Original subtitles

♪ so bring on the light fantastic

♪ I'll show you

♪ if you should ask it

♪ let's dance together till morning ♪

- got a terrific view of the kick mist

With the cdr now appearing from behind me.

- still...

We are at war.

I'm responsible for the deployment of thousands

Of young americans, to battle in a distant land.

And some will kill.

And some will be killed.

And so I come here with an acute sense

Of the costs of armed conflict.

Filled with difficult questions about

The relationship between war and peace,

And our effort to replace one with the other.

- okay crib we copy that.

We've got tv pictures again.

- hefty, black control systems.

- they were five months into world war I,

Both sides were in trenches.

They were just mass slaughter across the landscape.

Men were standing up sleeping.

They were in their own feces, and their

Dead comrades were sitting there in no man's land.

They couldn't even get them and

Bring them back for burial.

It was christmas eve and the german high command

Had sent little christmas trees.

It was like a stage set, all of a sudden

Across the german front, you saw

These little christmas trees lighting up,

And then the allies heard silent night

Being sung by the germans.

And they started applauding.

And then all of a sudden a couple of guys

On both sides get out of the trenches

Areat war, who turned blood into gold.

And their profits were as secret as they were immense.

All of them are looking ahead to war.

- I stand before you tonight

In my red star chiffon evening gown...

My face softly made up, and my fair hair gently waved.

The iron lady of the western world.

Then thousands get out of the trenches,

And they embraced each other, 100,000 men.

- All no man's land as far as we could see.

It was grey and cocky.

The early were smoking and talking.

Shaking hands, exchanging names and

Addresses for after the war, to write to one another.

- everybody back in your trenches, you know.

And shouting, the generals behind must have seen it,

And got a bit suspicious.

So what they did, they gave orders

For a battery of guns behind us to fire.

And officers fired their revolvers at the gerry's, you know.

Course that started the war again.

Woah we were crushing 'em to hell.

- this was a war to end all wars.

This was the war to make the world safe for democracy.

At least 21,000 new millionaires were made in the u.S.

Billions and billions of dollars would be piled up by a few.

Munition makers, ship builders, meat packers.

And let us not forget the bankers,

Who financed the great war, who turned blood into gold.

And their profits were as secret as they were immense.

All of them are looking ahead to war.

- I stand before you tonight

In my red star chiffon evening gown...

My face softly made up, and my fair hair gently waved.

The iron lady of the western world.

- the al-yamamah deal was this

Extraordinary deal between the united kingdom

And saudi arabia, in which ronald regean wanted to

Sell the saudis billions and billions

Dollars worth of equipment.

But the israeli lobby stopped it.

And congress wouldn't approve it,

Because they feared arming saudi would threaten israel.

So ronald reagan handed the deal over, effectively,

To his political soul mate, margaret thatcher.

- You ain't seen nothing yet.

- You are a very tough act to follow.

- When we stumbled on the saudi arms deal,

The al-yamamah arms deal, we really started

To stumble on a central feature of british politics,

Over the last 30 years.

- His royal highness, prince bandar,

Has been at the heart of many of the great world

Events of the past 30 years.

I was always pleased to see him when I was prime minister,

Because he brought me extraordinary

Insights and bold proposals.

- she informed us, she considered

Saudi arabia as a strong friend, and would

Be willing to support the kingdom

With whatever the kingdom needs.

End of discussion, from there on everything

Else was technical.

- He explained to mrs. Thatcher that

This was a deal with saudi arabia,

And therefore things would end differently.

They wanted 43 billion pounds worth of weaponry.

That was 6 billion pounds in commissions.

The vast majority, or what most people understand as bribes.

- We will continue to work together against the terrorists,

Who threaten the way of life of our citizens.

Was a man called eddy cunningham, actually.

He said, "I've been working for a travel company,

"and we had a kind of slush fund, we use

"to distribute to saudis and other arabs

"when they came to britain, for bae,

"all to help the path of arms deals along."

When saudi military officers would come along,

He would present them with canteens of cutlery,

That was something that they liked.

Another thing they liked was girls,

So he would take them out on the town,

And get them girls.

- To be honest, it seemed like quite small beer.

Payments made, some of them for

Rather un-islamic activities.

Gaming chips, there were talks about call girls,

- There's only two things that count in business my friend.

Money and sex.

The rest, you can write as much as you like,

Is absolute garbage.

You can make a weapon beautiful, depends on your secretary.

Because, they are more distracted

Looking at your secretary's ass

Than thinking what the hell you're talking about.

And that is, sometimes, all the edge you need.

I had to use an escort agency called blue orchids,

Because of the special taste of

The chief of staff of the army,

Who liked blondes with silicone tits.

We had their secretary of the embassy

Come and review the photos.

And he said, "I want this one, I want this one,

"I want this one, I want this one."

I had the girls I arrived with one day before.

And I said, girls, I know you've all been paid

Handsomely for this but, do me a favor,

If you get any pillow talk that is relevant

Please bring it across because I could use it.

And for each, interesting information,

I will give another 3,000 year bonus.

So with 60 grand, I signed a contract worth three million.

So it wasn't bad deal.

- And then my phone rang again,

And it was another whistle blower and he said,

"you have no idea what it is that you're getting into here."

And he said, "this slush fund is much, much

Our job was to look after the really high level people.

Those who used to come to England,

Who were being bribed, essentially, by bae,

Were people of the level of the head of

The saudi air force, who was a royal prince.

We would fly them to los angeles,

And they would buy cars and dresses,

And it wasn't shopping like you and I would think.

In the end, when they gathered together all

Their shopping, we would charter an entire jumbo jet

To fly it all back to saudi arabia.

- It was an attempt to try and trace through

The bank accounts who the ultimate beneficiaries are

That the case became really very serious,

As the trail appeared to lead towards

Senior members of the saudi royal family.

