By Ray Pride Pride@moviecitynews.com
Trafficking Syriana: Gaghan talks out of neo-con school
Syriana writer-director Stephen Gaghan riffs with LA Times’ Rachel Abramowtiz in her tick-tock about new political pics: “During his research… Seymour M. Hersh introduced Gaghan to Richard Perle, a fellow at the American Enterprise Institute, who is considered one of the neocon architects of the war in Iraq. It was weeks before the American invasion, and the screenwriter had just returned from Damascus, where he heard [predictions of] what a quagmire the war would be. “I’m in Perle’s kitchen. He’s passing out favors in the Bush administration. He’s dispensing wisdom and making me a cappuccino from this $3,000 cappuccino machine. He’s really smart, really clever, and I’m having a great time. I feel really lucky. I [say], ‘Mr. Perle, I have just one question. Who’s going to run Iraq?’ He said, ‘Oh, no, no, no, we’re not going into that. Who says we’re going into Iraq?’ “I said, ‘Really, if we went in, who’s going to run the country?’ He said, ‘It’s a shame we haven’t done a better job of supporting Ahmad Chalabi…’ I said, ‘Listen, Chalabi hasn’t been in Iraq since 1959…. He lives in Paris. If he goes back there, they’re going to reject him like a bad organ transplant…. He looked at me like ‘Who let you in here?’ He stared daggers at me for about a minute.”… The doorbell rang. “He said, ‘Excellent. I’ll introduce you to Bibi on the way out.’
“It was Benjamin Netanyahu, dropping by with 9 Uzi-wielding Mossad agents.” As Perle ushered Gaghan out, Perle’s wheaten terrier puppy, Reagan, [jumped] around and, as Gaghan describes it, “pawing the crotch of Benjamin Netanyahu. Netanyahu just stands there and shakes with rage. So I pulled the dog away from him and said, ‘Now, now, Reagan, not on former heads of state,’ and they just held the door open and let me out.”
