NFL Tops ABC's Edited 9/11 Miniseries

NEW YORK (AP) -- Editing changes made by ABC to the first part of its miniseries "The Path to 9/11" were cosmetic and didn't change the meaning of scenes that had angered several former Clinton administration officials, a spokesman for the former president said Monday.

Former counterterrorism czar Richard Clarke, now an ABC News consultant, denounced the movie as an "egregious distortion."

The docudrama also divided the two chairmen of the commission that looked into the attacks, who usually present a united front on terrorism issues.

As for Clinton, he didn't bother watching the movie that angered so many people who once worked for him. "He made the choice that most Americans made," said Clinton Foundation spokesman Jay Carson. "Of a fictionalized drama version of Sept. 11 or the Manning brothers playing football against one another, he chose the latter."

The movie was beaten soundly in the ratings by the regular-season debut of NBC's "Sunday Night Football," matching Peyton Manning of the Indianapolis Colts against younger brother Eli of the New York Giants. The National Football League game had an estimated 20.7 million viewers, while "The Path to 9/11" had 13 million, according to Nielsen Media Research. The ABC movie did, however, beat CBS' third airing of a 9/11 documentary, which was seen by an estimated 10.6 million people, Nielsen said.

ABC resisted calls to cancel the $40 million miniseries, airing commercial-free over two nights. Part 2 aired Monday, interrupted in the middle by President Bush's address to the nation.

Several scenes were cut or changed from the first part of a movie ABC has stressed is a dramatization, not a documentary. "You can take out some of the more dramatic details," Carson said, "but it is still utterly and completely false."

Clarke said the movie "is an egregious distortion that does a deep disservice both to history and to those in both the Clinton and Bush administrations who are depicted."

ABC hired a production company and screenwriter who were unqualified for the job, he said.

"There is throughout the screenplay a consistent bias and distortion seeking to portray senior Clinton administration officials as holding back the hard-charging CIA, FBI and military officers who would otherwise have prevented 9/11," he said. "The exact opposite is true."

Former New Jersey Gov. Thomas Kean, the Republican co-leader of the commission that investigated the Sept. 11 attacks, was criticized for consulting ABC on the project. Kean said Monday at the National Press Club that he thought it was a responsible project and that "I think they did a pretty good job."

But the Democratic co-head of the 9/11 commission, former Rep. Lee Hamilton of Indiana, said he agreed with the Clinton administration critics, although he acknowledged not watching it Sunday.

"It is either a documentary or it is a drama. And to fudge it causes me a great deal of concern and suggests to me that news and entertainment are getting dangerously intertwined," he said. "And I do not think that is good for the country."

One scene, in a copy of the movie given to TV critics a few weeks ago, indicated President Clinton's preoccupation with his potential impeachment may have hurt the effort to go after Osama bin Laden.

In the original scene, an actor portraying Clarke shares a limousine ride with FBI agent John O'Neill and tells him: "The Republicans are going all-out for impeachment. I just don't see in that climate the president's going to take chances" and give the order to kill bin Laden.

But in the film aired Sunday, Clarke says to O'Neill: "The president has assured me this ... won't affect his decision-making."

Another scene in the critics' cut showed Clarke saying he didn't know what Clinton was going to do about bin Laden. "The Lewinsky thing is a noose around his neck," the actor portraying Clarke says.

This was cut entirely from the film that aired Sunday.

Another scene in the movie that depicted a team of CIA operatives poised outside of bin Laden's fortress in Afghanistan, ready to attack, was substantially shortened from the original. Pictures of the waiting Afghanistan operatives are interspersed with those of officials in Washington, who had to approve the mission.

The original version depicted national security adviser Samuel R. Berger hanging up on CIA chief George Tenet as Tenet sought permission to attack bin Laden. The movie aired Sunday did not include Berger hanging up.

Left unchanged was a scene depicting the aftermath of an order by former Secretary of State Madeleine Albright to alert the Pakistanis ahead of time about an airstrike against bin Laden, which Tenet said let the al-Qaida leader slip away. Clinton officials claim this, as well as the Berger-Tenet scene, didn't happen.

The network de-emphasized the role of the commission that investigated the terrorist attacks in its film, omitting a note in the opening credits that the film is "based on the 9/11 commission report."

Critics, such as historian Arthur Schlesinger Jr., said it was "disingenuous and dangerous" not to include accurate historical accounts in the movie.

Associated Press Television Writer Frazier Moore contributed to this report.

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