Ike's warning is message behind movie

Many people who see the documentary "Why We Fight," which won the Grand Jury Prize at the 2005 Sundance Film Festival, will assume it was made by filmmaker Eugene Jarecki as an angry response to the war in Iraq.

Jarecki's unsettling footage of Iraqi civilians, including children, killed by U.S. bombs, as well as the film's protracted story of a retired New York City cop whose son was killed on Sept. 11 — and who believes President Bush misled Americans about his reasons for invading Iraq — is certainly fuel for anti-war sentiments.

But Jarecki says Iraq was not his intended focus.

"I was making 'Why We Fight' before the war," Jarecki says by phone from Los Angeles. "But the war complicated and challenged the film's premise."

"Why We Fight" broadly argues that America's military superiority in the world is driving an unchecked foreign policy toward empire-building. Jarecki says his film project actually began as an act of admiration for a 20th-century icon.

"I discovered Dwight Eisenhower's final address to the nation as president," Jarecki says. "That's when he warned us, with startling candor, about what he called the 'military-industrial complex.'

"It's not a conspiracy theory. Eisenhower had a keen sense of the mechanics of government. He was drawing our attention to a shift in democracy. In the name of national security, America was and is diverting resources from our nation's education and health, and depleting the alert and knowledgeable citizenry Eisenhower said is needed to prevent the military from becoming our answer to all the problems in the world."

Director interview: Eugene Jarecki, "Why We Fight"

Despite his criticisms, Jarecki enjoyed wide access to government figures and military personnel, including Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz.; Richard Perle, former Bush administration neoconservative; and two bomber pilots who were instrumental in kicking off the Iraq war in 2003.

"I did a lot of outreach," Jarecki says. "I broke through some impenetrable walls."

After studying theater at Princeton, Jarecki won a Student Academy Award for his 1993 short, "Season of the Lifterbees," the story of a young boy who travels from his forest home to his first day at school. In 2000, he got a shot at directing a narrative feature, "The Opponent," about an abused woman who takes up boxing.

That same year, his first documentary, "Quest of the Carib Canoe," was presented on television by the British Broadcasting Corp.

The BBC then asked Jarecki to direct (with Alex Gibney) "The Trials of Henry Kissinger," inspired by Christopher Hitchens' book. Jarecki's relationship with the BBC led to the network's support of "Why We Fight," which opens today at the Neptune Theatre.

Jarecki is the brother of filmmaker Andrew Jarecki, director of the 2003 Oscar-nominated documentary "Capturing the Friedmans." Asked what family get-togethers are like, Jarecki laughs.

"Growing up," Jarecki says, "life in our house was eccentric, wacky, pessimistic. There was no TV, but then real life was much stranger than fiction."

Tom Keogh: tomwkeogh@yahoo.com