and you said are you ami horowitz? my spiedy senses are tingling. he said, you know, yes i am. and hep said is this movie more important than your family? and i -- you know, looking back on it now, there's things you wanted to do, put them in a kung fu grip, you're stunned and you don't know what to say. . .

>> rattled a cage that he and his people felt a little bit offended by, so i can only imagine it was maybe a warning this might not be a film you actually want to release. it was probably four or five months before we released the movie. wasn't the first threat we got but it was a very personal one. >> to the live documentaries, i found one theater in washington that doesn't normally run documentaries. guest: almost all of the screens we had across the country in theatres were in amc, cinamark, the major theater chains. this movie, i was never a huge documentary fan, i'm a movie fan and wanted to make something i wanted to see, something that was funny, engaging, dark at times, so i didn't make this for a documentary audience but more for a mainstream audience into by design we tried to have it in the mainstream

theatres. host: it came out of as i read a serious moment in your life. guest: serious moment in my life. host: that was why you decided to do a documentary, even though it was entertainment. i read you were sitting around thinking about rwanda, not necessarily a light subject. guest: don't we sit around thinking about that on the couch, by the tv? it was definitely an event i could put the finger on exactly the moment where this triggered in my mind, and it was a saturday night, i got kids, you sit home, you watch movies and i was watching the miking the michael moore movie "bowling for columbine". michael and i have different political views, i look at him as a sit film in documentary -- person in documentary phillips, they are interesting, fury -- funny, those are the kinds i wanted to see. i was watching the movie, drifting off, i was thinking

about rwanda and thinking about here is a genocide that happened not like in the olden days that you read in history books, it happened while i was working, and i said get that, there's one going on right now, as i sit here, you know, in my comfortable apartment in manhattan, there are people who are running for their lives in terror. and i said how can this be in our day and age, and i thought to myself, you know, in society, we're so much better off, in almost every way you can imagine. you look at the availability of food, medicine, and almost every way, we're better off, as humans. if the one way we're not is security, we probably may be more insecure than we were before, i thought whose role is this, whose job is it to stop these things and it became obvious it was the job

of the u.n. and they were failing miserably and that's when the whole thing clicked together. host: how would you look at your political views. guest: i would say right of center. i probably go left, too, and right, too, but left of center would describe me. host: how much did this documentary cost you? guest: it's embarrassing. it cost about $2 million to make and a couple of million dollars to release. host: and you got to get the money back? guest: no. it was very, very successful, one of the more successful documentaries in the past couple of years but the economics in the film business, particularly the documentary business are such that it's hard to recover your costs. host: when did you start the documentary process? guest: i was an investment banker when this idea hit me and within two weeks i quit my job and started raising the money to make the movie. that was going back to 20 06. host: you were at lehman

brothers. guest: lehman brothers, yeah. host: how many years? host: i was -- guest: i was there four, five years. host: we can't show the whole thing, obviously. people can't get the documentary. guest: go to u.n..com and they can pick up a movie. host: look at this and we'll get comments on it. >> it was april 20, 2009 and the united states was opening the antiracism conference in geneva, switzerland, it was designed as a forum to reach the u.n.'s moral authority to end racism and discrimination, strengthening human rights everywhere. racism is a denial of human rights, pure and simple. there comes a time in the course of human kind when we must stand firm on the fundamental principles that binds us.

there comes a time to reamp our faith in fundamental human rights and dignity and worth of us all. >> it was only the second conference of its kind in the u.n. 60 year history and as the secretary general concluded his opening remarks the man of united nations delivered the keynote -- tapped to deliver the keynote address wait the wings. >> the time is now, ladies and gentlemen. >> who would it stph-b who would it be, the guiding light who could lead the conference toward achieving its vital goals, who better than this guy,? >> and now to the podium -- >> [applause] >> this is mahmoud

ahmadinejad, president of iran. something tells he he wasn't the ideal speaker to kick off this conference. host: were you there in. guest: yeah. host: your camera in the room? guest: i'll tell you a funny story about that. we went to the conference because he was the keynote address and in the movie, you kind of like to do about gabbing, so the gag we were going to do was right after that, he was going to give a press conference, so we were going to go to the press conference and i was going to try to put him under citizens arrest, you know, tape on camera, it would be fun. now, luckily for me, my crew missed the flight, so we missed the press conference totally, i was there by myself, nobody filming, and it had to come to another gag and in the movie, when i do something that gets me arrested, that would be what we ended up doing for that trip. but what's really funny about that, it really kind of sets out really what the u.n. is totally about. their ideas are phenomenal.

