“In Safe Hands” - Treatment for current affairs slot on the Iraq aftermath

Five years since the illegal and unprovoked aggression launched by American and British forces, and amounting to either one of the most delusional or cynical assessments on the Iraq war since George W. Bush’s famous “Mission Accomplished” speech in 2003, British Home Secretary Jacqui Smith says the country is now safe enough for asylum seekers to return home.
The proposed thirty-minute current affairs film will challenge dialectically the Home Office view and denounce how those who launched and supported the invasion are failing to take responsibility, juxtaposing the official discourse with the reaffirmed realities that have been proved, and proved again, but just as doggedly denied by those in power, forcing us to live trapped between two narratives of present history.
Behind the official rhetoric, the poignant truth:
1) Iraqis were promised freedom, democracy and prosperity. Instead they have seen the physical and social destruction of their country, mass killing, tens of thousands thrown into jail without trial, rampant torture, an epidemic of sectarian terror attacks, pauperization, and the complete breakdown of basic services and supplies. An end to this situation remains far from sight.
2) The UK involvement in Iraq should compel its government to open its doors. But for thousands of Iraqi asylum seekers there is no welcome; instead they face ill treatment, misery and destitution before they are deported, as changes in British asylum policy are introduced to restrict the admission of migrants to the UK.
The film will thus listen to the voices of those Iraqis on both sides of the fence of the asylum process, in particular those fearing for their lives back home and hoping for a new beginning in Britain.
Aesthetically, “In Safe Hands” will align itself with English filmmaker Adam Curtis' characteristic montage technique (as seen in his BBC documentary series 'The Trap: What Happened to Our Dream of Freedom'), relying heavily on archived footage and editorial voice-over. This material will additionally be inter-cut alongside interviews of Iraqi refugees, purposely lit to highlight the sense of alienation.
The film will convey the build-up to the invasion and its immediate aftermath: the false WMD claims (eg. Colin Powell presenting phony intelligence in his report on Iraq's WMD delivered at the United Nations); the Azores three meeting and the bombing of Baghdad; graphic images of the conflict; Bush’s “Mission Accomplished” speech in 2003.
Archived reports and news items will illustrate the evolution and escalation of the conflict leading to the long lasting bloodbath of sectarian violence as Sunni and Shia insurgencies against the US-led coalition convulse the country despite (or because of) the latest American surge.
Contrasts will be highlighted between these facts, the increasing number of Iraqi deaths and the diminishing approved asylum claims in the UK over the last five years.
As news of unrest continue to be reported, Bush will proclaim the Iraq war has been a “major strategic victory” in the “war on terror;” Former Spanish Prime Minister and Bush acolyte Jose Maria Aznar will describe the situation in Iraq, 80,000 dead civilians on, as very good; the British Government will claim Iraq is now safe despite the conflict, meaning that more than 1,400 rejected Iraqi refugees will be given a deadline to go home after being asked to sign a waiver agreeing the government will take no responsibility for what happens to them or their families once they return to Iraq - or face destitution in Britain by being refused the minimal welfare support they are currently on.
The official line will be contested by refugees first hand accounts throughout.

© Jose M Barea Velazquez, April 2008