IHT: Fact-checking Moore's political broadside

IHT: Fact-checking Moore's political broadside: "After a year spent covering the U.S. commission investigating the Sept. 11 attacks, I was recently allowed to attend a Hollywood screening. Based on that single viewing, and after separating out what is clearly presented as Moore's opinion from what is stated as fact, it seems safe to say that central assertions of fact in 'Fahrenheit 9/11' are supported by the public record.
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Moore is on firm ground in arguing that the Bushes, like many prominent Texas families with oil interests, have profited handsomely from their relationships with prominent Saudis, including members of the royal family and of the large and fabulously wealthy bin Laden clan, which has insisted it long ago disowned Osama.
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Moore spends several minutes in the film documenting ties between the president and James Bath, a financial adviser to a prominent member of the bin Laden family who was an original investor in Bush's Arbusto energy company and who served with the future president in the Air National Guard in the early 1970s. The Bath friendship, which indirectly links Bush to the family of the world's most notorious terrorist, has been well documented.
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Moore charges that Bush and his aides paid too little attention to warnings in the summer of 2001 that Al Qaeda was about to attack, including a detailed Aug. 6, 2001, CIA briefing that warned of terrorism within the United States. In its final report next month, the Sept. 11 commission can be expected to offer support to this assertion. Moore says that instead of focusing on Al Qaeda, the president spent 42 percent of his first eight months in office on vacation; the figure came not from a conspiracy-hungry Web site but from a calculation by The Washington Post.

Moore and his team say they have news reports and other evidence to back up the numbers, and that it will be posted on his site, www.michaelmoore.com, after the release of the documentary."

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