nobody can argue with the ideal, the idea, the words they say, but what they want to accomplish, and he said it perfectly, nothing he said we can disagree with. it was wonderful way to open up the con tpraepbsd what did they do, they screw it all up by giving a guy, mahmoud ama din dad -- ahmadinejad, one of the snakes on the planet to give the keynote address. host: i guess people could be saying ami horowitz is jewish guest: it's the name. host: and say this is an israeli thing for him. guest: i'll never get the thing like you're jewish, i'm pro israel. host: mom is from israel. guest: from israel. it's funny, israel was not mentioned in the movie as well. there's a tremendous amount of bias against israel, the

u.n. doesn't take any moral stance unless it's israel, but i deliberately chose not to put israel in the movie for that particular reason. first of all, i don't want the debate to be about israel, i want it to be about the united nations and israel can be such a hot button topic you're going to debate whether the polices are good or bad. i don't want that debate. host: how is it that something that thinks that is not of tremendous benefit to the country, mr. ahmadinejad, lead off a humans rights conference? guest: if you ask them, they're going to say it's all process. we have a process involved, he submitted his name, he was one of the only world leaders to come to the conference, so we give him that spot. that's what they'll tell you, which may or may not be true. but that's not really the point, all right? the point is if you, in fact, stand for the ideals you claim to, how could you have that man do this? and even if it's true that the machinations of the u.n.

require you to have him there, what i expect to you do, and ban ki-moon, speak out against the man before he comes up there and everything i said is counter maned by this man, my hands are tied but they don't do that, they accept him as the legitimate leader of iran. host: ban ki-moon will be there until 2106, south korean. who when you went there did you work with and what were the rules? guest: in terms of access? host: because i saw part of this, you're walking around at 5:00 in the afternoon and going down the hallways and there's nobody in the offices guest: we got unprecedented access to the u.n., much to their chagrin. how we got access is a funny story. so i called up ted turner, and ted turner for people who don't know is probably the most powerful person at the u.n. he gave them a billion dollars a few years ago and in all places, money talks

and a billion dollars gives you a lot of tower. so i, knowing he had access, called him and spoke with his office, said i would like to pitch an idea about the movie about the u.n., so we had a meeting, talked about the idea behind the movie. i don't know how they came up with this tkpwr-d -- idea, but they thought it was a pro u.n. movie so a couple of calls to the foundation and the u.n. opened up the red carpet for me for full access. i think they regretted that decision but that's how we got it. host: was former senator tim wirtz who ran the foundation involved in this. guest: the u.n. itself has spoken about the movie a number of times but the u.n. foundation has -- i take it back. they did make a statement. they didn't call me personally but they did make a public statement. host: how much access did you really have? guest: from what they say,

unprecedented. we were able to shoot anywhere we wanted. you see the movie, i'm running around the place, picking up phone calls, and very late at night, which is a real embarrassment, because you know, the last place in the world you want to be is at 5:00 standing outside the building that is stampeded by the people running out. because as you know, all genocide happens between 9:00 o'clock to 5:00 eastern standard time so it works out okay. host: let's go back to another excerpt. by the way how long is the documentary. guest: 93 minutes. host: this is one about the sexual abuse by u.n. personnel. >> this is [video clip] >> this is a story of the abuse of peacekeepers preying on the very people they're supposed to be helping. >> sexual abuse is a continuing problem within the u.n. peace keeping ranks. of the missions launched since 1999 the vast majority including kubiwar have been

implicated in sexual abuse and exploitatn, in the congo alone there have been recorded rapes. the ring was headed by this man, a u.n. official, dibiay borgay. >> this is not a few units. over the course of our history, every contributor to peace keeping has had an example of this behavior. >> we take now very forceful measures, so that any individual who is convinced -- convicted of sexual abuse will be prosecuted. >> you will not get away with it. there is almost no peacekeeper who has been held accountable and who's had to face the courts because of what they have done. >> now, you may not end up with the kind of justice that everyone in this room could agree on would be prop rat in the circumstances.

>> my understanding is they've got a new zero tolerance policy somewhere written down in the u.n. books that says u.n. peacekeepers should not diddle minor children, as if this is something that had to be written. host: go back to the fellow that you pointed the finger at, he didn't have a shirt on. has he been convicted. guest: ded. borgay. the problem is, the u.n. doesn't have prosecutorial powers, right, so what they do, they send the person back to their home country. most of the countries refuse to prosecute these people, and now what really often happens in most cases, nothing -- with all the charges -- you got to remember you're in africa, you're raping a child. it's not going to a court of law, nobody is held accountable so the charges are made if they're brave enough to make the charges and generally the u.n.

