3 senators slam 'Zero Dark Thirty'

Three powerful Senators have sent a letter to Sony Pictures Entertainment slamming the film Zero Dark Thirty as “grossly inaccurate and misleading.”

Senate Intelligence Committee Chairwoman Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.), Senate Armed Services Chairman Carl Levin (D-Mich.) and Armed Services ranking member John McCain (R-Ariz.) said that Sony CEO Michael Lynton has an “obligation to state that the role of torture in the hunt for Osama bin Laden is not based on the facts, but rather part of the film’s fictional narrative. ”

There have been multiple press reports that the CIA cooperated with the filmmakers. In the film, CIA operatives are depicted torturing detainees — and the movie suggests information from that torture eventually led to the 2011 killing of bin Laden.

The senators said that because the film opens with the statement “based on firsthand accounts of actual events,” the producers must clarify what is fact and what is fiction.

“Regardless of what message the filmmakers intended to convey, the movie clearly implies that the CIA’s coercive interrogation techniques were effective in eliciting important information related to a courier for Osama bin Laden,” they wrote. “We have reviewed CIA records and know that this is incorrect.”

They write that the Senate Intelligence Committee read “more than 6 million pages of records” and determined that the “the CIA learned of the existence of the courier, his true name and location through means unrelated to the CIA detention and interrogation program.”

“The use of torture in the fight against terrorism did severe damage to America’s values and standing that cannot be justified or expunged. It remains a stain on our national conscience,” they added. “We cannot afford to go back to these dark times, and with the release of Zero Dark Thirty, the filmmakers and your production studio are perpetuating the myth that torture is effective. You have a social and moral obligation to get the facts right.”

UPDATE: Sony sent this statement from director Kathryn Bigelow and screenwriter Mark Boal:

"This was a 10-year intelligence operation brought to the screen in a two-and-a-half-hour film. We depicted a variety of controversial practices and intelligence methods that were used in the name of finding bin Laden. The film shows that no single method was necessarily responsible for solving the manhunt, nor can any single scene taken in isolation fairly capture the totality of efforts the film dramatizes. One thing is clear: the single greatest factor in finding the world's most dangerous man was the hard work and dedication of the intelligence professionals who spent years working on this global effort. We encourage people to see the film before characterizing it."