- the most outrageous example was that bae,

In order to smooth the way with prince bandar,

At one point made him a president of a huge

Commercial airliner, all of his very own.

Which he promptly had painted in the grey

And silver colors of the dallas cowboys,

Who were his favorite american team.

And he used to fly around in that, quite cheerfully.

- The case centered on establishing the

Ultimate beneficiaries of exceptionally

Large amounts of money paid by british aerospace

For consultancy services.

- there's evidence that mark thatcher,

Mrs. Thatcher's son, got 12 million in cash

For his work as a fixer.

- This is a fire nine mill.

It's okay, it's not loaded.

Don't worry.

It's a very beautiful weapon, it's austrian made.

If you want to sell on the market,

And you're looking probably at about 3,500 euros.

- and why do you keep it in the house?

- because I'm a soldier.

- and you can do that legally?

- Yes and no, but yeah, more or less you can.

As long as it's in the house.

And you don't shoot the cat of the neighbor.

I got nothing against money, I don't mind paying

Bribes to politicians, it's part of the deal.

The thing about politicians is that

They're very much like prostitutes,

But only more expensive.

The politics is dictated by the whims of the arms industry.

Politicians are nothing more than sales reps my dear friend.

They have as much power as a middle

Ranking executive in lockheed martin.

At the end of the day they do what they're told.

- when an executive goes to bribe

A foreign official, he says to himself,

Look I've taken a lot of risk to take this

Five million dollars, that I'm

Paying to the prime minister of xyz.

He makes an arrangement with prime minister of xyz.

I'll hand over the five million,

But you take half of that five million,

And you send it to the following

Bank account in switzerland.

We'll share in this largess.

The first time an executive does that,

And he collects 2.5 million dollars,

He says, "wow, this is a good business to be in."

And within moments of that realization,

He is now no longer in the business of selling airplanes,

He's in the business of selling bribes.

And he's now scouring the world

For somebody to find to bribe.

♪ regrets

♪ and I've had a few

♪ but then again

♪ too few to mention

♪ I did

♪ what I had to do

♪ and saw it through

♪ without exemption

♪ I planned

♪ each chartered course

♪ each careful step

♪ along the by-way

♪ and more

♪ much more than this

♪ I did it

♪ my way

- And then the phone rang again.

And this was somebody who said, "you have

"no idea what you're getting into."

He said, "this whole bae thing is much,

"much bigger, goes right to the very top."

What he had was something that you

Never see as a journalist.

Swiss bank records of international covert payments,

Going all over the world.

He showed me how bae had set up a whole system

With lloyds bank, under which they channeled

Secret payments into the british virgin islands

Offshore company called red diamond.

And from red diamond the money went into

This guy's swiss bank account, and he

Then used it to distribute to the local politicians,

Taking a big chunk for himself of course.

- I mean I can certainly assure you,

I mean that we, and I believe most companies

Are not in the business of making payments

Passing, as you suggest, large sums of money

I mean it is just not the way me business is done.

- We were actually able to publish

What was our most dangerous story, that prince bandar

Had been given not just a plane,

But over the years, a total of one billion pounds.

- We did not invent

Corruption.

I mean adam and eve were in heaven,

And they had hanky-panky and they had to

Go down to earth, so...

And this is human nature.

- I salute a prince, a statesman,

And a friend.

- What is greed?

Of course none of us are greedy,

It's only the other fella who's greedy.

This...

The world runs on individual's

Pursuing their separate interests.

- All those people who believe that greed,

Violence, et cetera, these primal,

So called primal instincts, are the real instincts,

And everything else is a social construction,

They've lost their mind.

And for the last 50 years, at least,

Policy has been made based on the assumption of greed.

And it's ruined the world.

- Alright.

- Mr. Reagan, if you would.

- Patronites believe there is no nature of society,

So we have to nurture individualism.

I don't accept that at all.

I think there are very many, good public

Policy initiatives for creating society.

Welcome to beirut.

They are saying hello to you.

There's a combination ak-47 kalashnikov.

A society that decides that the bulk

Of it's budget is going to go to arms manufacturing,

Building up a military, et cetera,

They have made a moral decision.

That militarism is more important

Than the creation of well-being for the population.

It's not the world I want to live in.

I want to live in the real world.

And the real world is people by real emotions.

Including love and generosity.

- My god, if you want, is freedom.

The freedom of human beings, of individuals,

To pursue their own values.

- I think what the term freedom

Means is economic license.

And it's the economic license of those

Who control property, and those who control capital,

Has in fact been a threat, not only to equality,

But a threat to the freedom of peoples

All over the world, and not only in europe

And the united states, but in africa,

In asia, and in latin america.

- I want you to name me any society

In which you've had any large measure of that freedom.

Where capitalism and free enterprise

Has not been the predominate mechanism.

- The free enterprise system

Has spread through the force of arms,

And those arms were wielded by governments.

That was government intervention,

Under the name of the free enterprise system,

But a government intervention which destroyed

The freedoms of many people.

Not least of which are the people of chile.

- From the 1950's, all the way through the 1970's,

The cia and the u.S. Military were engaged

In covert actions throughout central and latin america.

Throughout africa, really throughout the world.

Where they were assassinating populist leaders,

They were backing up right-wing military juntas,

Funding and arming death squads, like the

Contras in nicaragua, or battalion 316 in honduras.

And there were these spate of assassinations

Across the globe.

- In countries like mine, people have

Been killed to be quiet.

To know that any day, any time you're going to

Be killed, you don't know how, but it's coming.

We were fighting an oligarch, and still

We are fighting, you know, oligarchs.

Minds that don't want to work on inclusiveness,

But just extraction.

It's not only about taking from the earth,

But taking from the people.

Even your dreams get colonized.

- The last half of what is called the cold war,

Turned out to be a very hot war for

Many parts of the world.

