CIA helped produce 'Zero Dark Thirty'

"Zero Dark Thirty" has always been controversial. The movie depicted the CIA's hunt for Osama bin Laden and the eventual Navy SEAL raid that killed him.

Even before it was released in December 2012, the movie had kicked off a firestorm among both politicians and citizens.

Containing details and narratives that weren't included in previous news reports about the May 2, 2011 raid, "Zero Dark Thirty" also raised questions about the CIA's involvement in the making of the movie.

Declassified documents from 2013 revealed the CIA did indeed work with Mark Boal, the movie's screenwriter, on the script. Boal vetted CIA members for feedback and made changes accordingly, such as removing a scene where an agent drunkenly fires his AK-47 into the air. He also made Maya, the movie's main character, less involved in torture scenes.

Not only did the CIA provide privileged information to Boal, but Leon Panetta, the Director of the CIA under President Obama from 2009 to 2011, personally offered to help Boal with obtaining information from the CIA while writing a screenplay and gave him classified information about the bin Laden raid, according to new documents obtained by Vice.

Kathryn Bigelow and Mark Boal made "Zero Dark Thirty" with the goodwill and cultural capital that came out of making "The Hurt Locker" in 2009.

Boal's next project after "The Hurt Locker" was supposed to be called "Tora Bora". It was intended to be about the US's failure to capture Osama bin Laden. That was before bin Laden was caught and killed.

He then changed tack and starting writing the script that eventually became "Zero Dark Thirty." For research, he could rely on Panetta, who offered Bigelow and Boal help with the creation of "Tora Bora," according to the documents obtained by Vice.

Days after the bin Laden raid, Boal met with officials in the CIA and other counterterrorist units to discuss ethical violations by CIA officers involved in the raid. Panetta, Bigelow, and Boal had all met earlier — the three sat at the same table at the 2010 Washington Correspondents' Association. Panetta had first met Bigelow earlier that year at another dinner in Washington.

Sony / Columbia PicturesJessica Chastain as "Maya" in "Zero Dark Thirty."

On June 24, 2011, long before the Oscars, the CIA held an awards ceremony of its own — honoring the people who were involved in the hunt to find bin Laden. The organization invited Boal as well, though an internal inspection by the CIA found conflicting information about whether or not Panetta himself approved of the invitation. Panetta gave a speech at the dinner, part of which was classified. Though Boal has no classification status, he was at the ceremony and was therefore exposed to the classified information.

Throughout Boal and Bigelow's research for "Zero Dark Thirty", they met with CIA officials to gather information to maintain accuracy about the events, characters, and atmosphere of the film. They frequently treated officials to meals and drinks totaling more than $1,000 and also purchased gifts for some of them.

Following the release of "Zero Dark Thirty", the CIA changed its procedures for interacting with the entertainment industry. It issues new procedures to insure the protection of classified information and created a new centralized record-keeping system for requests from the industry.

The ethical violations Boal and Panetta talked about shortly after the raid can be traced to the depiction of torture in the film. Many politicians and pundits interpret the film as an implicit depiction of torture because it was successfully used to find information that led to bin Laden's capture. The day "Zero Dark Thirty" was released, Dianne Feinstein, the chair of the Senate Intelligence Committee, penned a sharp letter addressed at Sony, the movie's producer, accusing them of misrepresenting the CIA's use of torture.

"As you know, the film graphically depicts CIA officers repeatedly torturing detainees and then credits these detainees with providing critical lead information on the courier that led to...Bin Laden," Feinstein wrote. "The use of torture in the fight against terrorism did severe damage to America’s values and standing that cannot be justified or expunged ... You have a social and moral obligation to get the facts right."

Feinstein has a long, complicated relationship with the CIA; she dogged them for years until they finally released a truncated and partially censored version of their torture report, recounting in detail their use of torture in the post-9/11 Bush era, last year. The report also says that torture had nothing to do with the finding of Osama bin Laden.

The Senate Intelligence Committee also launched an investigation in January 2013 into contacts between the CIA and the makers of "Zero Dark Thirty", but dropped it a month and a half later.

Peter King, then the chair of the House Committee on Homeland Security (he is still a member of it), also criticized the movie for its depiction of torture and launched a separate inquiry about the possibility of leaked classified information from the CIA to Boal. King is still demanding a public accounting from the Obama administration on the subject, according to Vice.

http://www.businessinsider.com/cia-helped-produce-zero-dark-thirty