exclusives it you've, very rarely are they sent away and dee dee borgay may be -- i can think of two examples in the thousands of rape cases that anyone has been prosecuted. host: why then were the folks at the u.n. and woman at the podium saying they were tough on this stuff? guest: you know what, whenever you do an interview or person at the u.n. you walk away saying they get it, these guys get the problem and they know how to handle it and you think they're on top of it but at the end of the day nothing ever happens, right? in the movie, you hear them say zero tolerance, you know, probably 15 times in the course of the me movie, yet the rapes continue unabated, so the rhetoric in no way matches what the action really is on the ground. host: do you know, can you get through all the different stories and figure out what the u.n. budget is a year? guest: yeah. another thing about the u.n. which is unbelievable, it's meant to represent all

nations on the earth. it should be one of the most transparent organizations on the planet, and the reality is oddly it's one of the most opaque. it's very difficult to get any real hard information about budget issues, but if you piece these together, their budget is roughly i think in 20 08, 2009, the last number we have -- sorry, 2010, sorry, last number we had, it was, i believe, $24 billion. host: does that include -- i mean, i've got a list of the different organizations, everything from the food and agriculture organization, international atomic energy agency, international monetary fund. guest: no, it includes only what they call the core mission of the u.n. host: $24 billion for one year? guest: yeah. that number is much higher in 2012 because of -- >> host: because of peace keeping. guest: peace keeping. host: i saw a figure that says that the united states

pays 22 percent. but they only pay about a billion dollars. guest: that's a lie they like to tell. it's a billion dollars to the secretariat, you have the human rights council, peace keeping, outside of a billion dollars, so we gave in 2010, $8 billion, they expect in 2012 to be over $10 billion. host: why is it the united states pays 22 percent of the bill and japan which is the second payor on the list pays only 12 percent? guest: even worse than that, china, the second largest economy in the world, they pay i -- i think that number is -- host: 3.1. i've got a list here. percent. guest: right. that's what what's insane. if you add up the money they get from the u.n., it actually ends up being much lower than that. host: and germany, which has only 80 million people, they pay 8 percent. fest tpweft we're suckers. you know what, good old u.s.

and our checkbooks are open and the reality is, listen, the truth is, i have no problem giving $8 billion or $10 billion or $15 billion to the u.n. if i knew it was working. right? if i knew these people were solving the problems of the world, i'd have no problem giving that money, it would be an honor to do it but the reality is we're throwing money away and acts as classic enablers, no different than somebody who was enabling a drug addict or a gambler. if you continue to give these people what they want, without forcing, changing the behavior, what's going to force them to change the bee have kwrofr -- behavior, nothing. host: this has to do with the trip to kupdiwa. >> guest: the ivory coast, it was a former french colony, they had independence, and they've had a number of major problems, a civil war waging on for years, the u.n. came

in to help try to fix the problem and some would argue it made it far worse. host: you're trying to ber view somebody. who is it? guest: the head of the peace keeping, abu wasa. [video clip] i grabbed my cameraman and pretended to be important. i finagled my way on to one of the u.n. buses. this would be my best chance. these security council people seemed pretty uptight. there's the man, the head of the sunday mission.

sweet, we got him. time to get some answers. >> tell me about why, you know, the u.n. here in cout sreufplt ar is helping the u.n. people. >> let me say in general terms, the u.n. comes into a crisis zone when there's a difference of position between two entities. >> i was told there were u.n. peacekeepers who had used liborians. >> the french, at the beginning of the crisis and here would have these -- a belligerent fighting of each other. that is how the u.n. killing, to be able to -- >> sounds to me like he's dodging the question. they're talking about 50, 60liborians were killed. >> no. >> how can you not be area of

what happened? not really the answers i was looking for. host: explain that, who was the man. guest: so he was the head of peace keeping in quitivar, i believe he was from chad. a very interesting story about him and chad and who's populating the very important offices in the u.n. the head of human rights, that he brought one of his buddies from chad, the head of quitivar, he was known as the butcher, that would torture people to get answers. it gives you a sense of who's populating these offices and when we were confronting him, the reason why we went there to begin with was because there was a slaughter of unarmed liborians who were protesting the french peacekeepers, the peacekeepers sent in by the u.n., the french, the former

colonial masters of quitivar and they did it for the sole reason to put their foot in the neck of their former colleague, and when the people were upset because they were robbing banks, shooting people, they protested. host: the french were? guest: the french were. they protested the peacekeepers and they opened fire and killed a number of them. they went there to find out why they did that and obfuscation is an art form at the united nations. host: why did they let you on the bus? guest: i don't know. host: did you ask to do that. guest guest i was like hey i got to be on this bus. they were like all right. it by happenstance, the entire security council was in quitivar so i thought it would be a good way to get answers, go confront security council members, so the bus was taking them from their press conference that you saw on the film back to the airport on the private jet to take them back. host: the guy sitting next to you at the security council,

did he know you were taping at the time? guest: it was a hidden camera host: -- >> guest: they thought it was an odd situation to have a guy on the bus asking camera. host: how did they go on with 99 bottles of beer on the wall? guest: i was on the cool bus, obviously. host: if it cost you $4 million before it was over to do this documentary, who paid for it? guest: investors. i put some money in myself. as an investment banker i had access to people with funds and people with -- like-minded individuals, 50 grand here, 50 grand there who believed in what we were doing and thought it was an pont issue. host: did they expect to get this movie back. guest: when i started this movie, i had no gray hairs at all. they are the greatest investors in the world, they didn't pressure me, they