From the standpoint of what iqbal lamet calls

The victims of, what I will think of really as,

Of people trying to make their own futures.

There was an attempt in the global south

To create an alternative imagination for people.

But in the early 1970's, this attempt was destroyed.

And it was stopped through a real, genuine attempt,

By the global law to take over the

Institutions of the world, including

The world bank, the imf.

So, it's not simply that the people

Of the south were incapable of carrying

Forward their dreams.

I use a very strong word.

These dreams were assassinated.

It's not just the one off killings,

The coup here, the coup there.

It's the entire dream that had to be killed.

- The joint hearings of the house select

Committee to investigate covert arms

Transaction with iran.

And the select committee on secret military

Assistance to iran and the nicaraguan opposition.

We will come to order.

- Congress began to address what they perceived

To be an insanely out of control series of covert

Actions with little to no congressional oversight.

- We have been supplying lethal weapons

To terrorist nations, involving the u.S. Government

In military activities in direct contravention of the law.

And lying to the congress.

Now I believe that democracy cannot survive

That kind of abuse.

- And people like dick cheney, and donald rumsfeld,

Who were relatively new to government at the time,

Did not like when congress said we need

To step in and confront the national security state.

And what's become a very out of control kill program.

Cheney then went on, during the reagan years in the 80's

To serve in congress, and when the iran-contra

Scandal broke out into the open,

Cheney did not like congress being involved

With anything that the executive branch was doing.

And you had this utter scandal that

Emanated from the highest echelons of power.

And the reagan administration was acting

As though it had nothing to do with it.

- I've told you all that I know.

And you know, the truth of the matter is,

For quite some long time, all that you knew

Is what I told you.

- did they deceive you?

You didn't answer whether they deceived you.

Mr. President!

- Our witness this morning is mr. Robert mcfarlane,

The former national security advisor to the president.

Mr. Mcfarlane we welcome you to the

Committee and we look forward to your testimony.

- Mr. Mcfarlane, did you have any

Discussion about the possibility

Of, in effect, farming out the whole contra support

Operations in nicaragua to another country,

Which we'll call country one?

- Yes that's correct.

- and did you, in fact, succeed in obtaining

Money from another country,

Which we'll call country two?

- That's correct.

I had the practice of meeting periodically

With the official from country two,

About assistance we could provide.

In some cases arm sales.

And he intended to provide a contribution

Of a million dollars per month, to the contras,

Through the end of the year.

- you have no problems working with the cia?

- We have no problem working with the

United states government, and unless

The cia does not work for the United States

Government, then I think we have a bigger problem.

- There have been occasions where some americans

Have questioned that, as you know.

- Well thank heavens those occasions

Was not in connection with saudi arabia.

- I think that there was a substantial

Shadow government, trying to run

Foreign affairs for the United States.

- These events have been characterized

By some pretty strong statements.

We've heard talk of a grave constitutional crisis,

And even been treated to talk about

A coup in the white house.

- Not only does cheney, sort of, defend

Iran-contra, but he argues that iran-contra

Is actually a model for how the u.S.

Should be conducting it's national security policy.

He is a radical subscriber to this notion

Of the unitary executive.

Effectively what you're doing is saying

On certain parts of american policy

We don't have a democracy, we have a dictatorship.

- As a matter of fact I was...

Very definitely involved in the decisions

About support to the freedom fighters.

My idea to begin with.

- In my opinion there's no justification

For further restrictions on the power

And flexibility of future presidents.

- The national security league today is mostly

Composed of people who hit the revolving

Door multiple times during their life.

- the nomination of richard b. Cheney

To be secretary of defense is confirmed.

- they make a name for themselves in the private

Industry, and then they come into the government.

This revolving door keeps the national security league

Very small, and very wealthy.

And increasing it's wealth as it goes up the chain.

To the extent that then, when you get to the top

As cheney did, then you can become

A member of the plutocracy, that runs the country too.

- This is an impressive crowd.

The have's.

And the have more's.

- Cheney commissioned a study, by halliburton,

To find out how much more of the defense department

Could be privatized.

- halliburton.

Proud to serve our troops.

- Halliburton was elated to get this million

Dollar contract, and of course returned

A verdict that, "oh, mr. Secretary,

"lots more of it can be privatized."

- Dick cheney leaves the defense department

And goes and heads halliburton himself.

And he spends the entire 1990's, building

Up the halliburton war empire.

- Well, if we're gonna talk about star wars,

We might as well invite darth vader.

I'm happy to accept.

- Then he comes back into power as vice president,

And then they start hiring halliburton to...

In advance even of u.S. Troops going in to iraq,

Halliburton personnel and equipment was

Being deployed to the gulf.

It's hard to look at this and not say,

These guys had a very long term plan

For how they were going to increase

The powerful infrastructure of private companies.

What we've essentially done is to create

A network of corporations that have the

Fire power of small nation-states.

That could, you know, overthrow some

Small governments around the world.

- In essence, we in the United States

Have privatized the ultimate public function, war.

- You know bombs have got a time limit, they're like food.

You know munitions has got, you know, sell-by dates.

You gotta get rid of it.

In iraq, the f-16s and f-18s were firing

Six million dollars within seconds,

Coming back, re-arming and going up again.

- there's no hope of ending war,

Because there's always a small cobble

Of people for whom war is really, really good business.

It doesn't matter that we're losing the war in afghanistan.

Halliburton could care less.

It's good for them, good for profit.

Well we've undergone a corporate

Coup d'état, in slow motion.

To quote john ralston saul.

35,000 lobbyists in washington, they write

The legislation, they write the bills.

- All it takes is one phone call,

From somebody on the hill, to someone

In the pentagon, saying, "hey, turn on the dogs,

"the hill's out to get our program.

"the guy's in the senate aren't on board,

"we need you to turn on the gucci shoe guys

"to straighten this thing out."

