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Saunders: Docudrama stirring debate

Published September 9, 2006 at midnight

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The Path to 9/11 is a long, winding electronic road. It allows viewers to make stops inside the White House and the offices of the CIA and FBI. The six-hour docudrama provides side trips into several countries in the Middle East.

The road ends inside the World Trade Center.

Based on The 9/11 Commission Report and other sources, the two-part miniseries premiering Sunday is, by far, television's most ambitious, meticulous attempt to chronicle the events that led to that awful day.

Former New Jersey Gov. Thomas H. Kean, 9/11 Commission co-chairman, served as the project's main adviser. Keep in mind that a docudrama is a TV hybrid - a mixture of documentation and a dramatic script that can produce major public controversy.

The commission report was critical of both the Clinton and Bush administrations regarding their policies on terrorism. So political feathers are bound to be ruffled, since scenes of executives dealing (or not dealing) with the threat of terrorism provide the meat and potatoes of the production. Several liberal bloggers already have criticized the film for being unfair to Clinton.

The central figure is John O'Neill (Harvey Keitel) whose constant warnings about terrorism and al-Qaida were largely ignored. As history records, O'Neill, criticized for his frustrated stance, quit his FBI position in 2001 to accept a position as head of security for the World Trade Center, where he perished during the attack.

The other leading character, "Kirk," played by Donnie Wahlberg, is a composite CIA undercover officer. Through their eyes we go inside the U.S. political bureaucracy, which produced intelligence lapses and internal rivalries, and watch the terrorists plan.

One "hero" is Richard Clarke (Stephen Root), counter-terrorism adviser to four presidents, who constantly agitated for our government to do more. The "villain" tag goes to former CIA Director George Tenet (Dan Lauria), painted as a hardheaded and almost completely ineffectual bureaucrat.

The production regularly utilizes a close-up, herky-jerky production style identified with documentary productions (think public television's Frontline). Filmed in numerous locations, such as New York, Washington, D.C., and the Middle East, The Path to 9/11 also incorporates actual news footage to provide an air of authenticity.

For many, six hours (no commercials) will be too much time to devote to painful reminders of the epic tragedy of our time. Still, the production provides nagging, unsettling "what if?" questions about our security efforts before 9/11.

Path to 9/11

• What: The Path to 9/11, a six-hour docudrama based on The 9/11 Commission Report

• When and where: 7-10 p.m. Sunday and Monday, Denver's 7.

More 9/11

Additional television coverage of the fifth anniversary of 9/11.

Today

• Inside the Twin Towers (7 p.m., Discovery Channel). Interviews with rescuers, survivors and members of victims' families.

• World Trade Center: An American Icon (7 p.m., History Channel): A chronicle of the destruction of the World Trade Center.

Sunday

• The morning network and cable interview programs will concentrate on the anniversary of 9/11.

• 9/11 (7 p.m., CBS 4): A rerun of the documentary about the rescue efforts of New York firemen inside the World Trade Center.

Monday

• Daylong coverage of the fifth anniversary of 9/11 on ABC, CBS, NBC and cable networks CNN, Fox News and MSNBC.