understood this is not something which is generally known as a money making venture so they didn't put a lot of pressure on me to return their money and they're probably going to take a loss, but they have been very good to me, i appreciate that. host: the next clip, the u.n. cannot agree on the definition of terrorism, and we see two people, we see congressman rob simmons, republican, and daniel pletka, who is at the american enterprise institute, most of what you see other than joy williams, who would not be categorized as a conservative are conservatives. should there be any doubt in peoples' minds this is from a conservative point of view, this documentary? guest: not at all. as it happens, the only elected officials we have are republicans, and there are a lot of democrats, they just wouldn't come on camera. we had more access to republicans. the truth is, i'm more conservative, everybody working on the film other than me, my codirector, the

editors, writers, were all liberals. we had writers from the daily show, we had writers from the onion, michael moore's editors and writers worked for us. i was the only conservative. while it's obviously being taken to task has been a conservative issue, i think it's become more bipartisan of late. i think in the movie, it's helped in some ways but joy williams, the hero of the movie, she's as left wing as you can get. host: we'll show her eventually. i don't know if she's in this clip but we'll run this and continue. >> less than one month after september 11 and enacting resolution 1373, syria was on the security council. >> syria provides safe haven to terrorist organizations, headquarters, training facilities, infrastructure, intelligence. >> syria is arming hezbollah in lebanon. syria and iran have been

responsible for bringing tens of thousands of rockets into that area. those rockets aren't for self-defense. >> sponsors, pace for and arms hezbollah, islamic jihad, hamas and other terrorist organizations. >> despite its deep connections with terrorism, syria was elevated to the presidency of the security council. >> so we could improve the force. >> maybe the problem is more fundamental than i thought. >> how does the u.n. define terrorism? >> technically, the united nations so far has not been able to define terrorism. >> the u.n. member states have not been able to agree on a definition of terrorism. >> definition of terrorism is a very difficult thing. >> it is one of the petty matters of the united nations. >> my own view, quite frankly, is that terrorism is rather like pornography, you might not be able to define it but you know it when you

see it. host: why were they having trouble defining terrorism. guest: because they don't want to define it. these aren't stupid men, these are men that obviously understand what terrorism is but they have no intention of defining it and the reason why they don't want to is very simple, because otherwise, they're going to be calling a good third of their membership terrorist nations and they can't stand that. host: how much do these folks that work at the u.n. make? guest: they make quite a bit. you can make, when you first start off, you're in the six figures and you can make quite a bit higher than that, you can relic the six figures, and a lot of it is tax-free. i only wish i worked there when i graduated from college! if i had money the gravy train, i wouldn't have been a bang -- banker, i would be a diplomat. host: if you're an american, you pay income tax. guest: as an american it gets complicated. most of them don't have to pay taxes. host: in order to get

yourself up to speed on the u.n. how much studying did you have to do? guest: i probably read 20 or 30 books, dozens and dozens of white papers and thousands and thousands, countless amount of articles. quite a bit. i was pretty fluent on the u.n. and the issues before i started. i mean, obviously, this is a polemic, it was not an unblinking eye, but i came in with a point of view, but i wanted to understand all -- you know, every side of the u.n., so i would say the majority of the books i read were pro u.n. books, give me a sense of what they're trying to do. historically a lot of it was the founding, why it was being created, you know, the thought process during the framers and what they thought the u.n. should be. a lot of interesting stuff about what the ideals were behind the united nations. host: last figure i saw was 93 countries were members of the u.n. and there are only 196 in the world. vatican is not a member and

taiwan is not a member and maybe a couple of other places. guest: the taiwan thing to me is as insulting as you can get. the vatican, they're not a member but they have observer status. taiwan, taiwanese diplomat can't walk into the building. it really is one of the most -- one of the more offensive issues. host: they used to be a member. guest: before china became -- >> host: did you ask anybody about that? guest: i did. they give one thing, listen, this is the peoples republic of china, so therefore taiwan is not a country. host: this is manager from the documentary, you and me. who named that. guest: my wife. and if i wanted to stay married that is the name we were sticking with. host: this is more on terrorism. [video clip] sometimes the u.n. does more than just have a dialogue, for example, the u.n.'s palestinian refugee program, unra, provides services for kids, the elder

ly, and terrorists? unra was peopled by officials who were terribly, terribly sha thet toeubg hamas and other extremist palestinian organizations. >> oh, i'm sure that hamas members, i don't see that at the time. >> it may not be a crime, but wouldn't the taxpayers of the world be disturbed by the office of this u.n. staffer who hung suicide bomber tributes on his wall? personally, i prefer pictures of my kids. or the u.n. allowing the use of the vehicles for terrorist getaways? they have a very poor idea of where it's resources are used, or for example, whether it's vehicles are used in terrorist attacks. we have seen tapes of vehicles, clearly marked, on their roof has unra vehicles