The gucci shoe guys being the lobbyists.

And what this does is just lock the system up,

And that's the whole name of the game.

It's called political engineering.

And unlike political science, political engineering is real.

One of the most important things to understand,

It essentially creates what we call

A self-licking ice-cream cone.

And it's like a perpetual motion machine

For getting ever increasing defense budgets.

The way we do it is by downplaying the

Future consequences to start a new weapon.

We over promise it's performance,

Under promise it's cost.

We then, systematically spread dollars, jobs

And profits to as many congressional districts

As quickly as possible, so that everybody

Has skin in the game.

- The people who are invested in this stage,

Are people like the largest defense contractor in the world.

Lockheed martin.

They will die before they see it go.

- and while we don't know what's

Going to change the world next,

We're probably already working on it.

- Lockheed martin basically gets in

Like an octopus, and lifts it's tentacles,

You know, in all branches of the government.

And then they hold them.

And that's how they operate.

They make the mafia look like a bunch of schoolboys.

- Fiscal year 1999, 2.3 trillion missing.

Fiscal year 2000, 1.1 trillion missing.

The pentagon has claimed, year after year,

That the reason it can't account for the money

Is because it's computers don't communicate

With each other.

- one trillion, one dollar bills,

Stacked high would reach nearly 68,000 miles into space.

One third of the way to the moon.

- I got a phone call from the fbi

Saying that I was a target of a death threat.

And that's what happens when you go against

The big boys.

Who has the contracts today, to make

Those systems communicate with each other?

And how much have the tax payers paid for them?

- There are times that corporations

Do things they should not do, in which case

They tend to be suspended for some period.

There are times then that corporations

Can get out of the penalty box, if you will...

- This company was never in the penalty box.

If you could proceed to my second question please.

- The second question...

I've forgotten what the second question was.

- Individuals operating in the shadows,

And never having their names called,

Are able to leverage the power of the military

And the foreign policy apparatus for

Their own personal pecuniary ends.

- What now?

How do we justify all this tanks,

All this planes, all this bullshit?

What better new enemy than an hypothetical

Invisible enemy called the war on terror?

- I think at the most basic level,

When we realize how we've entered into

A permanent state of war, like what

Often proponents of

Counter-terrorism on a global scale,

Think of as a long war, but a war

Without end, something like that.

And I think that what we've accepted

Is a political regime

That is sustained by fear.

This is a very old...

It's a very old political tactic.

I mean, machiavelli asks in the prince,

"is it better for the prince to be feared or loved?"

And his conclusion is, because the locus

Of fear, the source of fear resides in him,

In the prince, it can be constant for his rule.

Whereas the locus of love, resides in the people.

It's in their power.

And so for them could be constant, and long lasting.

So machiavelli already opens a question that

He probably doesn't provide us the answer with,

What would it mean to have our social arrangement,

Like the basis of our social choices,

Be founded on love?

- I don't think one has to justify the cost

And nature of the national security state,

One just has to keep the people fearful enough

To support it.

- But what I want to bring to your attention today

Is the potentially much more sinister nexus

Between iraq and the al-qaeda terrorist network.

- Every word in that speech was gone over by

The director of central intelligence,

And his deputy director.

So there's nothing that I made up.

There was nothing that I stuck in there.

And in fact, some people tried to stick

Extra things in there, that the intelligence

Community wouldn't verify with multi-sourcing.

And I said no.

- Powell grabbed me, physically,

Which was unlike him, and drug me into a space

At the cia, at langely, and said,

"throw all the material in my presentation

"about terrorism out, cut it out."

- About this amount, this is just about...

- Within an hour, george tenet, the director

Of central intelligence, made a spectacular

Bombshell presentation.

We have just learned from a high level

Al-qaeda operative, under interrogation,

About significant contacts between

Baghdad's mukhabarat, and al-qaeda.

This was devastating.

Here's a director of central intelligence

Telling the secretary of state

That he has interrogated evidence.

Well the secretary turned to me and said,

"put it back in."

- al-qaeda continues to have a deep interest

In acquiring weapons of mass destruction.

As with the story of zarqawi and his network,

I can trace the story of a senior terrorist operative

Telling how iraq provided training

In these weapons to al-qaeda.

- Later I learn that was sheikh al libi.

That it hadn't just instantly happened.

It had happened months before.

That he'd been water-boarded in egypt, when he did this.

No u.S. Personnel were present.

And he had recanted within a couple of weeks,

And we never were told about that.

- Every statement I make today is backed

Up by sources, solid sources.

These are not assertions.

What we're giving you are facts and conclusions

Based on solid intelligence.

- We were, indisputably, we were lied to.

- at this hour, american and coalition

Forces are in the early stages of military operations,

To disarm iraq, to free it's people,

And to defend the world from grave danger.

- As karl rove famously said to this reporter,

"now you guys are reality based communities.

"we make reality.

"by the time you figured out, you know,

"what's wrong with our reality,

"we've moved on to the creation of another reality."

- Did you sell or cause to come into the possession

Of saddam hussein weapons of mass destruction?

- Did the United States sell to him, absolutely not.

- Iran-iraq was on such a scale, and I was

On the iranian side, and I went down to the battle point.

I was actually given a gas kit.

And so they let me take the train back,

Right all the way up to tehran.

And the carriages were crammed with iranian

Soldiers who'd been gassed.

Some were just coughing, retching it.

And one man was reading the quran,

And he would sort of put a handkerchief

And wipe the blood off his lips.

Gradually the corridors became permeated

With a sort of very sick smell.

And I realized it was the smell of

The gas that they were coughing up from their lungs,

And I was going along the corridors,

Opening all the windows in the night air,

Trying to clean the train out of this smell

Of, obviously, chemical warfare.

After 2003 I was being attacked on radio shows,

Especially from america.

