'Path to 9/11' leads TV specials revisiting attacks

Sunday, September 10, 2006

By Kathy Blumenstock, The Washington Post

Five years after terrorists ripped through the September sky, the remnants of disbelief, anger and fear still linger -- on television as well as in life. A new dramatization of the Sept. 11 attacks and the events preceding them, plus a documentary focused on the healing and rebuilding efforts, are among the broadcasts marking the grim anniversary.

Actor Harvey Keitel, star of ABC's "The Path to 9/11," said he believes movies and TV programs detailing what happened that day are important.

"They're putting the story into our faces. It's not too soon or too late; it just is," Keitel said. "We were the front line on that day."

"The Path to 9/11," a two-part drama airing at 8 p.m. today and tomorrow, is based on the report of the Sept. 11 commission, which was created to discover how such an attack could take place. The miniseries, also starring Patricia Heaton, also revisits the 1993 World Trade Center bombing and the 2000 attack on the USS Cole.

Keitel portrays FBI agent John O'Neill, who was an expert on al-Qaida. "He and his team were on it" prior to Sept. 11, Keitel said. "But the environment where they worked. ... They were in the forefront of this assault on al-Qaida, and they were blocked all along the way."

Former Clinton administration officials have called depictions in the miniseries "terribly wrong" and have sent letters to ABC demanding that the network correct it or not air it. The network has promoted "Path" as a dramatization of the events of 9/11, not a documentary.

O'Neill left the FBI and began a job as the World Trade Center's head of security on Sept. 11, 2001. His death in the towers "gave the story a tragic symmetry," said writer Cyrus Nowrasteh.

Other Sept. 11 programming

"America Rebuilds Part II: Return to Ground Zero" (9 p.m. tomorrow, PBS) follows the ongoing recovery -- physical, financial and emotional -- of the 16-acre area in lower Manhattan.