is from this season, ah, 20 years since preparations for the u. s. war on afghanistan began in the week of the 911 terrorist attacks and bought you will be speaking to the man who is chief of staff to george w bush's secretary of state colin powell. but 1st to one of the greatest chroniclers of the united states empire, a filmmaker we explored both the horror of 911 and the planning of us imperialist was before and after 9112001, and joined. now, by all of a stone oscar winning director and writer a films like salvador j, f. k, world trade center, nixon, wall street, and platoon oliver. thanks so much for coming back on a happy birthday. that's what i got to say to you. first of all, i mean the commentators are all talking about how your films are one way to cope with 911 the 20 year anniversary. can you see why $75.00 is very young and you should be pulling out at least 2 or 3 feature films a year now. my father lived to about 75. exactly. so i think, i think, you know,

modern times had been good to us. prosperity has been good to us and allowed us to live longer. so i'm grateful. and i hope i stay young and making films as tough. but i've been working really hard on these 2 documentaries that are coming out of j of k one. we talked about con, that's coming out in november 22 birth the date of his murder. and the other one will be coming out early next year. the clean energy one, which i, we did a lot of work on now was in paris. a scoring it with the composer vangelis, the greek composer who i worked with before and he's wonderful is great, great score. and i noted about documentaries, feature films are much tougher to make. yeah, i mean, but i was thinking, brian diploma, who directed scarface, which he wrote, i mean, he's getting on, he's older than you. he's putting our film feature films out. i mean, we, can you see why your fan certainly would think as the war on terror?

so cooled and does new phases as they need you more than ever. keep in mind the way i see it is what feature film could be as important as climate change. and this, when you see this film i did, which is called star power, you'll understand that it's very important. it's something that will change people's perception of what's going on and may help the world enormously to adapt. and that's, that's why i did it. so my purpose, it's about purpose and there's no nobler purpose in my opinion, then to juice tend to serve mankind. so a film is fine, but it's so hard to have impact around the world or something like that. i mean, we want you to come back on to talk about that film when, when it's out of coolness. i actually saw well trade center theoretically as your nora film, i suppose, a disaster movie. ah. but then i thought again about it,

thinking it was a class movie for some people. i think you yourself said, you know, you saved the politics for w, about george w bush and his response. but do you think that it, well trade center and why you like the film is because there's something about the american working class there in it. it was a pure film for me. it was something that i did it because i thought there was so much and it was 4 years after the event and there was resistance to making it even then because it was close to and we shot some of it in new york city. so we had a lot of opposition from political groups. we had to negotiate a tight rope there to get close to the world trade center and to do it. but the point of it was that these men existed these 2 men, that's their story and their families and the rescuers who came to save them. they were the 18th and 18th and 19th survivors out of 20 survivors out of the world

trade center. $18.19 they were under your under there for about 30 hours 36 hours and the rescuers took their took great risks to get down into the rubble. it was such a mess and the real rescuers played themselves. most of them they were, i had about 80 people who were in that movie who actually had been there when i thought it was interesting about the movie was it kept it down to earth. it was simple. the plot, it was about what really happened that day as opposed to all the hysteria in the air. if you remember about who did this, what happened the horror of the tragedy. a lot of it was built, a lot of it was exaggerated high to go to war by bush in his group. and i think most of the media joined in on that. i was kind of turned off by it because i think heroism is simple. it's not elaborated on it's not called attention to it done. and that's what those guys represented to me. they were the real warriors.

instead of going off in financial horn, afghanistan, or iraq, you know, trying to get revenge. now, concentrate on here on helping people here. and that's what that movie was about. very simple, very humble. and those 2 guys, coughlin and well, he may know they are true, true wars of spirit they survived, and they're still humble. and i think that's why emergency services, obviously, are always respect that even when they don't get their pay rises that austerity demands of them. arguably, if you did then tackle that big a geopolitical angle, as well as the personal upper class angle of george w bush and his response. and, and you, you firmly believe that in the u. s. response was, was based on imperialism, emotionalism and imperialism. yes. very emotional. their revenge oriented, we got to get, we got to get them for those whose them we didn't even know them were, you know,

