Putting 9/11 Under A Microscope

August 21st 2005

The Daily News of Los Angeles

August 21, 2005 Sunday

VALLEY EDITION

PUTTING 9/11 UNDER A MICROSCOPE

BYLINE: By David Kronke TV Critic

Khalid Sheik Mohammed attended a Baptist college in North Carolina in the ‘80s. While he and other Muslims participated in Islamic worship services, students would steal their shoes - removed per tradition during worship - and toss them into a nearby lake. Mohammed later became one of the masterminds behind the 9/11 attacks.

This is just one of the lesser-known yet fascinating facts brought to light in the National Geographic Channel’s ``Inside 9/11,’‘ an intelligent and thorough four-hour documentary about the most notorious act of terrorism in American history. Supervised by Jonathan Towers and Nicole Rittenmeyer, ``Inside 9/11’‘ traces the evolution of terrorism by Islamic radicals from the Soviet-Afghanistan war of the 1980s through to its increasingly bloody legacy today. It also offers a compelling, virtually minute-by-minute account of the day of the attacks.

Towers and Rittenmeyer detail any number of incidents underscoring governmental cluelessness toward radical Islam’s burgeoning threat, as well as a shocking number of heart- breaking moments of near-misses, where information was available but not correctly processed in a timely fashion.

Tonight’s episode neatly and clearly contextualizes the global expansion of radical Islamic violence, providing a neat timeline that connects the dots between events that occurred all around the globe. Even viewers who have paid close attention to news reports on the subject over the past four years may be surprised by how much they hadn’t known.

When journalist Steve Emerson attended an Islamic fundamentalist convention in Oklahoma City in 1992 calling for jihad - souvenirs included coloring books for the kiddies extolling martyrdom - he called the FBI counterterrorism unit in Washington. The Feds’ response: ``We don’t know what you’ve been smoking,’‘ Emerson recalls.

Episode two on Monday offers an exhaustive account of the tragic day, with eerie details - Muzak continued to play in the plaza beneath the Towers while they stood in flames - provided by survivors, witnesses and those who lost family members on the hijacked planes. Since the day has been recounted so thoroughly in other documentaries, books and reports, some might find this account perhaps too exhaustive or maybe just redundant, but it, too, presents a timeline efficiently unspooling the day’s events.

Don’t expect much catharsis here. Former CIA analyst Michael Scheuer, who tracked Osama bin Laden for years and authored the book ``Imperial Hubris: Why the West Is Losing the War on Terror,’‘ offers a grim assessment at the film’s conclusion: ``I don’t think the American people have any idea what a long and bloody road this is going to be.’‘

David Kronke, (818) 713-3638

david.kronke@dailynews.com

INSIDE 9/11 - Three and one half stars

What: Four-hour documentary on the terrorist attacks: Tonight’s installment puts militant Islam into a historical context; Monday’s episode examines anew the tragic day.

Where: National Geographic Channel.

When: Part 1 - 9 tonight, repeated at midnight tonight and 7 and 11 p.m. Monday. Part 2 - 9 p.m. Monday, 1 a.m. Tuesday.

In a nutshell: A valuable addition to the vast amounts of 9/11 reportage.