The Unknown Known

Having very much enjoyed the similarly framed Fog Of War, I was of course very curious to see Donald Rumsfeld undergo the same sort of film since in his case his actions have been very much within my lifetime but of course most relevantly in the post-9/11 world. I recall that his frequent ducking and diving with the press during Afghanistan and Iraq saw him to be very nimble on his feet but also prone to flat out denial of things that certainly appeared to be true unless you took an absolute stand on the very specific point of definition. The film starts with Rumsfeld's love of the memo, of which thousands exist, and we jump back through his political career, with the first hour spent pre-Bus administration before the second half circles back very much to the 00's and his role as Defense Secretary.

In terms of the ground it covers, the film is inherently interesting and it does at least provide a concise walk through things, with the odd aspect that I was not fully aware. It achieves this not because the film is really interesting, but just because it covers the events and these in themselves are interesting. It helps to understand the players (as many will) but not too much, since the film really will do little for those that know the subject inside out. In terms of the type of reflection and investigation of Fog of War, forget it, none is here and Rumsfeld has no intention of straying from the line he has walked thus far. This makes the film ultimately disappointing – not because I wanted the film to "get him" or reveal him, but just because there is really nothing here to add to the hours of cspan and controlled statements over the past decade.

If the film could be said to reveal anything, it is that it reveals the steadfastness and the unwillingness to publicly reflect of Rumsfeld – he grins his way through the film, providing unconvincing defenses of anything put to him and quick to argue even on things about the specific meaning of his "known unknowns" speech. It is a great performance in that regard and the film only reveals how deep entrenched it is. Is this a surprise though? Is it enough to really consider enough to justify the film to find that a man who is a career politician is very good at politics? I think not and ultimately, although the focus of the film inherently provides material of interest, it does little to add to it or to get anywhere that could be said to revealing, insightful or to have made this specific film worthwhile.

STAR RATING: ***** Saturday Night **** Friday Night *** Friday Morning ** Sunday Night * Monday Morning

Former US Secretary of Defence Donald Rumsfeld finds himself being grilled one on one by documentary maker Errol Morris in this follow up to his 2003 expose The Fog of War. A controversial figure as a result of being one of the key architects of the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, Rumsfeld is called to defend his actions, and is put in the spotlight about some glaring inconsistencies in the thousands of memos, 'snowflakes', as he called them, that he was fond of writing that questioned the validity of the invasions. At the same time, Morris presents some of the background of his subject, from being the youngest and then the oldest holder of his post, as well as serving under no less than four US presidents.

Being remembered, as it will, as the first big war of the 21st century, the invasion of Iraq is still seen by many as a massive travesty, and a gross abuse of power, that many still want answers to. In some small way, Errol Morris here attempts a stab at this, by gaining access to one of the key figures at the heart of the matter. Throwing the spotlight completely on Rumsfeld, the man and his foibles are exposed for all to see, and with no escape. The title of the film is a part of one of the man's most confusing and tongue twisting uses of language, that probably makes a lot of sense to him, but just confuses (and infuriates) most others. He continues with this type of garble throughout, and often rounds it off with that questionable grin of his that will make him even harder to stomach for those already unconvinced by his rhetoric.

The film covers a lot of interesting ground, and has much back story to ponder over, but there's little to be distracted from than a man sitting down and talking to a camera, which is inevitably boring at times and causes your attention to wonder. It might also be a case of too much information to take in, at a running time stretching to just over an hour and a half. All the same, I can say I preferred it to The Fog of War, with Morris somehow managing to make it all just a little more digestible and affecting.

Rumsfeld doesn't come off as an entirely desirable guy, a man who clearly uses language designed to sound clever but obviously just with the purpose of confusing, whose nonsense is signed off with a patronising smile, and who leaves a lot of unanswered questions on the lips of those affected by the not completely kosher decisions he was part of making. For those who already weren't fond of him, it won't make them feel any better, whilst others will just see the man behind the suit, and have to make their own mind up. Morris has brought him out in a manner that has a lot of interesting material, but not the most thrilling execution. ***

There's something maddeningly chaotic about Donald Rumsfeld's logic in terms of US international policy. When he was in press conferences during the Iraq War under W Bush, Rumsfeld's answers to tough questions often rang of the so-called "double-speak", a term which is associated with but not explicitly used in George Orwell's "1984". He would respond with other questions or make unfunny jokes. He would use strange metaphors. Rarely did he simply answer direct questions. Errol Morris' documentary about Rumsfeld is strangely similar. He has Rumsfeld do most of the talking, and what comes out of the former Defense Secretary's mouth is a barrage of inconsistencies, untruths, and illogical conclusions. In short, Rumsfeld's whole way of thinking is a jumbled incomprehensible mess. And yet, he was one of the most powerful people in the W Bush administration during the first decade of the 21st century. You could argue W Bush had flawed judgment, Dick Cheney was immoral, but Rumsfeld is in his own realm. As Morris said in an interview, he was one of the most "self-deceiving" people he had ever interviewed.

