Friday 8am - 9-11 Movie That Was Hidden From The Public

0:00This is the Toronto Today podcast. I'm your host, Greg Brady. So I remember seeing this live and it was the last year, last couple of years I was living in the States. I moved back here in very late, oh, seven, but there was a two part mini series called the path to 9 11 and I thought it was so significant at the time. You'd watch it all the way straight through. We might have T voted. That was an expression we used in 2006. But part of the drama around it is rather remarkable. A person named John Miller wrote about it in the Wall Street Journal and I'm like, A, you know, you get so busy, you're like, I forgot, I watched that. I forgot it existed. But it has them been shown since and ABC doesn't want to show it either. So the headline grabs you a 9 11 story. Some want us to forget. John Miller joins us right now. I really enjoyed your story. You reminded me how much I learned and enjoyed the show itself. What inspired you to write about it this week, John? Hi, Greg. I watched the show as well 20 years ago and the idea was ABC produced this mini series,

1:07this movie of four to five hours in length. They showed it across two nights. The idea was to dramatize the final report of the 9 11 commission, which was a bipartisan panel empowered by Congress to investigate what went wrong in the 1990s that made it possible for the United States to suffer the 9 11 attacks. And so it did this in dramatic form. ABC invested more than $40 million in the project. They got big name stars like Harvey Kitell and Donnie Wahlberg and Patricia Heaton to star in this production. And then they then they produced it and I watched it at the time. I got a press copy, you know, an advanced copy DVD of it. A half time is a really good movie. Then they aired it exactly once and never again, never put out on DVD or Blu-ray, never made it available. It was a download. It's not on streaming. You cannot find it anywhere. The thing was memory hold. And it's a fascinating story of really what we know, my call cancel culture.

2:08Is is now was that was it that they felt there was some criticism that there was some dramatic embellishment. And I know there's one scene that's well documented. You wrote about a two, which almost implies that Bill Clinton as president between 1992 and 2000 had a perfect chance to take out been lun. He tried to bomb him a couple of different times. That's documented. But he had another opportunity and and passed on that opportunity. Now you can bet Clint, the Clinton administration, the ex Clinton administration didn't like that scene one bit. Were they trying to influence whether it got shown again? That's exactly what happened. So there's a scene in the movie where some operatives, some CIA operas in your can to heart in Afghanistan at work with tribal allies have been lot in their sites in in 1998. And they seek the final go ahead, the green light from Washington to say yes, go execute

3:09mission and they don't get it. And the figure who denies is the guy who is then the national securityizer to to Bill Clinton, a guy called Sandy Berger since deceased. And and and it's really it's a really powerful moment in the in the film. And it's it's this moment in terms of drama is like, oh my gosh, we almost got him. And then and Washington just said, no, don't even try. It's it's infuriating. It's just well told of the piece of drama. It's excellent. Well, Sandy Berger and others in in in his circle, this never happened. And they're right in one sense and wrong and they're right in the sense that it didn't happen exactly as the movie created because you know, what do you expect? This is a this is a film is dramatizing. That's right. And it had you know, these in some creative license to tell us a story about real history. But in the 9-11 commission report, it's clear that there was something close to this where where where the say a new a potential location for bin Laden, they actually rehearse

4:15and a capture plan to grab bin Laden and physically remove him from Afghanistan, not kill him, but but actually capture him. They rehearse the plan to do this for months. And it was a moment when they had to approve it or not. Just days ahead of time and and and it was not approved. They said, don't do it. And Berger had a hand that it seems to be. So so this was dramatized in the kind of compressed event on, you know, for purposes of television. Well, well, the Clinton people said that ever happened. And they also didn't like the fact that the that the film suggested that President Clinton was distracted by his actual scandals and did not fully appreciate and have have have the tension focused on the problem of terrorism. And so Democrats objected to this and when when these advanced copies of the movie, like the kind that I was able to see, they they said, you cannot watch the show. It is misinformation. President Clinton privately called the president. There's a CEO of Dini, which owns ABC and says, don't air this thing.

5:16Senator Chuck Schumer sent a letter to to to ABC saying this is misinformation. Can you handle this program? And by the way, you guys have a free FCC license to to broadcast and wouldn't be a shame of something were to happen to that. And so the and that echoes some of the Trump Jimmy Kimmel stuff a little bit, doesn't it from last fall? Oh my gosh. Yeah, because you know, make was you wanted that, but you know, Chuck Schumer less than a year ago from right now was was saying to, you know, to call it what an abuse of a power it is for President Trump to suggest that Jimmy Kimmel should go off the air of ABC, by the way. So it's, you know, such partisan convenience to work here. But but the bottom line is we have this really very good movie. It's a good, well done work of drama. I rewatched it. The summer is just a gripping chronicle of failure well told. And you know, ABC originally thought we're going to do this once a year as a kind of public service just to remind people help America keep vigilant all this kind of stuff.

6:17No one has ever seen it since you can't see it in the conventional ways. And it's a really good movie. And it is it is vanished from public sight has been shoved down the memory in the worst or well. But before you go, it's great story. I urge people to read the op ed. How did you find the mood? I don't want you want you to give away your your state or espionage secrets. But how did you how were you able to watch it again? I kept my DVD. Okay. I had I had this promotional copy and I remember it's happening. This is a pretty good show. I'm just going to keep it. And then a few years passed and I was like, oh my gosh, I need to keep this movie. It's like Fahrenheit 51. I need to preserve the work for added. You could be hosting screenings. I had it in my closet. Well, you could be hosting screenings if you ran out of movie theater Friday and Saturday and I see next 52 weeks. I just hope one day everybody can see this thing. I agree. I think it's got value. I mean, I bought the book right away and the book. Yeah, it's it's terribly interesting at times and a giant snore other times. It's a commission report.

7:18Of course, it's going to be that way. But it's, you know, it's all in there. It seemed to take very much from the book and and transfer it with some, as you know, dramatic liberties, which listen, the movie W with Josh Brolin did the movie dick with with Christian bail playing Dick Cheney with a fat suit on did like it like that's drama. That's what that's what theatricality is supposed to be about. Well, exactly. And and and interpretation of what happened. We do this all the time with all kinds of things and we did it with this and it's a very fine film. And I think it's really for the article I talked to Tom Keane senior who was the chairman of the 9-11 commission. He'd been repomp the governor of New Jersey. Yeah. Well respected guy and I talked him about this. He's 91 years old now. And I said, what do you think about all this? And he says, he's an interpretation. One of many interpretations and he says people should be able to see it and make up their own mind. I agree. I agree. I'm so glad we connected and I'm glad you wrote this because it reminded me the film existed. Thank you for the time today, John.

8:20Thank you, Greg. And I'm Miller from the Wall Street Journal joining us. Thanks for listening to the Toronto Today podcast. We dropped the highlights of the Daily Show every weekday morning. Don't forget you can hear the entire show on the radio at home on your smart speaker ask Alexa or say, hey, Google, play 640 Toronto or Toronto today. You can hear us on between 530 and 9 weekdays on 640 Toronto. Have a great day.