they were saudi arabian and saudi arabian, mostly saudi arabian terrorists. but they were lent really by chic muhammad. and the more you investigated his story, the more you realized that he organized all things in his brain. he was the guy put it together from, from, from scratch. he knew people from the 93 bombing and he went back there and he travel the organize it. he only made one or 2 trips to see osama bin london. it took who blessed blessed it, but not really participated in the planning of it. all the key work, the legwork was done in places like hamburg and in malaysia, san diego, and also sandy as id. yet inside the united states, of course that he had no mongers knows. it was we never, we lost focus at that moment. we were terrified by horrified, exaggerated, but we didn't really look at what happened. among other things we should have

looked at was why, why did they do it? you know, bush famously said they, they envy our freedoms. that was nonsense. they, they did it because of 2 reasons. and osama stated very clearly, one was our invasion. those are pointing land troops on, you know, in the holy land in saudi arabia. george bush had done that in 1991 to when he went to the war in kuwait that was a misunderstanding of their culture. and the 2nd reason, of course, was america support for israel, which had intensified over those years and become more and more one sided. those are the 2 reasons that were given. people just kinda lost track of that in the, in this need to get revenge against who saint saint. m. hussein and iraq. frankly, if you followed the events closely and i did, i knew one of the people who actually was involved in the c. i went over there and led that horse back charges across afghanistan. they worked the see. i actually

succeeded in that in that operation was one of the few times they have succeeded and they drove out the, the time with them and with the warlords and the northern alliance. it was over. the thing was over in december, january of the name of that year. and instead of disengaging at that point and negotiating, we sent in huge amount of troops. and they had nothing to do basically except occupied places where people didn't know they were and what they weren't. they didn't understand the landscape customs. and they went out in on patrols into these villages. and they, as we did in vietnam, they antagonized people by just being there. and because we're well get on to vietnam and in part 2 and of course palestine has been bombed in the past few days . it continues to be inspire groups. these really bombing of gaz of this week, as you just quickly ask you though,

is it true that you and david fincher and john singleton were us to speak to the u . s. military about disaster scenario planning? some of the u. s. military thought that film directors would know about it or is that a myth? i don't remember that i am sorry, but they were, i was involved in a pentagon, in a government arranged seminar with a bunch of filmmakers. and we were consulted as to what, what was going on a, what our thoughts were, but it had no meaning. it was just to reach out, reach out to another group, spending money was what they were doing. the government spent a fortune doing all this stuff, and as you know, it was wasted money as it was in afghanistan. yeah, they taken their advice. your advice know that there wouldn't have been the war and iraq, for instance. i mean, on the withdrawal from afghanistan, larry wilkerson, i mean, he's been to, is going to dallas and bought to, we're going to ask him and he's been talking about this. i mean, do you think it's possible that the pentagon had a interest in it being

a chaotic withdrawal because there are voices in the military industrial complex. i didn't want him to withdraw from afghanistan because a lot of profits to be made out of a continued war there. ok, asian, i don't see it that way at all. or perhaps i'm in minority, but frankly in terms of withdrawal, i think it was pretty good. i mean it's, it's never easy to get out of a country under that situation after 20 years or. and after we had so many allies, we created so many, so many people worked with us. it wasn't easy. i didn't think it was a bad girl at all. i think it was made more so made more hysterical by our media talking about, you know, we have one person point off an airplane, a few people are killed here and they are it's, you know, that's the price of war. i don't know what they're talking about. it wasn't bad. saigon was in a sense, the same rush to get out. right. and of course, it was very messy. and it was unplanned for that way,

but that's the nature of withdraw. it's. it's not when napoleon left moscow he got wiped down on the way back. if you remember, his army was decimated by the time he got to the borders of poland. the ogle? no, it was wrong, was not easy. so i think that bind it handled it well, i think he, he was not hysterical. he stayed firm and he didn't because most american presidents would fold and cook and go, well i changed my, my, we're going to say, you know, because of the poles, you know, the poles are always tough on presidents who are decisive in doing something. and i, i applaud by him for that and i like him, i liked him for that because i like, i like the fact that he's older. i like the fact that may because i'm 75, but i appreciate a man who isn't rushing to judgment like bush was or trump would be a man who thinks about things and is deliberate and is cool when when the criticism comm. yeah. but he got to do what your hero he got, he got to do what you are hero,