The format of the documentary is one of the strangest you'll ever see in a film of this type. The subject himself is the narrator. He narrates and then comments on the different subjects covered in the documentary. He occasionally answers questions posed by Errol Morris who can be heard in the background. One of the former Defense Secretary's most interesting phrases is "the absence of evidence is not evidence of absence", a phrase coined by Carl Sagan when referring to the unknown realms of outer space. Rumsfeld is famous for composing 1000's of email memos, and recurring throughout the memos are his definitions of particular words and terms which are displayed on-screen. The film traces his childhood, his early years in politics under President Nixon and briefly under Gerald Ford. He was an adviser for Governor Reagan and later for President Reagan and George Bush Senior. Most of the documentary concerns the Iraq War and his tenure as Defense Secretary under George W Bush.

One example which highlights Rumsfeld own self-deception and denial is when Morris asks about the public perception concerning Saddam Hussein after the 9/11 attacks. Rumsfeld in the documentary claims people knew that Hussein and Iraq had nothing to do with 9/11. The documentary then cuts to a Rumsfeld press conference clip of 2003 in which a reporter quotes Saddam Hussein: "I would like to tell you directly we have no relationship with Al Queada." Rumsfeld's reply: "And Abraham Lincoln was short." The reporter than asks Rumsfeld to respond to Hussein's statement and the Secretary of Defense simply says that Hussein "rarely tells the truth". The implication is clear: Rumsfeld wants the public to believe that Hussein and Iraq contributed to 9/11. If you read between the lines, and realize what is unsaid rather than said, Rumsfeld never actually states that Hussein is lying about having a relationship with Al-Queada. He makes the Lincoln analogy joke and he says that Hussein has a pattern of lying, but never once did Rumsfeld himself directly accuse Hussein of lying about having a relationship Al-Quaeda. This is the kind of double-talk, doublespeak which is how Rumsfeld's reasoning seems to work.

People have criticized the documentary as raising many more questions than it answers. This may be the point of the film. Rumsfeld comes off, at best, as a completely self-deceived person whose rationalities have no logic, and at worst an amoral international leader who got us into an unjust war. His logic, we "lacked imagination" to see the Japanese coming when they attacked Pearl Harbor and thereby justifies the War in Iraq. As Morris points out in an interview, if we can imagine our enemies doing anything in the future, then we can rationalize military operations for almost any reason at any time.

Donald Rumsfeld, The Unknown Known, and his Lifetime of Service to War

The Unknown Known is the latest documentary from Errol Morris. Like his interviews with Robert McNamara in his film Fog of War, he interviews another architect of war, this time the Second Iraq War.

Unlike former Secretary of Defense Robert McNamara who pushed a continuation of the Vietnam conflict when he was in office, Donald Rumsfeld is not apologetic about his role in sending Americans off to die overseas. In his book In Retrospect, McNamara states in Time Magazine, "We were wrong, terribly wrong. We owe it to future generations to explain why."

Rumsfeld has no apologies to make, according to the man himself. And he learned no lesson from Vietnam except, as he would say, "it was a failure of imagination" that we lost in Vietnam.

Even Nixon apologized about his mistakes when talking to David Frost.

I am sure Director Morris was under legal contract not to ask tough, direct questions of Rumsfeld. Thus, he let Rumsfeld indict himself. Rumsfeld is narcissistic and unapologetic about the Second Iraq War. He sees no wrong in making the U.S. strong militarily regardless in how that strength is used. He does not, in The Unknown Known, see that the Second Iraq War was based on lies at all. He sees no lies. He submits that Saddam Hussein and Iraq did have WMDs, we just couldn't find them. He believes the U.N. weapons inspectors were duped and needed to keep looking. He does not agree that water boarding is torture, no matter what Human Rights Watch and others say. He sees know wrong except in our "failure of imagination."

Rumsfeld is a master of Newspeak, using phrases like "peace through strength", and "weakness is provocation." This all comes out in the movie, and it was no surprise to most of the audience. He lives in a world of lies, and the person he deludes the most is himself. Rating: Rent it. It is worth a view, and I would love to say that you should see it multiple times.

But there are no dramatic revelations in the movie, no sense of awaking. In fact, the lesson is that a beltway insider has many ways to deny the suffering of others, especially those we kill thousands of miles away for no cause. Rumsfeld sees war not as a destination, but a journey. As long as the U.S. stays on that journey, he is happy.

Peace, Tex Shelters

Famously rigorous filmmaker Errol Morris sits a subject in front of him and the subject won't budge. This is, unfortunately, the takeaway from this documentary - a tremendous disappointment of a film in some way, but an extraordinary documentation of psychosis in another.

Rumsfeld apparently so annoyed Morris with his crafty replies that the director felt it necessary to follow up his film with a wild press tour apologizing for it - including a four part investigation into Rumsfeld's evasiveness in a New York times op-ed. In another article he called this film 'a horror movie'.

And it's understandable. Those who were against the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan will be infuriated- it gives us no new answers as to the motives behind the wars, no candid insights into Rumsfeld's tenure, and instead presents us with the same smirking blur of a man that we all got to know from his press conferences. Without a glint of uncertainty in his eye, he repeats essentially the same shtick as he always has. Direct questions are deflected with a grin and a wave.

Indeed, nobody deserves to be investigated more than Rumsfeld or his former compatriots, and Morris would ordinarily be the man to do it. But for an encounter to take place between two people, both need to be there. In this case one was absent. Those expecting a one on one - a whittling away towards the real substance - will leave empty handed because Rumsfeld is a ghost. There ain't nothing there. We've all been punk'd.