The BBC broadcast a controversial docu-drama, The Path to 9/11, this week without realising that it had been made by a member of the US religious right.

The three-hour programme, shown over two nights on BBC2 to commemorate the fifth anniversary of the attack on the twin towers, was purchased from ABC, a subsidiary of Disney. At the last minute the US television company was forced to re-edit sequences after claims of distortion from former president Bill Clinton and members of his administration.

A BBC spokesman said the organisation did not vet film-makers on their political or religious beliefs.

The film's director, David Cunningham, is active in Youth With a Mission (Ywam), a fundamentalist evangelical organisation founded by his father, Loren Cunningham. According to its publications, the group believes in demonic possession, spiritual healing and conservative sexual morality.

Last month David Cunningham addressed a conference in England organised by the group at its UK headquarters in Harpenden, Hertfordshire, on the making of the film. His talk was entitled Christ-like Witness in the Film Industry.

According to one of the group's publications,"David and his wife Judy are the nucleus of an association of more than 40 Ywam alumni who are called to the communications industry in the Los Angeles area ... to create an independent film company whereby he could both influence the Hollywood film industry and produce major motion pictures that would carry a Biblical, values-based message".

Speaking from the Harpenden HQ, where would-be "disciples" pay more than £2,000 for six-month courses, the missionary organisation's international chair, Lynn Green, said that Mr Cunningham's influence in the film was limited. "He was hired by Disney to direct. He was not the screenwriter".

But in the US, protesting Democrats have seized on the involvement of the religious right in the project to allege a political plot to blame Mr Clinton for the triumph of Osama bin Laden.

One original fictionalised sequence depicted Mr Clinton's national security adviser, Sandy Berger, refusing permission in 1998 for the CIA to capture Bin Laden. Another showed Mr Clinton distracted by his affair with Monica Lewinsky.

In a letter to ABC demanding changes, Mr Clinton said: "The content of this drama is factually and incontrovertibly inaccurate." His colleagues said it was "rightwing political propaganda".

ABC originally gave the impression the film was a historical reconstruction of the official 9/11 commission report, saying the film "uses this historic document as the basis for a powerful story".

But yesterday, the BBC said it had warned at the start of the programme: "The movie is not a documentary. For dramatic and narrative purposes, the movie contains fictionalised scenes."

The film, as eventually transmitted, had been politically even-handed, the corporation said. It drew a relatively modest audience of up to 2.8m, but was seen in the US by 13m viewers.

David Leigh
Wednesday September 13, 2006
The Guardian

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