with rpg weapons being loaded to carry out attacks. guest: -- >> so the u.n. is using tax dollars to decorate offices and fund writeoffs. host: mark kirk was congressman of illinois, and when did you interview him, do you know how many years ago? guest: no. host: if you started in 2006 with all this you were done when? guest: we were done in 2010, that's right. host: how long has it been out and available for people to say? -- to see? guest: it came out in theatres june 1st and video and on demand on dvd a month ago. host: did you give the ted turner-tim worth group at the u.n. foundation a chance to talk during this documentary? guest: i simply reached out to them to do a screening and have not heard back. host: did you offer them a chance to have a rebuttal in the movie itself? guest guest in the movie? >> host: no.

-- guest: no. >> host: why not? >> guest: the my movie. half the interviews were u.n. people giving their say but look, this was not meant to be sort of an even-handed here's my point of view, here's your point of view. like i said, it's a polemic, i came in saying this is my thesis and here's how i'm going about proving it. i'm happy to debate them on a show such as this, but never had them just kind of part of the movie itself. host: did you ever talk to michael moore about documentaries and what was his reaction if you did? guest: i did. michael and i had become friendly oddly enough through this process. and he was very honored, and he was an inspiration to make the movie. michael, we have spoken extensively about it. he disagrees vehemently with the premise, in his words, we can't give the u.n. enough money, he thinks they're doing a great job with it.

he was very excited that, first of all, he's always believed that it's really important for conservatives to make movies. i think he's thought, and he's right, that the documentary format has really been owned by the left, and i think the right is making a huge mistake not creating compelling documentaries because i think the left made the same mistake with talk radio. when talk radio first came out, they didn't get involved, they creed thunderstorm to the right and now it's a dominant forum of the political conversation and they can't get a foothold, they've tried and they failed and it's too late. i think the right is making the mistake with documentary and the film art form and if they don't kind of wake up and say we got to make high quality, engaging, entertaining movies, they want to creed back to the left and the way politics are set up that's a big part of the political dialogue and it's a huge mistake. host: where did you get your conservative views? guest: you know, i guess it

was formed a lot by by the way i was raised, my parents were both, they were reagan supporters, they were very much centrists, very pro israel, very much i would say -- they were very socially moderate but very hawkish when it came to foreign policy, i think they were very concerned about the way the u.s. spent their money, and they ended up being, i think about it, i got it from my parents in a lot of ways. host: where were you born? guest: los angeles. host: how long have you been in new york city? guest: i think 17 years. host: where did you go to college? guest: usc, university of southern california. host: when did mom come from israeli? i assume she's an israeli citizen and you are too. guest: technically. in fact i'm supposed to travel on an israeli passport but i don't have one. so my mom moved to the united states, i believe, when she

was 22, or very early 20s. met my dad in los angeles, got married, had me. host: are they still out there? guest: my father passed away a couple of years ago, my mother is in los angeles, although we're trying desperately to get her to move to new york. hose host let's go back to the documentary, this is the oil-for-food program scandal. let's watch. >> i don't want to miss it here. why was a stop not put to it when they immediately saw corruption and it had the opposite effect they intended to do. >> we're talking about the mountain of the operation, our senior managers were not on speaking terms with each other so when issues like that came up, issues like indications that there's a kick back mechanism, it would be very easy for these things to get stuck in the system. >> i have in my mind little or no doubt that the failure to move aggressively to clean up the program was because there was enough money being made by the heads of state in

that program, in fact that the cleanup never occurred. >> i don't anticipate anyone to resign. we are getting on with our work. >> do you feel like it's a good time for the organization to step down? >> no. >> at the u.n., no one has gone to jail, no one has even been fired for the biggest scam in the history of humanitarian relief. >> why would anybody resign? as claudia said. >> she's done a lot of reporting. >> she was one of the major driving forces. host: who was the skwr you were -- gentleman you were talking to. guest guest mike at susann, one of the whistleblowers on the program. host: he worked for? guestgate the head of the oil-for-food program, and he wrote an extremely funny book on his experience called backstabbing for beginners, about his time at the united nations, and it was -- he

reads it as a comedy. the whole thing at the u.n., that's why he decided to focus on a lot of comedy in the movie, that's why we hire michael moore's writers, the behind that's behind -- the guy that's behind me, the whole thing, as sad as it is, it just is rife for satire and humor, because it's so ridiculous. that says it all, right? the biggest humanitarian scandal in the history of the world and to say have some of them resigned, hell no. it's ludicrous. host: do you have an opinion of kofi annan? guest: it's funny, i thought when i started the movie he would be the boogyman in the film and what i found out when i started talking to people and started shooting, he really isn't. he isn't a bad man. i don't think he was corrupt, i don't think so, i think he just has the same moral blindness that affects a lot of these u.n. diplomats. the real evil guy and the real boogyman that comes out of the movie was bu it.

