ABC received a range of criticism from terrorism experts and people portrayed in the film that
The Path to 9/11 contained false scenes, distorted events and misrepresented actions of people. ABC received letters from
Richard Clarke, Chief Executive Officer Bruce R. Lindsey of the William J. Clinton Foundation, and Douglas J. Band, Counselor to President Clinton,
Samuel R. Berger,
Madeleine Albright,
John Beug, Democratic Representatives
John Conyers Jr.,
John Dingell,
Jane Harman,
Louise Slaughter, and others. Before the miniseries aired, some screeners of
The Path to 9/11 asserted that certain scenes misrepresented the real-life events upon which they were said to be based, and that some scenes were complete fabrications.
9/11 Commission members Members of the
9/11 Commission criticized the accuracy of the film. In response to one particular scene, commission chair
Thomas Kean told an interviewer he "was all right with the made-up scene" where the Clinton administration is accused of blocking a chance to kill bin Laden, saying "I don't think the facts are clear." Just weeks before the broadcast he "asked for changes that would address complaints raised by the former Clinton aides and that ABC is considering his request." Commission member
Richard Ben-Veniste said that the miniseries misrepresented facts presented in the 9/11 Commission report.
Advance viewing copies selectively distributed The extensive pre-broadcast controversy over the film was based on content that was present in viewing copies sent to
conservative political groups, talk show hosts and bloggers, including radio personalities such as
Rush Limbaugh, and conservative movie critic
Michael Medved. The office of former President Clinton repeatedly requested a preview copy, but was denied one, as was former Secretary of State Madeleine Albright. An unfinished version was shown to select members of the
National Press Club in Washington, DC, and to attendees of the Midwest Security and Police Conference in Chicago. According to Jay Carson, a spokesman for Bill Clinton, Clinton's office requested a copy of the movie so that they could view it before it aired, but the request was denied. Carson has also stated that
Madeleine Albright and
Sandy Berger had also requested a copy and had also not received them. This prompted Albright and Berger to write letters to ABC asking why they had not received copies and why ABC have chosen to run a movie whose accuracy is highly in question. In addition to requesting an answer, Albright also stated the following reason for wanting a copy:
Criticisms of historical inaccuracy by FBI consultants Two FBI agents refused advisory roles on the film, with one criticizing the film for creating a work of fiction and claiming it was inaccurate. Thomas E. Nicoletti had been hired by the filmmakers as a consultant, but quit because "There were so many inaccuracies...I'm well aware of what's dramatic license and what's historical inaccuracy," Nicoletti said. "And this had a lot of historical inaccuracy.'" Dan Coleman, who retired from the FBI in 2004, said he also was concerned when he read the script in the summer of 2005 after being approached by producers about being a technical advisor. He described, "They sent me the script, and I read it and told them they had to be kidding," Coleman said. "I wanted my friends at the FBI to still speak to me." Coleman went on to say he did not want to be "haunted" by deceased colleagues who were falsely portrayed. Berger hangs up the phone on Tenet, and Tenet calls off the operation:
Cyrus Nowrasteh, script writer for the film, has said that the abrupt hang-up portrayed was not in the script and was instead improvised. It was later removed from the version shown in the United States. When asked if he thought of the script as a "historical document," Nowrasteh has responded:
Anti-terrorism expert
Richard Clarke said the film was "180 degrees from what happened" • Contrary to the movie, no US military or CIA personnel were in Afghanistan to have spotted bin Laden. When asked about this apparent discrepancy, Nowrasteh stated, "I've interviewed CIA agents who have told me otherwise. But that is the one concession we made. [In the original,] we had a CIA agent on the ground near bin Laden's compound—inside the wall even—and we took that out for the final presentation."
Michael Scheuer, former head of the CIA Bin Laden Unit during the Clinton administration, a critic of President
George W. Bush's
Iraq policy, says it was not Berger who canceled assaults on bin Laden, but rather Clarke on Clinton's behalf. Scheuer states, "Mr. Clarke, of course, was at the center of Mr. Clinton's advisers, who resolutely refused to order the CIA to kill bin Laden. In spring 1998, I briefed Mr. Clarke and senior CIA,
Department of Defense, and FBI officers on a plan to kidnap bin Laden. Mr. Clarke's reaction was that "it was just a thinly disguised attempt to assassinate bin Laden." I replied that if he wanted bin Laden dead, we could do the job quickly. Mr. Clarke's response was that the president did not want bin Laden assassinated, and that we had no authority to do so".
Berger scene Besides criticism of an inaccurate script, other fictional and inaccurate scenes were created by the cast. In the film, CIA agents who have infiltrated bin Laden's Afghan compound try to put an assassin named Kirk (Donnie Wahlberg) in contact with National Security Advisor Sandy Berger (Kevin Dunn); Berger, who was later convicted of illegally removing and destroying documents regarding the subject from the
National Archives, is portrayed as "dithering" before hanging up on the agents. The scene was strongly contradicted by both Berger and the 9/11 Commission, including commission member Richard Ben-Veniste.
