United 93 Director on the 911 Commission report

From the Daily Mirror

by Paul Greengrass

4 July, 2006


http://www.mirror.co.uk/news/tm_obje...name_page.html


WHEN we filmed United 93, we had a bible to guide us every step of the way.

It was 567 pages long and beautifully written. It summarised with exceptional clarity 1,200 interviews conducted in 10 countries, more than 2.5 million pages of official documentation and 19 days of public hearings.

It was called the 9/11 Commission Report. Without it, we could never have reconstructed what happened aboard the hijacked passenger jets, nor even begun to understand the complex forces that led up to the attacks on September 11th 2001.

The 9/11 Commission report cost £8.1mil-lion. Astonishingly, for a government publication, it became a bestseller on its release.

It stands today as a powerful and impressive exercise in accountability from a society mature enough to know that when faced with a calamity on the scale of 9/11, government's first task is to find out what happened and why.

BWAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!!!!
This is a joke, right? 8.1 million, wow. How much did they spend on the Clinton-Lewinski scandal? Somone please remind me.

this makes me sick

Funnily enough, a few years back Paul Greengrass made a film called Bloody Sunday. It was about the events in Derry (Northern Ireland) on Jan 30th 1972, when British Army paratroopers shot dead 14 civil rights demonstrators at a march and wounded many more.

After the murders, an 'inquiry' was held, from which emerged he Widgery Report. It was of course a complete whitewash and cleared the army of any wrongdoing.

Only almost 30 years later, in teh very late 90's, did the British State open a new investigation into the events of that day. This tribunal is still ongoning almost ten years later. It is called the Saville Inquiry.

For ease of reading and understanding, here is a brief excerpt from the World Socialist Website review of this film, and another better (IMO) film on the same subject simply called "sunday" (Dir. Jimmy McGovern):

"The Saville inquiry was convened as part of efforts to solicit Sinn Fein’s support for the Good Friday Agreement, and the power sharing structures it established. Britain’s Prime Minister Blair stated at the outset, “The aim of the inquiry is not to accuse individuals or institutions, or to invite fresh recriminations.” Notwithstanding the government’s efforts to limit any revelations (for example in not forcing soldiers to testify), the Saville inquiry has heard new evidence confirming that Bloody Sunday was a calculated act of murder by the British army. It also provides suggestive evidence that this was authorised at the highest level of the British government. Both Paul Greengrass and Jimmy McGovern have used this new evidence in their films, as well as that previously denied by the British government and the army. (Some of the family testimonies are collected in Eamonn McCann’s book Bloody Sunday in Derry: What Really Happened)."

Later on in the review, the WSWS quote Greengrass as saying his film was intended as "a bit of a warning from history since September 11". (!!!!!)

What a shame Mr. Greengrass didn't learn the lessons of Bloody Sunday and the Widgery Report and apply them to 9/11. When the State murders its own, it doesn't admit to it in an offical report! Yet he calls the Kean/Zelikow Report the 'Bilbe of 9/11'!

Astounding. And tragic.