-- butres ghali. it's a -- butress squared we called him. he was there four years. i think he had one term, if i'm not mistaken. am i wrong? host: i don't have the list in front of me. ban ki-moon, what's your opinion of him? guest: i was really excited when he was first elected. in fact, i was worried it might ruin the movie because here's a south korean, i thought he would hopefully make some changes. it was not butress ghali, koffi annan, and really soon after he was put in place, i remember they hung saddam hussein, and he had -- he made a statement which i thought was going to change the 10or of the united nations, that people were attacking the iraqis, were

hanging -- basically applying capital punishment as a butcher and he made the statement the next day and he said you know, maybe we shouldn't focus on saddam's death but let's focus on the fact of how many people he killed and i said this guy gets it, this guy may be a harbinger for change and the next day, they got to him, because the next day, he made another statement saying don't misunderstand what i'm saying, the fact that they killed him was terrible, i speak out against it, it's not the way we should be doing things and he changed his view. host: did you talk to him? guest: we did not. i came close at a knicks gale and i was walking up to introduce myself to him and two burly bodyguards pushed me away. host: here's more from your documentary. >> [video clip] hell yeah we knew in rwanda, mr. annan's office knew, saying here's what's going to happen,

operational authority doesn't need security council approval and one of them was to protect a seize an arms cache and militarily we knew it would do what it would do but it would send a signal that the u.n. would know. i was told to stand down, it's more important to protect the image of impartiality in the face of genocide than it is to take these modern operations. >> were you made area of the cable? >> it was never brought to my attention and i know from talking to many of the other 15 ambassadors that it came as a complete and horrifying surprise to them as well. the security council was never apprised of this at all. >> i literally felt i had been chopped at the knees, that i had this thing in the bag and it had been taken away from me. koffi annan and his team failed to act on this opportunity to stop the

genocide before it started. host: did you talk to romeo delare, the canadian general, who in the u.n. peace keeping group? guest: i couldn't get access to him unfortunately. we tried a number times. he had a number of interviews we were able to supplies into the movie. he's really one of the few heroes of that very dark period. hose host did you go to rwanda? guest: we did not. host: how many places did you go for the movie? guest: africa, europe, asia, all of the u.s., we traveled around the world. host: and in the end -- >> guest: a million dollars only gets you so far. host: how many hours did you record? guest: hundreds and hundreds of hours. host: did anybody at the u.n. figure out what you were doing as this went long? guest: they never did. i take it back. they did figure out toward the end, and when i went to

geneva, when we opened that clip with mahmoud ahmadinejad in geneva, they were getting a sense of what we were about in fact, i recall i was walking down the hallway and we were credentialled and walked down the hallway and there was some guy eat ago sandwich, he looked up at me and looked at the u.n. and his mouth dropped, and he ran up and said mr. horowtiz, why are you here, i said we were doing the tail end for the shooting of the movie, and he said you can't be here and i said i've got credentials, i can be here, and he tried to revoke my credentials. so they ended up throwing me out after that one stunt at the end, but only at the end did they figure out what we were up to. host: what did they do at the end? guest: what could they do? host: you mean when they saw the documentary? guest: i mean toward the end -- we were already editing at

that point when we shot the geneva part. it kind of fell in our lap so we stopped editing to shoot that and came back, so during the principal filming of the movie they had no clue but afterwards they were getting a sense of what we were up to. host: i don't know what you know about the u.n. and if you were pro u.n. and sitting in that chair what are some of the things you might say about this documentary -- i know you don't call it a documentary -- that would argue with your premise? guest: that's an interesting question. you know, i think i was -- if i was them, refute it, i would say. i would first say why did you give us equal time, all right? now, i mean, my answer is simply it's not your movie, it's my movie and i crafted it the way i want to. like i said, it's a polemic, it's meant to be proving my thesis. i think you can argue that, i think the -- the argument i hear most often is yeah, we have problems, we have a lot of issues, but it's better than nothing.

