogue cut, but still indicted her for telling Pakistan about the later missile attack on bid Laden. She claims in the film that she had to do this since cruise missiles had to fly over Pakistani territory and might have set off nuclear fears, but she remains the heavy.

Another key scene, in which a composite CIA agent named "Kirk" complains about Clinton's lack of action, is now softened somewhat. But the star of the film, Harvey Keitel, as a top FBI agent, still utters a sharp line about the administration viewing terrorism as just a "law and order problem."

And that scene still cuts (another sore point from the Clinton officials' point of view) to the president's famous assertion that he did not have "sexual relations" with Monica Lewinsky. In the new edit, however, Richard Clarke, the terror expert, now says that Clinton's people had assured him that the president was not distracted from terrorism by the sex scandal.

It edits out the FBI agent's reference to Clinton being afraid to move against bin Laden because of the impeachment climate -- but leaves in his description of the Clinton paralysis as "pathetic."

One brief scene in the review copy that showed Clinton testifying in the Lewinsky matter was cut from this version.

A Nightline special followed the movie, focusing on some of the same subject matter and same time frame, in examining whether bin Laden could have been halted.