Well you're complaining about the american invasion,

And I said, excuse me I was on the train

Of iranians gassed by the iraqis.

And the chemical components came from the United States.

At the very time that your rumsfeld was meeting saddam.

- You were meeting with saddam hussein.

I think we have some video of that.

Of that meeting.

Tell me what was going on during this meeting.

- Where did you get this video, from the iraqi television...

- When did they give it to you, recently, or back then?

- We've dug this out of the cnn library.

- I see.

Isn't that interesting.

There I am.

- our war on terror,

Begins with al-qaeda.

But it does not end there.

- This very phrase, war on terror,

Is irrational.

It's like saying, a war on war.

A war on violence, a war that...

It's nonsense.

You're stepping into this possibility of, kind

Of, perpetual war.

- Good morning darling, how are you?

- They lack at reassuring us,

And we kept believing him, because

You don't want to think your prime minister

Is deceiving you in the route to a war,

There's nothing more serious.

♪ we can change the world

- When the serious fraud office launched

It's investigation into all the crimes

That we were uncovering, it turned out

That many of these arms deals had

Been forced through by tony blair, personally.

- He's a dedicated arms salesman.

Whatever that was at his feet, ever, in government,

He always backed the arms sale.

- the serious fraud office got to the brink

Of uncovering the secret swiss bank accounts,

By which bae was funneling money to the saudi royal family.

The swiss said we're gonna notify

The bank account holders.

Bandar flew to london and blair swung into action.

He ordered the serious fraud office

To close down their investigation.

♪ we can change the world

- Prince bandar said if the investigation continued,

They would withdraw national security cooperation.

Which would lead, in the words of prince bandar,

"to blood on the streets of london."

- the story we've been banging away at,

For more than five years, suddenly everybody woke up to it,

Because everybody could see it was a huge

Cover-up scandal.

The spectacle of a british prime minister

Closing down a criminal investigation for

His own reasons.

- were you aware that your

Government was approving payments to a friend

Of president bush's, as part of a

British aerospace's kick back system?

Is that why you suspended a fraud inquiry?

- When tony blair started talking about

National security interest, that's supposed to be

A card that trumps all others.

- I don't believe the investigation

Incidentally would have led anywhere,

Except to the complete wreckage

Of a vital, strategic relationship for our country.

In terms of fighting terrorism, in terms

Of the middle east, in terms of british interest there.

- So this thing's absolutely stunning.

It seems to be a very expensive way

Of organizing bribe payment.

Out the military equipment, and just hand out the money.

♪ we can change the world

- blair came to south africa, specifically

To lobby the bae, the british weapons manufacturer,

Who won the biggest contract on our arms deal.

♪ our time has come

- And the option that they presented

Was two and half times more expensive

Than the plane that the south african air force

Actually wanted.

- bae systems.

Real performance.

Real advantage.

- As mandela was about to step down

From public life, his successor, thabo mbeki,

Made the decision to spend around 10 billion dollars,

What were quite scarce public resources,

On this weaponry that we didn't need.

Rather than provide life saving medication,

For the almost 6 million south africans

Who were then living with hiv, or aids.

The primary reason for those deals,

Was that around 300 million dollars in bribes

Were paid to senior politicians,

And sadly to the african national congress,

The anc, my own party.

I was called in by a senior member of the anc's

National executive council.

He said to me, "look andrew, this is a battle

"you cannot win, because this money, the bribes,

"we used to fund our 1999 election."

And almost immediately I'm asked to make

A statement to the press that says

There's nothing to investigate.

So it's all over.

And I looked at him and I said, no it's not.

I won't be able to live with myself,

If I stop this investigation.

But at the same time, I'm also realizing,

That this is the end of my political career.

The heads of government are the sales people in chief

Of their country's large arms contractors.

And this is the template used by large

Defense contractors around the world.

- Companies like bae are not only, sort of,

Effectively part of the government,

But they're effectively above the law.

- Corruption is not merely a dirty little detail

On top of the arms trade, it's actually,

In a lot of cases, what drives the international arms trade.

Many of these deals would not happen if they did not

Provide opportunities for personal enrichment.

- I would be offended if I thought

We had the monopoly on corruption.

- As I was being dragged out I thought,

Right at the last second I'm gonna still say,

Remind everyone that this guy is a war criminal.

- Can I just say, actually, on the record,

What he said about iraq and jp morgan

Is completely and totally untrue.

I have never had a discussion with them.

- Now I'm not suggesting that there was a phone

Call between jp morgan and blair,

It was actually what happened was,

Jp morgan and a consortium of other banks

Did, in fact, prop up the whole iraq economy

To the tune of about 2.5 billion, not 20 billion,

I was a bit nervous that day.

Then six months after he left office,

Blair suddenly signed by jp morgan,

For five million dollars every year.

I was just trying to enlighten the public

That there was corruption involved,

And not just bad decision making.

- I'd like to find out how this gentlemen

Managed to access the court.

- There must be a back door in,

Because they'd all gone out for tea at the time.

And there was a courtroom, directly

Underneath the courtroom that blair was in,

And it was left unlocked.

So I went through that one, up two floors

Via the fire escape, and then to the door

By this time my heart was pounding, like...

You know, I was really going mad.

And I actually lost my courage for the moment.

So I went and sat down in a bathroom,

I found a gentleman's toilet there,

I did actually ring my mother,

And I said, listen, I'm here, what shall I do?

Do you think I should still go in?

And my mum said, "yeah, go on, you

"won't get another chance."

And I thought, that's it, I'm in.

The man is a war criminal!

- augustine said, "that hope has

"two beautiful daughters, anger and courage.

"anger at the way things are, and courage

"to see that they don't remain the way they are."

You conserve two sets of principles,

Privilege and power, or justice and truth.