jeff k couldn't do when it came to viet now. while he would've, he would have, as you may fear in your documentary rational data, you know, and i'm sure there was a lot of opposition and we went into back last time. i just want to reiterate to you that there is no, no, no, the conclusion of that is that we've got our history wrong. they keep saying that lyndon johnson fulfilled the policies of kennedy in vietnam and various other places. he didn't, he 180 degrees opposite. kennedy was withdrawing from vietnam and issued orders to such mcnamara and bundy both confirmed it in books and so have several other people . it's just our historians have not caught up to that yet. all right, i'll stop you there more from all of us down after this break as well as the man who is chief of staff to colin powell, george w bush's secretary of state, played by jeffrey wright in all of his tones, doubly long when alex so think wrong when i just don't want

to see how it is the kind of the advocate and engagement of the trail. when so many find themselves, well the part we just to look for common ground. ah welcome back. i'm still here with the iconic director of such films as wall street, w and platoon oliver's stone. given it's your birthday, i must also ask about the film you did so much work on it never came to pass. sy hersh has been on the show numerous times. will we ever get to see the my lai massacre film? is it we never going to see it. i wish we'd be able to make it. that was

a loss of will on the part of the investors and the producer, the producing company that united artists. and also i have to say, bruce willis did withdraw and that didn't make things easier. although nic cage was willing to step in and do it. but the point was that it was, as you know, had a lot to do with the 2008 crash merrill lynch was supporting the film financially part of it. and when they were hit very hard and that crash the crash, let's get to the crash because i don't know whether you know this, but your birthday is the same day as the lodge, if you, as bankruptcy in history, lehman brothers, you probably remember it. i remembered grade when i was there was your but they, when they went buy a lot, that was pretty scary. that whole period there i would say for real. it was a real there was of tremendous danger in the air of bankruptcy and, you know,

that money markets, wood was frozen and all that stuff. and so much, you know, i'm not an economic expert, but i can say to you that that was made to films about it. i would like to point out that wall street originally was, was motivated by. what i saw is, is green that on wall street in $1080.00 or so, people were suddenly my age were making big money, were making hundreds of thousands of dollars a year. and i was kind of shocked by because a lot of the kids that i'd worked grown up with were not that bright, but they were making big money. and this went on the wall street phenomenon went on through the knees, which surprised me and continued through the 2000. and by 2008, you have to realize that the people that the character who played jacko, who was abandoned and now become the banks, are banks, are investment banks were doing the same kind of stuff that gail was doing in $198065.00,

and that's what led to the course of mortgage and the credit union. the credit disasters lead to this collapse in 2008. so in other words, we're dealing with billions of dollars now instead of millions. and that was a big shock to many people, including me. i'm surprised by i was surprised by it. and i still can't believe we're still going on and now we're getting bigger and bigger numbers are only everybody. maybe that's why it needs a sequel to have money. money news. after that, i don't, i don't want to make it a, she has so many ideas out there in giving you a. well i, you know, who are gillian independence days this saturday we been covering that other 911 and i know we spoke to you. people can watch that interview about the 1st volume of your autobiography, where you talk about how you smuggle in the lataya assassination of the ins. diplomat in washington into scarface. you know, i mean, i did, they know,

did hollywood know that you were smuggling in a scene that relates to where they would they, it was, it was not i certainly they didn't want anything to political and certainly the producer at that time worked against it. i mean, he was trying to tone down any political suggestions, but if you saw it look closely at the film, you would see the cia involvement with the people who were trying to kill the diplomat in new york. and those people ended up being the enemy of scarf, of tony montana who abruptly cancel the plan by shooting his shots and turning the whole thing around. so scarface became the enemy of our central government, or our seo, they got rid of him, got rid of him, the one who attacked that at the mansion at the end. he was completely exaggerated, but the people who kills carthage were indeed people who felt that they had been betrayed by the sky. it's all histone, happy, but they and thank you and thank you. i've seen, you've always been, well,

