Oscar-winner Michael Moore fires broadside at Blair

By LOUISE JURY in Cannes


The Oscar-winning American film-maker Michael Moore lashed out at British Prime Minister Tony Blair as he unveiled his new documentary, Fahrenheit 9/11, in Cannes yesterday.

Moore, whose film about the United States war on terror features unseen footage of American soldiers hooding and mistreating Iraqi detainees, said he was astonished that Blair supported President George W. Bush.

"The problem is the White House and not No 10 Downing Street, although I have to say that what has also sort of depressed me about Tony Blair is he knows better. The one thing you can say about Blair is he's smart. What's he doing hanging out with a guy like George Bush? That's the weirdest couple I've ever seen," Moore said.

"I know he misses his old buddy Bill Clinton - but to settle for this? Brits, aren't you embarrassed?"

But Moore said that Blair had been "let off lightly" in the film because he wanted to concentrate on Bush. The British Prime Minister's principal appearance in the two-hour documentary is in a scene set to the music of the Western series Bonanza, in which Bush, Dick Cheney and Donald Rumsfeld, along with Blair, are depicted as cowboys.

Moore said he expected the film would shock Americans. "I don't think we've heard American soldiers in the field talk as they do in this film about their disillusionment and their despair, about their questioning of what was going on. We've not seen that on the evening news," he said.

"You've seen this morning the abuse and humiliation of these Iraqi detainees. This occurred outside the [Abu Ghraib] prison walls. The American media is there every single day - how many networks with millions of dollars invested - why haven't they seen this?"

He went on to savage Bush for sending young men and women to war on a lie. It was outrageous of Bush to talk about the "failure of character" among troops caught committing abuses because "immoral behaviour begets immoral behaviour. If you create the immorality, don't be surprised then if immoral behaviour takes place".

Fahrenheit 9/11 is in competition for the top prize, the Palme d'Or, at Cannes. Its screening follows weeks of publicity by Moore, who claimed that Disney tried to block distribution and that Mel Gibson's film company Icon withdrew support under White House pressure.

But it still looks set to provoke fierce debate with new evidence of US soldiers hooding Iraqis and, in one case, taking it in turns to sexually abuse a drunk elderly man.

It argues that Bush created an explicit climate of fear in the US and repeatedly and erroneously linked Saddam Hussein and Iraq to al Qaeda in order to go ahead with the invasion. Interviews by freelance cameramen working in Iraq, but never broadcast in America, show the disillusionment of many soldiers at still being there.

Some critics viewed it with disappointment after Moore's explosive Oscar-winning investigation into US gun culture, Bowling for Columbine.

- INDEPENDENT

Herald Feature: Iraq