Former Secretary of State Albright questions her portrayal Another scene in question supposedly portrays Madeleine Albright refusing to shoot missiles at Osama bin Laden without authority from
Pakistan and eventually getting "permission" from them against the military's wishes. Albright insists that this is completely inaccurate. As Secretary of State, Albright had no involvement in military decisions.
Inaccuracies regarding airline travel In the opening scene of the film,
American Airlines is depicted as ignoring a security warning regarding hijacker
Mohamed Atta. The airline involved was actually
U.S. Airways (although the airline later merged with American Airlines in 2015). According to the 9/11 Commission Report: "While Atta had been selected by
CAPPS [a security warning at a U.S. Airway ticket counter] in
Portland [Maine] three members of... [Atta's] hijacking team - Suqami, Wail al Shehri, and Waleed al Shehri - were selected [at an American Airline counter] in
Boston. Their selection affected only the handling of their checked bags, not their screening at the checkpoint. All five men cleared the checkpoint and made their way to the gate for American 11." As a result of the inaccuracy, American Airlines stated they planned to pull all advertising from the ABC network and were considering legal action.
Clinton responds Senate Democrats' letter to ABC Senate Democratic Leader
Harry Reid, Assistant Democratic Leader
Dick Durbin, Senator
Debbie Stabenow, Senator
Charles Schumer, and Senator
Byron Dorgan sent a letter to
Robert A. Iger, the President and CEO of the
Walt Disney Company. Their letter includes the following statement:
Scholastic Press announcement Scholastic Press, which had a deal with ABC to distribute "educational materials" based on the movie, pulled the materials in question from their website on September 7, substituting them with materials focusing on "critical thinking and media literacy skills". Dick Robinson, Chairman, President and CEO of Scholastic Press, had this to say on the matter:
Responses from cast and crew Harvey Keitel, who plays
John P. O'Neill—the lead role in the film, said he was told that the script was "history" project, but "it turned out not all the facts were correct" and by the time ABC tried to "heal the problem" it was "too late." In an interview two weeks before the film was to air he said more scenes needed to be corrected because "you cannot cross the line from a conflation of events to a distortion of the event." Script writer Cyrus Nowrasteh said it was "an objective telling of the events of 9/11."
Response from Barbara Bodine On September 8, former Ambassador to
Yemen Barbara Bodine complained in a
Los Angeles Times Op-Ed about her portrayal in the film: "According to the mythmakers, a battle ensued between a cop obsessed with tracking down Osama bin Laden and a bureaucrat more concerned with the feelings of the host government than the fate of Americans and the realities of terrorism. I know this is false. I was there. I was the ambassador." The ABC miniseries compressed Bodine's role (played by
Patricia Heaton) to a single extended scene, suggesting she was dismissive, hostile, and vulgar toward FBI investigator
John O'Neill from the moment of his October 2000 arrival in Yemen (see
USS Cole bombing).
Errors and other criticism In addition to the fictionalized scenes and misrepresentations, preview copies contained several smaller errors that prompted criticism that the film is sloppy in its fidelity to facts. For example, a caption in the film misspelled Madeleine Albright's name. Another example is a scene portraying a warning popping up on a computer when Mohamed Atta boarded
American Airlines Flight 11 in
Boston. The scene was factually inaccurate; Atta actually boarded a connecting U.S. Airways flight in
Portland, Maine. During production of the movie, there was a controversy in the Toronto media over the use of discarded medical charts and records as document props. The
Information and Privacy Commissioner for the province of Ontario launched an investigation and the producers destroyed footage including the garbage and sent all remaining documents to a shredding service for disposal. Republican
William Bennett joined those saying there is "no reason to falsify the record" or "falsify conversations". During an appearance on CNN he called on ABC to correct the inaccuracies of the show and for fellow conservatives to join him in such a demand. On December 22, 2006
Media Matters for America named
ABC as "Misinformer" of 2006 for, among other things in
The Path to 9/11, calling it: ...a two-part miniseries that placed the blame for the September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks on the Clinton administration and whitewashed some of the Bush administration's failures leading up to the attacks.
Advertising discrepancies While in the U.S. the film was marketed as a loose dramatization of events based on the 9/11 Commission Report, television advertising for the film in countries outside the U.S. called the film the "Official True Story". Further, an Australian TV listing called the film "the story of exactly what happened", which later changed to "The thrilling dramatised investigation" as the airing time drew near.
Allegation of non-profit involvement Allegations of religious involvement surfaced in 2006, when journalist
Max Blumenthal commented on
David Loren Cunningham and his former links to the international mission organization
Youth with a Mission. David is the son of Youth with a Mission founder
Loren Cunningham. This connection to Youth with a Mission, and past allegations of a political agenda within the organization, were mentioned by Blumenthal. He also noted the previous intentions of David Cunningham to 'revolutionize' film and television by founding an auxiliary group within Youth With A Mission called TFI (The Film Institute). Youth With A Mission International Chairman Lynn Green acknowledged the allegations, yet rebutted these concerns, insisting that the organization, "had nothing to do with financing the film, nor did any YWAM personnel have any influence on the content of the film." ==Support for
The Path to 9/11==