Frontline

s22e01 From China With Love 2004-01-16 03:00 ⌄

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From China With Love

s22e01 · 2004-01-16 · 03:00

An atmospheric report on the 20-year love affair between an FBI agent and one of his “assets,” a Chinese-born woman who's accused of being a Chinese double agent. The principals: Katrina Leung (code name: Parlor Maid) and agent J.J. Smith, who were arrested in April 2003. Leung was charged with copying classified documents; Smith with “gross negligence” (letting her do it). Producer-director Michael Kirk tells this “story of secrets, risk, patriotism and, perhaps, love” largely through interviews with former FBI agents, one of whom (also named Smith) fears that “very grave damage could have been done.”

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s22e02 Chasing Saddam's Weapons 2004-01-23 03:00 ⌄

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Chasing Saddam's Weapons

s22e02 · 2004-01-23 · 03:00

BBC reporter Jane Corbin follows U.S. inspectors as they search for Iraqi weapons of mass destruction following the fall of Saddam Hussein. “It has been very frustrating for them,” says Corbin, who interviews chief inspector David Kay throughout the hour. Corbin also interviews intelligence analysts, the wife of an Iraqi nuclear physicist and former chief UN weapons inspector Hans Blix as she investigates whether Saddam had plans to produce such weapons (there are “tantalizing clues” that he did, she says). And Corbin speculates on Saddam's strategy. “Why did he want us to think they [weapons] were there?” she asks. “Because in so doing, he effectively brought down his own regime.”

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s22e03 Beyond Baghdad 2004-02-13 03:00 ⌄

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Beyond Baghdad

s22e03 · 2004-02-13 · 03:00

An overview of the situation in Iraq by correspondent Martin Smith, who travels “Beyond Baghdad” and focuses on Kurdistan, the Sunni heartlands, and the Shia strongholds Karbala and Najaf. Smith interviews Iraqi clerics, tribal leaders and politicians, as well as Americans, and finds “a number of fault lines, either ethnic or sectarian,” that pose a longer-term threat than does resistance to U.S. forces. He concludes that “things are going to get better---but it's going to be a long, hard slog.” Smith also surveyed the situation in Iraq in an October 2003 “Frontline” report titled “Truth, War and Consequences.”

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s22e04 Tax Me if You Can 2004-02-20 03:00 ⌄

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Tax Me if You Can

s22e04 · 2004-02-20 · 03:00

Correspondent Hedrick Smith explores what banks and accounting firms are doing with tax shelters, focusing on what he calls “sham shelters” with “a veneer of legality.” They “twist the law,” Smith says, “and play on it in ways that were never intended.” One example he follows: a U.S. bank's leasing (then leasing right back) of a German city's sewer system. “Money never moves,” Smith says. “It's all on paper.” The bank saved millions in taxes and the IRS, Smith says, “is behind the eight ball.”

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s22e05 The Invasion of Iraq 2004-02-27 03:00 ⌄

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The Invasion of Iraq

s22e05 · 2004-02-27 · 03:00

Recounting the invasion of Iraq---and how, says “Frontline” executive producer Michael Sullivan, it “laid the seeds” for “the very messy peace” that followed. The report examines the battle over troop levels in the Pentagon prior to the war, and how the decision to go with fewer troops---combined with shortcomings in U.S. intelligence---affected the outcome. The U.S. “had enough troops to win the war,” says Sullivan, “but not enough to win the peace.”

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s22e06 Ghosts of Rwanda 2004-04-02 03:00 ⌄

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Ghosts of Rwanda

s22e06 · 2004-04-02 · 03:00

“Ghosts of Rwanda” recalls the April 1994 genocide in the African nation, in which Hutus killed some 800,000 Tutsis. It was, says producer Greg Barker, the Hutu government's “own version of the final solution.” In interviews with eyewitnesses and officials, Barker examines the complex causes of the tragedy. And he looks at it as a “moral test” for those who wanted to stop it. “What do you do in a crisis?” he asks. “You hope you'd do the right thing, but there's no guarantee.”

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s22e07 Diet Wars 2004-04-09 02:00 ⌄

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Diet Wars

s22e07 · 2004-04-09 · 02:00

In “Diet Wars,” “Frontline” producer Steve Talbot goes “shopping” for a diet, visiting Weight Watchers and checking out various low-fat and low-carb regimens. Talbot, a baby boomer who was an actor as a child (he played Gilbert on “Leave It to Beaver”), also explores the business of dieting and comes to a “common sense” conclusion that isn't easy to market. “There are good carbs to eat and good fats to eat,” he says. “You should eat moderate portions, and you should exercise.”

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s22e08 Son of Al Qaeda 2004-04-23 02:00 ⌄

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Son of Al Qaeda

s22e08 · 2004-04-23 · 02:00

“Son of Al Qaeda” profiles Abdurahman Khadr, the rebellious 21-year-old son of a Qaeda leader who grew up with Osama bin Laden's children---then spied for the CIA after having been arrested in Afghanistan following the Sept. 11 attacks. Now in Canada---and estranged from both sides---Khadr tells his story to CBC journalist Terence McKenna. It took him from Afghanistan to Guantanamo Bay, then to Bosnia, where the CIA wanted him to infiltrate terrorist cells, McKenna says. Khadr turned on the CIA, just as he had his father---and Qaeda. Sums up McKenna, “Being a wild teenager is what saved him.”