it's all we have. and that's not good enough for me. that's not an acceptable answer. we can be better. we have to be better. we deserve to be better. as a collective human race, we deserve better than what the u.n. is offering us, and the copout of it's all we have, it doesn't cut the mus arrested for me. -- mustard for me. host: as you were going around the u.n., what did they think about the united states? guest: there's a real disdane for the united states. i think that they find this uni polar world we live in to be obnoxious to them. i think that they see the world assah weather -- as a weather place, a multi polar world and i think this notion of american democracy, this notion of our focus on freedom, is something they find distasteful, because their view is not everybody wants freedom, not every country is going to be free, and we need to accept that, and i think they look at the

us with a tremendous amount of disdane. i don't think, i know it. host: why is there such dislike of the jews? by the way, if you put it in context, our 300 million plus arab and toll, there are like 14 million jews in the world. guest guest the u.n. or arabs? host: both. guest: i don't know the u.n. hates jews. there are times when office noticed it becoming antisemitic, it's more antiisrael than antijewish. host: that's really what my question should have been. guest: it's an interesting question. it comes from -- i've said before that -- i was actually raised to be respectful of the u.n., because i think we owe the u.n. a debt of gratitude because israel was created in the hall of the united nations. i always feel lying the u.n. looks at that as their original sin and have been trying to erase that problem

ever since. if it came to a vote n. a million years it never would pass, and i think that you have a very large block of the united nations made up of arab nations and they will to their dying days fight anything which they grew is helping the state of israel and in fact their agenda of being antiisrael almost dominates the agenda. if you're asking me, you know, why the arabs are -- and they are antijewish, not just antiisrael, why that is, it's tough to say. you really have to go into the arab psyche. i a lot of it comes from jealousy, i think that they look at a small little country of 6 million people in the state of israel and they see a tremendous success and you look anywhere else in the region and you see nothing but abysmal failure, yet they have more people, more money, and they wonder why not us, and i think of it

stems from that. a lot of it is cultural. that's a big part of it. they have a long way for them to go for them to join modernity, and if we want to have a safer world the arab world has to join modernity. host: the last clip is with joy williams but before we do that who is she and why did you use her. guest: joy williams is a kick in the pants, joy williams won a nobel peace prize, i believe it is for mimes, and she came to my attention because she was asked by the human rights council at the time to go to sudan and come up with a report of what's going on. the whole world knew what was going on but they needed a report, but they chose her because she won the nobel peace prize. they didn't do dual against. she is a plain speaking fire brand and she is a bit crazy, and i love her for that.

she speaks truth to power. that's what she is about. so they sent her out there and she came up with a damning report, damning in terms of what the suandees were doing to their people, and that they're not doing anything to stop it and she came in, they would do -frg they could to stop her from presenting. host: here is our last clip from your movie. >> we believe today that the report is seriously flawed, in a manner that sets serious shadows on its message. >> we do not consider that the document has the requisite legitimacy. >> the report cannot be considered comprehensive, objective, authentic, and accurate. and suffers from the lack of credibility. my last point is about credibility andit not about

art ours, it's about yours. the world hung its head in shame and said never again. too many of us have lost hope that never again seems to have no applicability whatsoever in darfur. when will the world hang its head in shame again? and our job is to attempt to try to alleviate the suffering of the people of darfur who are being raped, pillaged and burned while political wrangling goes on here in the hallowed halls of the united nations. thank you. host: there are 20 or 30 recommendations and one was implemented. not a great batting average. >> the reason they accepted one is not because they particularly care about the report or darfur. they did it because they have to show the council it does something or it won't continue to exist.

host: i don't know whether joy williams is right or wrong but when you sit there and listen to her report and then you hear everybody else chime in against it, what's going on? do those people really, those representatives of those countries, really believe what they're saying? guest: no. i don't think so. they're protecting their friends. that's what it is. they've got each others' backs. and i'm not sure -- like -- i'm not sure she said it in the clip but if iran is going to turn to sudan, what happened in iran? because iran is doing not quite as bad but for the that far away or north korea, a countrywide gulag, so they are not going to condemn another evil doer because they're doing the same thing but at a different level. they're all trying to protect each other. that's really one of the main problems of the united nations, actually. host: i don't know how much you thought about this but the national security council has 15 members p.5 of them

are permanent, but china, russia, france, *upbs, and great britain, then 10 additional that serve for two years at a time. guest: right. host: then you have the general assembly, but the interesting thing about the general assembly is i think something, like 3 percent of the delegates is all you -- even though they don't have the money and they're not involved, could stop something. guest: right. host: did you talk to anybody about -- and of course the five permanent members of the security council can also veto a resolution. guest: right. host: so there's a lot of -- >> guest: there's a loss of oosification in the u.n. because of the way it's structured. we did a lot on that but didn't include it in the movie, because it's boring, who the hell wants to talk about that, but ultimately it does lead to lot of problems. on the other hand you can look at it and say underneath it, thank god the u.n. has veto power, because if you think the u.n. is bad with what we have now, you should

see what the u.n. would be without veto power. it would be insane. the entire u.n. would be focused on the united states and their, you know, their atrocities, quote unquote, and israel. host: what do you say to the american people that the united states is paying 22 percent of the bill and no one comes close to that? guest: it's a travesty. like i said, china, number two economy, the quote unquote new tiger of asia -- >> host: 3 percent. guest: and with their cash back program, less than that? it's horrific. it's hard to make the case to the american people that we should continue funding this. like i said, i'm not against funding the u.n. if it works. i say hell, give them more if what they're doing really works, but we have to take -- we cannot expect the u.n. to change if we continue to write blank checks which is essentially what it is, continuing what you're doing, here's your money, we'll ask questions later. host: the world bank is involved in the u.n.? guest: yes. host: the food program? guest: yes.

