Although "Three Kings" recounts Saddam's crimes against his own people and makes the case that the first gulf war should have removed him from power, Mr. Russell says he is fiercely opposed to Operation Iraqi Freedom. In an e-mail he writes, "When I made the movie, I felt that the abandonment of the Iraqi people at the war's end further pointed to the hypocrisy of our intervention: `It's the oil, stupid, not the people. We don't care about the people or democracy, O.K.?'
"I was gonna say people are more informed today," he writes, "but I honestly don't think so -- I mean, very few people are talking about oil, or the other dictatorships, or how the real problem is how we've supported them and they spawn poverty and ignorance which fuels terrorism which grows out of Syria, Saudi Arabia, Lebanon and not Iraq so much" -- here his sentence structure breaks down -- "I mean, come on, it's a SCANDAL that Bush has pulled this off. It's mind-blowing."
<http://www.nytimes.com/2003/04/06/movies/06EDEL.html>
DP
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