The more you make compromises with those

Who serve privilege and power,

The more you diminish the capacity for justice and truth.

And, I think that

The rebel seeks to keep those who have power, fearful.

- Peace, that's what we want.

Freedom and peace.

- So what if the guy threw a shoe at me?

- I'm gonna read you the

Sourcing, of the la times report,

Paragraph one, u.S. Authorities say,

Column one, still u.S. Officials said.

Said one u.S. Justice department counter-terrorism

Official, column two, officials said,

U.S. Authorities say, u.S. Officials said,

Those officials said, the officials confirmed.

American officials complained, they said,

U.S. Officials stressed, column three.

U.S. Authorities said, jordanian officials said...

We got a slight...

No laughter please, we haven't finished yet.

Several u.S. Officials said.

Column four, u.S. Officials said.

Several american officials said.

Officials say, say u.S. Officials.

But u.S. Officials said, one u.S. Counter-terrorism

Official said, I'm not joking.

There it is.

That is the journalism you're getting fed.

And I sometimes think the la times

And the new york times, should be called

American officials say.

- I denounced the call to invade iraq publicly.

The new york times issued me a formal written reprimand,

Which is what you get before you're fired,

Under union rules, to stop speaking out against the war.

I'd been the middle east bureau chief.

I'd been in iraq, spent seven years in the middle east.

How can you come out of gaza and not be angry?

What's being done to those people.

How can you come out of the sudan,

El salvador, you know, dozens of other places

I've been, and not be angry?

I've seen the bodies of a lot of children.

Which I can't forget.

20 years, it, you know, fucks you up.

Dostoevsky said, "hell is the inability to love,

"and that's what kills people."

I fully get why people blow their brains out.

It's really hell.

And, I don't use love as a kind of hallmark,

Schmaltzy, you know, we all gotta love each other.

I'm saying that the only way you're healed

From those experiences is by re-establishing

A connection with that kind of power.

With another human being.

And if you can't do that, you don't survive.

And I have friends who couldn't do it,

And they're not here anymore.

It's the, you know, the power of love

To transcend time.

- That looks like a gaub 2-alpha 38

That we used to have on our loches.

A mini-gun that fired 4,000 rounds per minute.

One of the manifestations of the national security state,

Especially in the, sort of, apogee it's arrived at today,

Is that it destroys diplomacy.

It destroys the will to diplomacy, and it destroys

The skill for diplomacy.

- If you're a small state, like we were for

150 years, in essence, vis-a-vis Spain, France,

England, and even russia, you've got to be

Exquisitely good at diplomacy.

You've got to be able to talk yourself

Out of lots of things, and make deals

And compromises and so forth.

But if you're the world's hedge men

You don't deal with anybody, you smack 'em.

You use your military and you smack 'em.

- On may 3rd of 2003, the ambassador of switzerland

To tehran, delivers a letter from iran to the United States.

In that letter, the iranians essentially

Offer negotiations to open up the nuclear

Program for full transparency.

The proposal came in.

I happened to see it, because a copy

Was also given to a member of congress

That I worked for at the time.

He sent it over to the white house and karl rove.

Karl rove called back.

He said that he found the proposal intriguing.

He wanted to know if it was genuine.

And he promised to put it in front of the president.

- I would call karl rove a dear friend.

- I've seen a man of farsighted courage.

Put america on a war footing.

And protect us against a brutal enemy,

In a dangerous conflict that will shape this new century.

- No form of response was given to the iranians at all.

- I'm grateful to have been a witness to history.

- And the argument was, that whatever could

Come out of a negotiation with the iranians,

Even more could be achieved by simply

Removing the regime in iran.

In a way to sum up the argument, however,

The principle in the bush administration said

That we simply do not talk to evil.

- And as tony zini said, former central command commander,

"if you like to rock, you'll love iran."

That is a 10 to 14 year,

Three to four trillion dollar

Invasion, at the end of which the world,

Western asia, will look not much different

Than it does right now.

It'll still be in turmoil, still be in chaos,

And 70 plus million iranians will hate our living guts.

Went in to see the under-secretary of defense,

The ideas that wolfowitz shared with me,

He and secretary cheney in 91, 92, packaged them,

Re-tooled them, thought about them,

Went to the white house.

Briefed people like presidents.

America needs a new strategy, or forceable regime change.

So here this idea springs back up again in 2001.

I went through the pentagon, in November of 2001,

And one of the generals said, "sir I got this memo

"on my desk, it's...

"we're gonna go after seven countries in five years."

I said is that a classified memo?

He said, "yes sir!

"we're gonna start with iraq, and then we're

"gonna move to syria, lebanon, libya,

"somalia, sudan, and iran."

- I think it's highly probable the administration

Has already made the decision to go to war against iran.

There are already u.S. Troops inside iran.

I wanna repeat that.

There are already u.S. Troops inside iran.

- The u.S. Has long had it's eyes set

On trying to impact regime change in iran.

And much of what you've seen the u.S. Doing,

With regards to iran, has been on a covert level.

- We've seen a report in the new yorker,

By seymour hersh, that a u.S. Source told him

That u.S. Marines were operating in the balochi,

Mazareh, and kurdish regions of iran.

Have you ever heard of that report?

- I've never heard of the report, I've never read the

Article, nor do I intend to.

- do you have any interest as to whether or not,

As the u.S. Ambassador?

- I don't...

U.S. Marines are actually operating in iran right now?

- I said I had not heard of the report,

And I didn't intend to read the article in the new yorker.

- if I gave you this article right now,

Walked it over, would you look at it?

- I don't think so honestly, congressman,

'cause I don't have the time to read much fiction.

- we have teams inside iran and these include

Joint special operation force, of our most

Elite commando unit.

It has been given executive authority by the president

In as many as 12 countries, to go in

And kill, we're talking about high value targets.

