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Product Description
Studio: Magnolia Pict Hm Ent Release Date: 11/25/2008 Run time: 102 minutes Rating: Nr
Amazon.com
A staggering portrait of arrogance and incompetence, the documentary No End in Sight avoids the question of why the U.S. invaded Iraq in 2003, choosing instead to focus on the war's aftermath--and meticulously examine the chain of decisions that led Iraq into a grotesque state of lawlessness and civil war. Drawing from interviews with top generals, administration officials, journalists, and soldiers who were in the thick of the war itself, No End in Sight lays out a gripping story, as suspenseful as any Hollywood movie, accompanied by terrifying footage of firefights and explosions more vivid than any special effects. Unfortunately, there is no happy ending. If the documentary has a weakness, it's the shortage of voices trying to defend the administration policies (perhaps unsurprisingly, policymakers like Dick Cheney, Donald Rumsfeld, and Paul Wolfowitz declined to be interviewed). But the testimony (presented by administration insiders and officials in Iraq, both military and civilian) argues that, despite contrary analysis and experienced advice against its actions, the top brass of the Bush administration made decisions (that aggravated already existing problems and created devastating new ones. No End in Sight builds its case one voice at a time and avoids the grandstanding that undercuts Michael Moore's work; instead, the gradual accumulation of simple facts--presented with weary resignation, earnest outrage, and restrained anger--results in a compelling condemnation of one of the worst blunders the U.S. has ever made. --Bret Fetzer
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Average Customer Review:
1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:
 Must See!, 2008-10-09
Every U.S. Citizen must see this documentary from filmmaker Charles Ferguson if you want to have an educated opinion regarding the War in Iraq. Also, please review Charles Ferguson's biography on the Council on Foreign Relations website at www.cfr.or/bios/10786, to check his credentials - impressive.
2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:
"We will bring the Iraqi people food and medicine and supplies and freedom", 2008-09-17
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The title of this review is actually a quotation by President George W. Bush found in some archival news footage near the end of this powerful documentary.
This is a documentary film about America's occupation of Iraq. It focuses generally on the two-year period following the invasion of Iraq in March 2003 and particularly with the period of a few months in the spring and summer of 2003. It asserts that serious mistakes made by the Bush administration during this time were the cause of the ensuing quagmire of problems of guerrilla warfare, warlord rule, criminality, and anarchy that dominate Iraq to this day. (Note that this film does initially touch on other aspects prior to the occupation and reconstruction of Iraq.)
To a large extent, this film, besides archival footage, consists of brief interviews with high ranking officials who were involved in the initial Iraqi occupation authority and ORHA (the Office of Reconstruction and Humanitarian Assistance, later to be replaced by the CPA, the Coalition Provisional Authority). Iraqi civilians, American soldiers, and prominent analysts are also interviewed.
Thirty-five people were briefly interviewed, many of them former Bush loyalists who have since become disillusioned by the incompetence and recklessness they were involved in at the time.
Examples of those interviewed include the following:
(1) General Jay Garner, who briefly ran the reconstruction before being replaced by L. Paul Bremer III (who took over May, 2003)
(2) Ambassador Barbara Bodine, who was placed in charge of the Baghdad embassy
(3) Richard Armitage, former Secretary of The State Department
(4) Colonel Lawrence Wilkerson, Colin Powell's former Chief of Staff
(5) Colonel Paul Hughes, who worked in the ORHA and then the CPA
One criticism of this film is that it is biased. This is not true. The accumulated professional standing of the people that were interviewed and their insistence on the facts makes this criticism not plausible. Besides key officials such as Bremer and former Defence Secretary Donald Rumsfeld declined to be interviewed.
This film has won many awards.
Incidentally, there were no weapons of mass destruction found in this documentary.
Finally, the DVD itself (the one released in 2007) is perfect in picture and sound quality. It has fifteen interesting extras. There are no English subtitles but there is closed captioning.
In conclusion, this is the first film of its kind to chronicle the reasons behind Iraq's descent into chaos. As such, it is not to be missed!!
(2007; 1 hr, 40 min; wide screen; 12 scenes)
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2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:
 No End In Sight..., 2008-09-14
All the folks that actually served on the front speak here - and it just underscores the ignorance of Bush and his party - mowing fervently ahead full of their rightness.
7 of 7 people found the following review helpful:
The Devastating Inside Story On Iraq, From Those Who Were There, 2008-08-24
Just when it seemed that documentaries about 9/11 and the Iraq war had played themselves out, along comes writer/director Charles Ferguson's devastating and insightful NO END IN SIGHT. Where FAHRENHEIT 9/11 had basically nailed the Bush cabal for lying about the reasons America went to war in Iraq, and many other documentaries skewered the news media for basically being in bed with the administration, Ferguson probes into what was and was NOT going on in Iraq before, during, and after the invasion; and if you think you've seen it all, NO END IN SIGHT shows that what you've really seen is the mere tip of the iceberg.
In the film, Ferguson gets to interview people who were actually there in the firestorm, like Jay Garner, Paul Hughes, Barbara Bodine, deputy Secretary of State Richard Armitage, Seth Moulton, a U.S. Marine, and others who were involved in trying to reconstruct Iraq, and who instead found themselves totally stymied by an administration that displayed the worst in America: arrogance; venality; incompetence; cockiness; and indifference. The idea that we would topple Saddam Hussein, restore order, create a new government, and then leave within six months or so was ludicrous to begin with anyway on paper; but as the graphic footage of the looting, the IEDs, and the various recountings by our people, numerous journalists (including George Packer), and various Middle East experts, show, it was infinitely worse when put into practice. The unfortunate thing of it all is that very good people like Bodine, Moulton, and Hughes were left hung out to dry by an administration that bragged about knowing everything there was about imposing American power on the world, and proved that they knew NOTHING about the limits of doing it.
NO END IN SIGHT allows the viewer to see for themselves what it is over there in Iraq and doesn't preach from a pulpit as to the morality of going into Iraq in the first place. But it leaves no doubt that the Bush Administration will be judged by history for how it handled the aftermath, and that the verdict will likely be devastating, regardless of the military outcome. This is a film that MUST be seen by Americans of all political persuasions, because it forces upon us the reality that our good intentions can often be sabotaged by an administration's indifference to death and suffering.
5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:
Well done look at the Iraq war and aftermath, 2008-07-25
This is a very interesting documentary that focuses on the Second Iraq War and the immediate aftermath. I must not have been paying close attention to the news when these events unfolded, because much of it was new to me. It is a very balanced look (not Michael Moore-style at all) that focuses on interviews with military, political and civilian institutions that were there, and how the decision making took place.
This documentary doesn't pass judgment on whether going to Iraq in the first place was a good idea, what it does pass judgment on are the decisions made after the US took over and how that affected the chaos that ensued. It is a very informative documentary and I highly recommend it.
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