host: world food program. isn't that the world health organization? guest: those are good things. don't get me wrong. we talk in the movie about some of the things they do right and i certainly would not argue we cut funding to those thing. i think we should have a close look in terms of security and human rights and that's where we should take a laser beam and say if they're not doing -- i wouldn't poke fun at anything you suggest before. host: you came from the banking world, lehman brothers for five years. are you glad you left that business and came into this business? guest: is that a rhetorical question? god. flying around the world making movies? it's phenomenal, it's great. doesn't pay as much. host: but you lost money. guest: this is true. but my fun quotient in life has gone up significantly. i can't imagine anything different.

i'd rather slit my wrists than go back to banking. host: how many kids do you have. guest: two girls. >> host: what do they think. guest: they think it's cool. my wife is different. host: where did you meet her. >> guest: in school. we spent a year at the university of jerusalem, she was from new jersey, i was from l.a., and she's been very supportive. thank god, extremely supportive wife. how many wives would be will fog their husbands to take this kind of risk, financial, physical. she's been great. you know, for her, it's a little bit -- she could have -- she thinks i've gone off the deep end. host: at any time did the writers which you say are liberals object to any of the content of your documentary? guest: no. in fact, a lot of them were pushing me to go further. i think these were all issues they were not well versed in at all. this was a universe they were just getting introduced to and they were shocked. they were shocked. they felt betrayed because

all left winger, all raised and inculcated with the notion that the u.n. was making the world a better place, and particularly when you start seeing security issues, human rights issues, what the u.n. is really doing, they thought we weren't pushing the envelope enough. they were blown away. host: this going to be a second documentary from ami horowitz. guest: there will probably be a second documentary but i can promise you this. it will not be u.n. part about. if i never hear the word united nations again, it will be too soon. host: why? guest: i'm just sick of it. you spend so much time on one topic, one issue, it's really difficult to keep going. s, it just drives you insane. i don't know how the people cover the u.n. full-time can do it. the insanity of that place drives you to the brink of madness. every time you see it, they do something so unbelievably ridiculous that you just -- it drives you to the edge of

insanity. host: those who want to see the full documentary, u.n. me can find it where? guest: the u.n. movie.com. host: how much is it? guest guest i think it's a good deal. it's 15 bucks, 14.99. for this day and age, it's a pretty good price. host: what's the best thing anybody has done because of this documentary, to you or, that you've observed? guest: there's a lot going on on capitol hill about the movie. we screened the movie for congressmen, senators, we've screened it twice and we're seeing a lot of action not just from republicans, but have had democrats walk up to me and why the kwraordz -- use the words like you've opened up my eyes, it's been really -- it's been gratifying to see that we're starting to make some movement because i think we're in a situation now where we can't afford to throw money away anymore and i think if we can use that money to better the world then we should do it and if we can't, we should look at

reallocating resources into something else and maybe even, you know, a competing organization, one whose ideals are shared by all, you know, one that is based on freedom, democracy-based organization. maybe that's what we need to be looking for. host: we thank you, ami horowitz. we're out of time. guest guest i thank you. it's been a pleasure. for a dvd copy of this program, call 1-8 # 7- 7-662-7726. for free transcripts or to give us your comments about this comment, visit us at q & a.org. q & a programs are also available at c-span podcasts.

>> watch gavel to gavel coverage of the democratic convention from charlotte, north carolina, every minute, every speech, here live on c-span. next, live, your calls and comments on "washington journal", then live at 8:30, politico pay book breakfast with los angeles mayor antonio villaraigosa. live at 12:30 p.m., president obama speaking at a uaw labor day rally in toledo, ohio. >> we live in a world where technology, where networks, are of increasing consequence in our foreign policy. it's driving political movement, it's increasingly the backbone for communications in commerce around the world, and so for us it's just a tool, but it's an important tool. so we use it for communications, we have 288 facebook pages with 13 million friends, i think we have almost 200 official twitter accounts with a

couple million followers who are using it for communications. but of greater consequence in my opinion is part of what we're looking at are some really tough traditional foreign policy challenges, and thinking about how we can apply two of america's unique strengths, our ability to innovate and our technology and see how we can apply those to a foreign policy challenge. >> more about u.s. technology in foreign policy tonight at 8:00 eastern on c-span2. >> this morning, charlotte observer political reporter tim funk previews the democratic national convention. then, mark minks, president. national right to work legal foundation discusses his group's fight against what it calls compulsory unionism, an effort to pass right to work legislation on the federal and state level. later, florida afl-cio president mike williams talks about the issues in that swing state and the impact unions will have on the