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s22e09 The Jesus Factor 2004-04-30 02:00 ⌄

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The Jesus Factor

s22e09 · 2004-04-30 · 02:00

“The Jesus Factor” examines the connection between President Bush's evangelical Christianity and his policies and political strategies. They blend seamlessly. Says Doug Wead, an evangelical who advised George H.W. Bush: “There's no question that the president's faith is calculated. And there's no question that the president's faith is real.” Among the other interviewees are Richard Land of the conservative Southern Baptist Convention and Jim Wallis, editor of the liberal evangelical magazine Sojourners. Wallis is uneasy with Bush's “language of righteous empire,” while Land isn't. “The problem with the left is that some of them don't think God has a side,” he says. “George Bush and most of [his] supporters believe God has a side. And we believe that side is freedom.”

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s22e10 The Way the Music Died 2004-05-28 02:00 ⌄

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The Way the Music Died

s22e10 · 2004-05-28 · 02:00

“The Way the Music Died” follows Velvet Revolver, a new “super group” composed of former members of Guns & Roses and the Stone Temple Pilots, and singer-songwriter Sarah Hudson (the daughter of Mark Hudson, one of the “zany” Hudson Brothers, who had short-lived success in the 1970s). The decline in the recording industry in recent years is also explored. Among the reasons for the decline are the impact of MTV and illegal downloading of songs, but the primary culprit cited is music-industry and radio-station consolidation, which has led to an overriding emphasis on short-term profits. “It's a classic example of art and commerce colliding and nobody wins,” says Los Angeles disc jockey Nic Harcourt.

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s22e11 The Plea 2004-06-18 02:00 ⌄

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The Plea

s22e11 · 2004-06-18 · 02:00

In “The Plea,” filmmaker Ofra Bikel (“Burden of Innocence”) explores cases in which it is her contention that the plea-bargaining system infringed on the constitutional rights of defendants. The cases include a Texas single mother caught in a drug bust; a man accused of killing someone outside a Brooklyn bowling alley; a North Carolina woman accused of taking part in a Utica, N.Y., gas-station robbery-murder in 1973; and a Texas man convicted of a 1977 rape and murder.

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s22e12 Sacred Ground 2004-09-18 02:00 ⌄

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Sacred Ground

s22e12 · 2004-09-18 · 02:00

“Sacred Ground” chronicles the tortuous design process for the World Trade Center site, a contentious collaboration between architect Daniel Libeskind, the winner of a competition to design the site's master plan, and site developer Larry Silverstein and his favored architect, David Childs, all of whom are interviewed. New York governor George Pataki favored Libeskind's “iconic” 1776-ft. tall “Freedom Tower” plan, but Silverstein stood on his “absolute right” to choose an architect, and the battle---as much about money and power as aesthetics---was joined. Sums up architecture critic Paul Goldberger: “Do you ask Matisse and Dali to collaborate on painting a picture together?”

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s22e13 The Choice 2004 2004-10-13 02:00 ⌄

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The Choice 2004

s22e13 · 2004-10-13 · 02:00

“The Choice 2004” profiles George W. Bush and John Kerry, side by side. Producer Martin Smith and correspondent Nicholas Lemann trace the lives of these two very different Yale graduates through some 40 interviews (subjects include the candidates' wives). “It's a tale of two wars, of two Americas, over a 35-year period,” says Smith. “And it's a contrast of someone who relishes nuance and another person who drives toward clarity.”

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s22e14 Rumsfeld's War 2004-10-27 02:00 ⌄

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Rumsfeld's War

s22e14 · 2004-10-27 · 02:00

Is the Army broken? That question, posed by “Frontline” producer Michael Kirk, is at the heart of “Rumsfeld's War,” an exploration of the status of the U.S. Army as it fights in Iraq. The program also profiles the secretary of defense, recalling his first stint at the Pentagon in the 1970s, and tracing his efforts to make the Army “quicker and more nimble” since he returned to the office in 2001. But in doing so, Kirk wonders, “Has he plunged it back to the state it was at the end of Vietnam?”

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s22e15 The Persuaders 2004-11-10 03:00 ⌄

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The Persuaders

s22e15 · 2004-11-10 · 03:00

“The Persuaders” explores how marketers try to sell products---and political candidates---in an increasingly cluttered advertising landscape, using increasingly “spiritual” and “big concept” approaches. Assessing what it all means is CBS and NPR media watcher Douglas Rushkoff, who wades through a thicket of psychobabble and manages to make sense of most of it. As for conclusions, however, all he can do is quote an industry aphorism: “I know I'm wasting half my ad dollars. I just don't know which half.”

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s22e16 Is Wal-Mart Good for America? 2004-11-17 03:00 ⌄

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Is Wal-Mart Good for America?

s22e16 · 2004-11-17 · 03:00

“Is Wal-Mart Good for America?” Correspondent Hedrick Smith assesses the impact of the retail giant's “everyday low prices” on the U.S. economy as he visits Circleville, Ohio, where a factory that made components for TV sets sold at Wal-Mart recently closed, and Shenzhen, China, where those components are now made. “It cuts both ways,” Smith says, pointing to both lower U.S. inflation and a “tectonic shift in production” away from the U.S. Smith also visits Wal-Mart's Bentonville, Ark., headquarters, and traces the company's 30-year relationship with Chinese manufacturers. And he goes full circle (sort of), visiting the site of a planned Wal-Mart right next to the closed Circleville factory, where the jobs will pay barely half of the lost manufacturing jobs. “It's the two models, side by side,” he says.

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s22e17 Secret History of the Credit Card 2004-11-24 03:00 ⌄

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Secret History of the Credit Card

s22e17 · 2004-11-24 · 03:00

In “The Secret History of the Credit Card,” correspondent Lowell Bergman surveys the credit-card industry to explore reasons why cards are so easy to get and hard to pay off. The hour examines issues like interest rates, data-sharing and the industry's clout in Washington, but the short answer, as Bergman puts it, is that “the most profitable part of the industry is when they get people into debt.” A coproduction with the New York Times.

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