you know, it's been a long thank you and for supporting me in the to the years. ah, well, it's 20th to the day since us president george w bush made his 1st radio address to the nation up to the 911 atrocities in new york in washington, announcing the plan for a comprehensive assault on terrorism. joining me now from falls church, virginia is retired, colonel larry wilkinson, former u. s. secretary of state colin pal's chief of staff and the men involved in the decision to invade iraq retired. colonel, thanks so much for coming on. let's just start with taking you back to the day you saw in witness the attacks on new york. i understand that the 1st reaction of the team there at the state department and elsewhere in the administration may have been to, to resign for george w bush resigned. dick cheney design and realized that they hadn't protected the homeland. i don't think they were contemplating resigning. i think they were

contemplating the fear that the american people would react adversely towards their administration. after all, they had no political mandate. their political mandate was a supreme court decision. there were still being question all across the land and indeed is still being question today. i'm fear and re was how they made the decisions they made in the aftermath. that's not a good environment in which to make national security decisions of fear, as i indicated, was that they will get rid of us. but then there was a quick realization really coming after the debris, pow, and the megaphone in new york, where the president said, and the people who did this will hear from us that is, polls would skyrocket and they did. they went towards 90 percent and beyond. and that he could, his call, rose cold and be assured of reelection unlike his father in 2004 if only he played this right. so they quickly became motivated by polite, political considerations,

domestic political considerations, as well as that rate. well, clearly that's a, that's democracy, the poll numbers. and so, and how quickly did the, the poll numbers after 911 mix up theoretically with strategy involving defense companies on k street. and how this could be manipulated into a, into a money spinning idea off the bodies of those who killed. oh, this is vice president cheney's forte here. after all, he'd been the secretary of defense who introduced halliburton to outsourcing for the pentagon at halliburton actually did the study. they came back and said, oh, this is a marvelous idea. mister secretary, we should do this. and of course, we proceeded to do it after that eisenhower morning in january, 1960, about the military industrial complex was just put on steroids. the complex became desirous of in was war in las war that would feed them like

a cash cow and keep them alive and breathing and their ceo's making enormous salaries and their company solver. ah, that's why we expanded nato to a certain extent to which so we could bring the poles and others in to buying these equipments made by our arms merchants. so this complex was largely responsible for the military staying in afghanistan for 20 some odd years. he, as recently as august, you didn't believe biden would get the troops out. is that because the cia is still there, that there are still us assets in afghanistan, a wage is completely wrong about it. i mean, you said it's just to jeer strategic as regards china's milton road for the u. s. to leave. well, i quickly became a prize by a number of methods of the fact that pentagon been think that way either depending on wasn't thinking geo, strategically at all. it was thinking, as i just expressed it in terms of its cash cow, i was just talking about in the past couple of weeks,

it was only august. you didn't believe biden was gonna withdraw troops. and of course, some people say that may well have been advisors to have a chaotic withdrawal to show presidents. this is what happens when you overrule those kinds of defense company, a pro yes. you said, no, i want to know what do you think it's true? well, the military is already started, the stabbed in the back theory. there there shibboleth now is. oh, it was not a military said it was political uptake. they clearly failed president biden. when he did do what i said he wouldn't do. i thought the strategic necessity of staying somewhere near pakistan's nuclear weapons and with ard power and somewhere near the base road initiative and in a place that has a border which are small border but a border on a flank we never would be next to were it not for afghanistan, but that strategy, that strategic appraisal didn't whole. i mean, we've heard on this program how the initial afghan has done push was actually part

of, well, it's been described as part of design to improve pipeline resource management of gas and unicorn. the links, of course, to people you, you served why the journalists still claim now that the 911 attacks were planned in afghanistan when they were planned by saudis in san diego and in the united states . well, that's a continuing fall. i think of the 911 commission and other efforts associated with it. i think you can lay 911 and what happened on 911 at the saudi feed, as well as any other state in the world. perhaps more so they are the greatest a sponsor of terrorism in the world. and they still are whether or not royal's had anything to do with it. that is to say people in the actual government and re odd is another matter and a matter that should be investigated to the nth degree. but i don't think you said

