Who "Lost" Iraq?

Today, there was a dustup in the NYC fishwrap. L. Paul Bremer, the first proconsul installed by this administration after the fall of Iraq, wrote an op-ed piece to proclaim his non-culpability for the chaos in Iraq since our "victory" in 2003. Bremer has been stung by the response to "No End In Sight" that is now playing in (mostly) art house theaters. Charles Ferguson, the filmmaker, responded with a multimeda letter to the editor. What a two-fer: skewer Bremer and plug a movie all at the same time.

Ferguson's film, which was the Sundance Film Festival's pick as the best documentary in 2007, explains our Iraqi disaster as the product of the Bush administration's arrogance and ignorance. The POTUS—in the recent book about the Bush presidency, Dead Certain by Robert Draper—tries to distance himself from Bremer (and his handlers: Cheney, Rumsfeld, Wolfowitz, and Feith). That dog won't hunt, Mr. President. As Ferguson's film clearly illustrates, the buck stops in the Oval Office. Of course, if there had been no invasion of Iraq, this film never would have been made. Unfortunately for the POTUS, if you want to dance, you have to pay the fiddler. If this is (fair & balanced) cinéma vérité , so be it.


[x Wikipedia]
Charles H. Ferguson

Charles Henry Ferguson is founder and president of Representational Pictures, Inc., and director and producer of "No End In Sight: The American Occupation of Iraq," which is his first film. It won a special jury prize for documentaries at the 2007 Sundance Film Festival.

Ferguson was originally educated as a political scientist. He earned BA in mathematics from the University of California, Berkeley in 1978[1], and obtained a Ph.D. in political science from M.I.T. in 1989. Following his Ph.D., Ferguson conducted postdoctoral research at MIT while also consulting to the White House, the Office of the U.S. Trade Representative, the Department of Defense, and several U.S. and European high technology firms. From 1992-1994 Ferguson was an independent consultant, providing strategic consulting to the top managements of U.S. high technology firms including Apple, Xerox, Motorola, and Texas Instruments.

In 1994, Ferguson founded Vermeer Technologies, one of the earliest Internet software companies, with Randy Forgaard. Vermeer created the first visual Web site development tool, FrontPage™. In early 1996, Ferguson sold Vermeer to Microsoft for $133 million, [2] which integrated FrontPage into Microsoft Office. After selling Vermeer, Ferguson returned to research and writing. He was a visiting scholar and/or lecturer for several years at MIT and Berkeley, and for three years was a Senior Fellow at the Brookings Institution in Washington DC. Ferguson is the author of three books and many articles dealing with various aspects of information technology and its relationships to economic, political, and social issues. Ferguson is a life member of the Council on Foreign Relations, a director of the French-American Foundation, and supports several nonprofit organizations.

For over 20 years, Ferguson has been intensely interested in film, and has regularly attended film festivals such as Telluride for over a decade. In mid-2005, after learning that no major documentary covering U.S. policy in Iraq was being made or was planned, he formed Representational Pictures and began production of "No End In Sight."

Ferguson is unmarried, and divides his time between Berkeley, California and New York City.

Copyright © Wikipedia, 2007

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