Of all the documentaries recounting the Bush Administration's missteps and missed opportunities in Iraq, Charles Ferguson's "No End in Sight" may very well be the best.

An unconventional documentarian, Ferguson made a fortune developing computer software, which he now uses to fund his passion for filmmaking. In a rare honor for such a novice, No End in Sight--Ferguson's first documentary--won a special jury award at Sundance this year.

Though the subject lends itself to the kind of biased screed that permeates many war documentaries, Ferguson maintains an analyst's distance from the material, delving into the events of post-invasion Iraq with curiosity, but not ideological bias. The film skips the pre-war WMD debate and any discussion of justification for the invasion, choosing instead to focus strictly on the failures of the occupation and how US mistakes led to the rise of the insurgency.

With a narrative that tracks the usual trajectory of any telling of the Iraq war, No End in Sight risks redundancy. Many films have already documented the gross errors in judgment that characterized too much of the decision-making on Iraq--invading without sufficient manpower for occupation, failing to secure loose weapons depots, allowing rampant looting, enacting overly-strict de-Ba'athification measures, and disbanding the Iraqi army offer just a few examples.

Ferguson tackles all the usual subjects, but in a much more deliberately inquisitive way than other filmmakers. Rather than simply summarizing the mistakes ad nauseum, Ferguson selected a roster of interviewees particularly well-positioned to tell the inside stories of how the ill-fated decisions came about. What becomes clear is Rumsfeld, Cheney, Feith, Wolfowitz, Bremer, Rice, and Bush didn't just advance unwise proposals; they did so over the objection and advice of many top advisers.

Gen. Jay Garner, Amb. Barbara Bodine, Richard Armitage, and Col. Lawrence Wilkerson all speak about how advice was ignored or overruled in favor of an ideologically Republican plan that ignored the realities of Iraq.

One of the most riveting segments of the film comes when Ferguson juxtaposes the recollections of Col. Paul Hughes with that of Walter Slocombe, both discussing the decision to disband the Iraqi army.

Hughes directed the Strategic Policy Office at ORHA, then CPA, and was in charge of efforts to reorganize the Iraqi army before Paul Bremer ordered it disbanded entirely. As an adviser to the CPA, Slocombe oversaw the creation of the new Iraqi army.

With frustration palpable in his tone, Hughes recounts how he had been working with former Iraqi officers on a plan to reconstitute the army when one day he heard on the news that the order had been given to disband it.

Slocombe stumbles over a few half-hearted objections before acknowledging that he may not have asked Hughes his opinion on the recommendation to disband the army--or even informed him when the decision was taken.

Garner also said if he'd been asked, he would have advised strongly against the decision, but he didn't hear about it until Bremer made the announcement.

Hughes' anger arises from the disappointment of lost opportunity. Just before Bremer issued CPA order #2, Hughes said the group of former Iraqi military officers--the "Independent Military Gathering" as they called themselves--had collected more than 100,000 signatures of former soldiers who were ready to re-enlist as part of the new army.

His account contradicts L. Paul Bremer's commentary in the Washington Post last May about "What We Got Right in Iraq." According to Bremer, "By the time I arrived in Iraq, there was no Iraqi army to disband....For starters, the draftees were hardly going to return voluntarily to the army they so loathed; we would have had to send U.S. troops into Shiite villages to force them back at gunpoint."

Bremer's piece was designed as a defense of his policy directives, so it comes as no surprise he ignores the inconvenient fact that former soldiers were apparently signing up for service in droves.

Ferguson elicits a more impromptu, and thus muddled, response when he asks Slocombe about Hughes' "Independent Military Gathering." In his confused but adamant denial, Slocombe offers a prime example of the superficiality of the war planners' thinking.

After tripping over the beginning of his answer a few times, Slocombe concludes, "Nobody could have gotten statements from 130,000 anybody for anything in the chaos that prevailed at that point."

What Hughes had said didn't fit with Slocombe's understanding of what should happen in Iraq, therefore it must be impossible.

This kind of blind denial calls to mind Paul Wolfowitz's February 2003 appearance before Congress, where he deliberately contradicted Gen. Eric Shinseki's estimate that it would take hundreds of thousands of troops to occupy Iraq. Though Shinseki had used models based on the US experience in the Balkans to mathematically approximate what size of force would be needed to ensure security, Wolfowitz deemed it "inconceivable" that Iraq could require more troops to occupy than it would to overthrow Saddam.

Trying to rally a few hundred thousand troops for the invasion did not fit Wolfowitz's view of how he thought things should happen, therefore the need for more boots on the ground was inconceivable. One hopes Wolfowitz has the opportunity to view an upcoming screenings of "No End in Sight."

The film opens this Friday in Washington, DC and New York City, with screenings rolling out in other major cities in the coming weeks.

No End in Sight