They're operating now, and they go into

Countries outside of the war zone, outside

Of afghanistan and outside of iraq,

Without telling the american cia station chief,

Or the american ambassador, they go in

Sterile and they kill people.

- We have to worry about the sort of dark side

If you will, when I spend time in the shadows,

In the intelligence world.

Will have to be done quietly, without any discussion,

Using sources and methods that are

Available to our intelligence agencies.

- The doctrine that has endured from bush to obama

Is that the world is a battlefield.

And that the united states has the right

To go into any country around the world

To conduct, what they call, kinetic operations,

Lethal operations, regardless of

What international law says.

What is president obama's response to that?

How is he going to deal with it?

He embraced the very covert shadow forces

That a decade earlier had only been

Talked about in hushed tones in the pentagon.

Not just as the implementors of a policy that said

We should decapitate terror networks,

And engage in preemptive strikes, but they

Became the policy itself.

President obama's administration have built

Up something called the disposition matrix.

It's like an algorithm for determining

Who should be killed, or who should

We seek to capture.

And one of the more, sort of, grotesque aspects

Of this, is that there were actually meetings

On tuesdays, in the white house,

That have been nicknamed terror Tuesday meetings.

Where they're going through rosters of names

To put on, or take off the list.

Maybe someone within that group has been

In contact with someone that the u.S. Is watching.

They went to the same mosque as someone.

They keep ordering pizza from the same place

As a taliban leader.

And you decide, these guys are probably up

To no good, and so, on this particular day,

We're gonna remove them from planet earth.

- So now we're getting into minority report.

Into this sort of sci-fi world of pk dick.

Where it's justifiable homicide.

Even though it's for an act that might

Take place in the future.

It's okay to kill from a distance,

Without a warrant, without a trial, without a jury.

And the execution takes place off screen.

- Where appropriate, we will bring terrorists to justice.

- When...

- When we...

- We went...

- He went on to...

- We went on...

- We're addressing that ma'am.

- The voice of that woman is worth paying attention to.

Obviously I do not agree with much of what she said.

- The president is not implementing policies that

We need to see change, for example that he

Would stop the authorization of signature strikes.

Which means killing people only on the basis

Of suspicious behavior, that's led to the

Killing of many innocent people...

- You know I post the question on my facebook page,

And asked them what they wanted to ask you.

And a lot of them said that you were

Hurting your own cause, because, one,

You appeared rude to the president of the United States,

And two, you just seemed a little crazy.

- Well I think killing innocent people

With drones is rude.

I think not apologizing to the families

Of innocent people who are killed is rude.

There are a lot of rude things about our policies.

- I want to make sure the people understand,

Actually drones have not caused

A huge number of civilian causalities.

For the most part they have been very

Precise, precision strikes against al-qaeda.

- How do you expect the people of pakistan

Not to have anti-american sentiments

When day in, and day out, we hear about drone attacks

That kill more innocent people than militants?

How do you explain that?

- Well I do not believe that there is any

Basis for your comment.

- Lockheed martin, boeing, dyncorp international,

Computer sciences corporation, and aerovironment,

All told eric, about 70 companies

Are interested in this one billion dollar contract.

- As we look out three, five, seven, 10 years,

This market remains a very much a growth market.

- It's the disease of permanent war that destroyed

The middle east.

It's not islamic fundamentalism.

It empower all of those who profit from permanent war.

Politically, economically and militarily.

- Make no mistake, a nuclear armed iran

Is not a challenge that can be contained.

It would threaten the elimination of israel.

The security of gulf nations.

And the stability of the global economy.

It risks triggering a nuclear arms race

In the region, and the unraveling of the

Non-proliferation treaty.

- And how close is iran to getting it?

Well let me show you.

I brought a diagram for you.

Here's the diagram.

This is a bomb.

This is a fuse.

Where should a red line be drawn?

A red line should be drawn right here.

- The threat from iran is a political football.

What was interesting was that many israelis,

Including people from the military said,

As long as there is an existential threat,

Somewhere, somehow, that it is certainly helping

Us expand our budgets, in ways that

Is not possible to do in the absence

On anything that can be defined as such a threat.

- If you were iran what would you do?

I mean, israel has what, three to 400 nuclear weapons.

They're the ones who started the damn arms race

In the middle east anyway.

They didn't sign a non-proliferation treaty.

They built this program in secret.

India and pakistan then went on to do the same thing,

And iran, which did sign the nuclear

Non-proliferation treaty, looked around

And realized they'd gotten screwed.

- the obama administration wants to sell bunker

Buster bombs which can penetrate

20 feet of solid concrete to the uae.

The deal is the latest u.S. Arms sale

To members of the gulf cooperation council,

Six nations that neighbor iran.

- War has become a commodity for several reasons.

One is because you need somebody to

Buy the stuff you produce.

- another u.S. Arms deal

With saudi arabia is in the pipeline.

The biggest in history.

This deal alone surpasses the entire global

Arms sale already 57 billion dollars.

- saudi arabia does this enormous service

Of recycling the arms trade.

But war is also a business in another sense.

There is a business that uses war to

Get it's ends established.

This is george orwell's 1984.

Two powers are always going to be in battle

And guess who's making out really well?

Of course the weapons dealers, and the people in power.

- Well the ultimate manifestation of the national

Security state is that it, not only

Seeks a perpetual state of war,

It will even go to all ends to create

That perpetual state of war.

- I am always reminded of a book

I read a long time ago, called invisible man.

And that book has a beautiful sentence,

"I am an invisible man.

"not because I don't exist, but

"because you choose not to see me."

- Prince bandar do you know the bin laden family?

- This is ironic, in the mid 80's, if you remember

Supporting the mujahideen to liberate afghanistan

From the soviets.

Bin laden came to thank me for my efforts

To bring the americans, our friends,

To help us against the atheist, he said, the communist.