saudi intelligence would probably, for the, the hijackers themselves were probably agents of saudi intelligence. i don't think i ever made that direct a statement, but i would say after knowing turkey our final and others involved with saudi intelligence that it would be absolutely impossible for me to be made to believe that their intelligence didn't know about them. obviously the saudi government completely denies they were anything to do with it. so what about biden's executive order to release these $28.00 pages from the $911.00 report you think within the next 6 months they will be released or just released heavily rather redacted to protect the united states, his great great to receiver of arms to bomb yemen. if the latter, if they are released, i think it'll probably be redacted. and i look at to 6000 page senate select committee on intelligence report on torture, mainly focused on the cia and i've read the executive summary and done the inquiry

myself with the north carolina commission inquiry on torture. and i've got to say that would be even more devastating than the $28.00 pages in my view. because you would have to, if you read that 6000 page report, you would have to, i think, demands from accountability or beyond elected very shortly by the american people. i mean, i mean say out a to pop when you advise colin powell for that famous speech of the un security council where he lied, i presume you think he lied about the weapons of mass destruction when you read, when you write to mark warner, the intelligence committee about the torture allegations you're saying, what you get replies so far i haven't gotten any so far. we've tried every staffer, we know that might be sympathetic to our views, the north carolina commission, but we have not been able to get warner to even grant us leaning. and let me correct one thing you said there, i don't think colin powell lied. i think that's

a, a bit of a stretch. i think what happened was the october 2002 national intelligence estimate accepted by the congress. both houses accepted by most of the government accepted by france, israel jordan, germany, the youth, most of our fellow intelligence agencies accepted that is the truth. an at least the reasonable you for you had previously said that the famous half a 1000000 children killed by us sanctions and british sanctions on iraq let alone the other economic sanctions had destroyed the saddam hussein's capabilities. you knew that why did you switch? and i didn't know that either. no, that's putting words in my mouth. again, i knew that the sanctions had been unsuccessful and whose actually you had said really some sanctions had been effective against saddam hussein. ordering specifically in terms of hurting children and women and all manner of other people, salaam had no problems whatsoever. building castle after castle and fortifications

and buying things for his military and so forth. there were some validity to walk foul said to validity that made saddam still a security problem with regard to his neighbors. and with regard to his own people, while tens of millions killed would or displace just finally did osama bin laden when, i mean, you've talked so eloquently about the corruption, the torture, the heroine, the relations between the cia and the i. s i in pakistan. and now the united states has lost so much. sure. so much in this world since the $911.00 attacks did he $7.00 trillion dollars counting the cost over time to take care of the veterans weakness. they paid a lot of defense company salaries at the high borders that will have to hook to that. but i mean, did a when the in trying to destroy what was the origin, the idea of the american dream? i laid one, we're looking at osama bin laden's project reach strictly in that one. fatwas

thinker is 1998. i think he succeeded beyond his wildest dreams as he succeeded, as he thought with the soviet union, their empire ended. i think our empire is going down pretty fast right now, and i'm beginning to believe that it's unsalvageable retired colonel. very welcome and thank you. that's it. for one of your favorite shows of the last season, we'll be back on wednesday, the 12th of january, but until then stay safe. and you can watch all our interviews by subscribing to our youtube channel and falling us on all our social media. with with okay,

forced to chill with tristan school list a child beginning spawn? is it insured? is maureen, by the way to assess my william his the length of school is out of it is the curriculum was left the keenest with position for food. bottled in was to pick up, put him in junior, was, wasn't it that the appointment was training. that if you teach case you were she made it with? no, i mean, unless you put that amount with a female power to start with.

ah we're driving into the city of our mother, perhaps the most dangerous area it is violent. rage is across country. it's down. we report from the country's largest city or authority say they've arrested $4000.00 paper on terra charges, including foreign nationals for peace. kate is arriving from russia to help restore order. meanwhile, moscow pushes back against washington's remarks. the russian peace keep despite and have a lead catholic stand, but the foreign minister pointing at the neighboring country, strong in philadelphia line and traditional ties. and also to come with germany tightened frictions. the back of the pandemic, despite antique a, the protest intensify across the country. we're not laughed, we're not right. we just want freedom. i feel the message is a disproportionate and i find this division in society.