- When I last saw bin laden, in this camp

High in the mountains of afghanistan,

With an air raid shelter built into the living

Rock of the mountain, 25, 30 feet high,

That camp was built by the cia.

Later they tried to fire cruise missiles at it,

Of course they knew where it was.

They built it.

No wonder bin laden kept smiling at me.

No wonder he did.

- The american saudi arabia put one billion dollars each

To give them arms, training, equipment,

We are the ones who cleared all those people to go.

We and you.

- There must be something wrong with the way we think.

That we can't say that the grammar

Of the past, is operating today.

- We have been pumping money, a great deal of money,

Without congressional authority,

Without any congressional oversight.

Prince bandar of saudi arabia is putting

Up some of this money for covert operations

In many areas of the middle east where we want

To stop the shiite influence; they

Call it the shiite crescent.

- Thank you...

- the arabic word is fitna, civil war.

We're in a business right now of creating,

In some places, sectarian violence.

- it's an odd situation because

We are trying to destroy and liquidate

Al-qaeda and marlie, but trying to give

Arms training to them in northern syria.

It really is a world gone mad,

But oddly enough, you have to be in syria

To realize how mad it is.

When you actually are traveling around syria,

And you listen to the news coming out

Of washington, it's like americans are

Living in this kind of fantasy world

That bears no relation to planet earth,

Where I'm trying to report.

- Today there are good terrorists, and bad terrorists.

The bad terrorists are those in yemen,

Who the United States deems to be a threat.

The good terrorists are those who are in syria.

The joke here is we've been there before.

I mean, if you consider the afghanistan story,

They've learned nothing.

Today if I say that the saudis are giving money

To groups that are in syria, that are not only

Al-nusra, but also the isis.

People will say you are a conspiracy theorist,

But what I'm just trying to say is

In the moment of the contemporary,

This grammar of dangerous politics

Sounds insane.

So what appears to have been a conspiracy at the time,

When documents appear, turns out to be true.

- We must address the cycle of conflict,

Especially sectarian conflict, that

Creates the conditions that terrorists prey upon.

- in public they say, we have to end terrorism.

Meanwhile, this private work of getting involved

In conflicts stirs the pot, which produces

Characters that appear to become terrorists.

Which reinforces the public narrative,

And then makes things like intervention okay.

- Good morning everybody.

Last night on my orders, america's armed forces

Began strikes against isil targets in syria.

- just ahead of air strikes in syria,

Defense firms, lockheed martin, northrop, raytheon,

And general dynamics corporation all set

Stock price records.

Their shareholders are making money off

The unusually large number of conflicts around the world.

- every two years or so, the israeli military

Attacks the gaza strip and right after

There is a trade show, in which israeli

Weapon companies show their technologies.

Which are becoming an increasingly important

And very significant part of the israeli

Economy depend on those wars.

They try to market, "we've already used

"that on actual human beings."

By making that claim they're able to compete

With weapon manufacturers from other countries.

The United States is the biggest

Supplier of military aid to israel.

This attack on gaza is also a trade show

For the united states arms industry.

- Iran and isis are competing for the

Crown of militant islam.

One calls itself the islamic republic.

The other calls itself the islamic state.

Both want to impose a militant islamic empire.

First in the region.

And then on the entire world.

They just disagree among themselves

Who will be the ruler of that empire.

In this deadly game of thrones, there's

No place for america, or for israel.

- Today, after two years of negotiations,

The United States, together with our international partners,

Has achieved something that decades

Of animosity has not.

A comprehensive long-term deal with iran,

That will prevent it from obtaining a nuclear weapon.

- This was a very difficult negotiations,

And part of it is because of this

Entrenched and compounded mistrust

That we have built between ourselves mutually

For the last three, four decades.

But I'm happy that, we simply write,

Diplomacy pre-write, that people exercised

A great deal of restraint and patience,

And wisdom, and we are where we are,

And I hope this will be a good beginning.

- as this nuclear deal goes through

We're still dealing with the problem

That the states of this region are collapsing.

And the void that they will fill,

You will see more violence and you will see more weapons.

It is important to understand

That that's not a result of this deal.

That is a result of the paradigm not shifting

Towards de-militarization, and collective

Security, soon enough.

- The saudis and the israelis are on the same page.

They worry about iran...

- And that's not new, they've been worried for a long...

- but can they do anything about it?

- Well they can get their own weapons.

- this is a region that has more arms

Per capita than any other region in the world.

Much thanks to the defense industry,

Israel and some of the arab states are

Going to be able to buy more weapons,

And more advanced weapons.

If the nuclear threat from iran is decreasing,

Why should these other countries

Get a chance to actually arm themselves more?

- Pakistan is a friend of saudi arabia.

Pakistan has nuclear weapons.

Are you in discussions with pakistan about,

Perhaps, getting a nuclear bomb from pakistan?

- But wolf we've known each other for 25 years,

You don't really expect me to answer this question.

- we're not going to have a truly

De-militarization in the region, unless

Israel's nuclear arsenal also is addressed.

The significant of this peace deal

Is that it is a game changer in the region.

And it's gonna be a question about the

Political willingness of leaders

To whether they will pursue these opportunities,

Or whether they will fall into the patterns of the past.

- Once you start a war,

You open a kind of pandora's box.

You don't control it, it controls you.

The use of that kind of violence has

Unforeseen consequences, that no one can predict.

And it propels you in directions

You never thought you'd go.

That's what war does.

So, the images of war are very carefully controlled

And countered by the lives that have

Been disseminated through every institution

In society, schools, government,

Entertainment, the press.

When you shatter the myth,

And when you understand, especially

What techno-war, industrial war is about,

Which is really about murder, about slaughter,

People would be so repulsed.

It would be very hard to wage war.

♪ I see no one

♪ as happy as I am

♪ I feel like a

♪ darling let's dance together till morning ♪