Dear FRONTLINE,

Sorry to disagree with your program's label however, the "Dark Side" has still yet to be revealed. Although informative, well edited, and on the right trail, we still need "Page Two ... The Rest of the Story."

As long as the commercial news media keeps the American citizens focused on the Republicans vs. Democrats, or the Conservatives vs. the Liberals confrontation of ideals, we will continue to be duped by the magician's oldest trick in the world .... Deception by Distraction.

In my opinion, FRONTLINE has an opportunity to make world class news on a level never imagined in the history of man and all that is need is the researching three simple questions:1)Who are our political leaders really accountable to?2)Who was President Eisenhower referring to when he coined the phrase "The War Machine"?3)Who are the Bankers that are funding the policies of the current administration?

When things don't make cents ... they are making someone dollars.

Thanks for the beginning of what could be a world event.

L. J. CarsonFlagstaff, AZ

Lawrence Carson
Flagstaff, AZ

Dear FRONTLINE,

The program was very thorough and full of many irrefutable facts that made it quite clear as to what really happened over the last 5 years. The dittoheads posting here of course say it has a liberal bias, blah blah blah. Frontline states at the end that Cheney and Tenet declined a request for an interview. I'm sure they would have gladly put Rice, Rumsfeld or any other high official on there to state their case, but of course they wouldn't do it. They do show several clips of Rumsfeld, Rice, Cheney and Powell giving public statements back in the 2001-2004 period, so some of their viewpoint is presented. The die-hard conservatives will reject anything that makes them look bad, regardless of the facts.

The biggest scandal of all is the apathy of the American poeple, who no longer have the time or energy for something as boring as participatory democracy.

Michael Patrick
San Diego, California

Dear FRONTLINE,

The CIA's war against the Taliban in Afghanistan is one of the few success story's ever for this perpetually inept agency. It's too bad Cheney and company skrewed it up for them, before they could do same for themselves.

Michael Caserta
Garden Grove, California

Dear FRONTLINE,

I am so sorry to hear that a Bush crony appointee has taken over at PBS. The news coverage has definitely changed. Bill Moyers brought a point of view that was very valuable.

I expect PBS to present BOTH sides, Bill Moyers and whomever on the right. That is the only way we, the people, can make a good judgement about our nation, which is after all, the most important aspect; We The People are supposed to be informed!!! NOT brainwashed.

Linda McGonagill

Dear FRONTLINE,

Where are the CIA ops et al. that support that side and the decisions to misrepresent the facts to the American public and the world? It's really not about liberal or the right, it's about truth, integrity, and respect for human life and culture.

David Stoll
Lafayette, Colorado

Dear FRONTLINE,

It's late. I'm tired... but I had to take a moment to express how truly amazed I am the Bush administration has escaped accountability for waging a war under false pretense. Your documentary was very insightful. Sadly, despite its veracity, it will likely result in very little action.

I likely will not sleep well this evening. When the United States is short on water will they fabricate a reason to take ours?

Byron Postle
Victoria, BC Canada

Dear FRONTLINE,

As always, this was a very interesting documentary but it is very unfortunate that the filmmakers gave in to the temptation to portray reality as a mythic struggle of heroes and villains. It is precisely this angle on profoundly complex socio-political issues that produce this phenomena of "bias" we hear so much about from the right and left.

Dick Cheney and Donald Rumsfeld are not Rasputins. Colin Powell was not a frustrated moralist who was out-maneuvered. And George W. Bush is not a dim-witted Texan being manipulated by evil men.

All are leaders, politicians, bureaucrats, and flawed men trying to make decisions in a complex geo-political world. Their decisions should be judged by the fruit they bear, good or bad and it is the journalist's social responsibility to present these decisions as they occurred without regard to any sense of drama or mythic storytelling. To do anything different is intellectually dishonest and does not serve to shed any more light on the complex realities our country and our elected leaders face.

So next time perhaps we can do without the cutaways to beady eyes and cold gazes accompanied by ominous, droning bass tones. I was, at one point, even anticipating the revelation that Dick Cheney was actually Colin Powell's father. Perhaps the title planted this seed in me.

Abe Scheuermann
Burbank, California

Dear FRONTLINE,

What if.....? What if Cheney and Rumsfeld truly believed all along that Saddam posed a threat? What if they operated from a perspective of two leaders who went through the horrors of 9/11 and a public asking, "Why didn't anyone do anything to prevent this?" Isn't it possible that they prevented a serious destructive event? Isn't it possible that we are better off? Before you rush to judge, I think you need to think outside the box. Just because Cheney and Rumsfeld are serious Washington Operators does not mean that we are not safer.

Michael Ryskoski
Houston, TX

Dear FRONTLINE,

Your report was completely one-sided. Every ex_CIA associate that was interviewed had quit the agency due to differences of opinion with the administration, hardly a cross-section of varied perspectives. PBS once again holds up the contrarian standard of non-objective journalism.

Dan Rempel
Phoenix, AZ

Dear FRONTLINE,

This program is long overdue -- but better late than never. If sunshine is the best disinfectant, then we need more programs like this to shine the light of truth, and disinfect our seriously compromised political process.

Stephen and Susan Bell
San Mateo, California

Dear FRONTLINE,

Nice Republican fluff piece. I hope it secured future funding for both PBS and Frontline. You could have saved me so much time just by saying, "It's all Tenet's fault, Bush and all his cronies are blameless, their only fault was they were too trusting."

Brian X
SF/Bay Area, CA

Dear FRONTLINE,

I will stipulate that the administration viewed the evidence through ideological lenses. so do these disgruntled c.i.a. people who resent anyone poaching on their elite "realist" preserve. guess what: I voted for bush and cheney, not the lynch-the-neocons types in the"permanent government". lincoln made mistakes, too. he was still a whole lot better than mcclellan, who thought he was a baboon who misused the army and was perverting the country. bush's biggest mistake was that he was so leery of offending muslims that he relied on the safer,technocratic w.m.d. rationale for invading iraq. well, who is it who wouldn't dream of offending muslims? why, the same people who now want bush and cheney castrated for obsessing about w.m.d.'s.

seth halpern .
santa fe, nm

Dear FRONTLINE,

The conservative, right wing machine has done an excellent job at attaching unfavorable names to those who do not agree with their agenda. In reading many of the responses I can see that they are once again following that true to form. "We have chosen not to support the President and Vice President" writes one. Obviously insinuating that this is "Un-American", yet when Clinton was in power the right was the first to bash him and his troops...yes his troops if we can remember Yugoslavia? If it goes against their train of thought then it is simply -"liberal, biased media"...again refusing to address the issues at hand, and successful using thier childish name calling techniques.

brent sanders
el paso, tx

Dear FRONTLINE,

The Dark Side was a devastating piece of reportage, even though I thought that I had followed the developments in the story over the past two to three years in the daily press pretty carefully, as a former Middle East energy analyst in the government who had felt that Saddam Hussein should have been dealt with by the Clinton Administration long before it came to an end.

One point that was raised I think by Steve Coll, but unanswered in the program was Condolezza Rice's apparent abdication of her responsibility as the then National Security Adviser to the President to question the intelligence findings before they found their way into the infamous National Intelligence Estimate (NIE) or into the President's State of the Union Message. I assume that this can be fairly interpreted as her agreement with the Vice President and CIA DIrector Tenet in wanting to see them used whether they were factual or not. But I should have liked to have heard her own defense of this lapse in judgment, to put it mildly.

Robert Copaken
Rockville, MD

Dear FRONTLINE,

A superb documentary. I'm a moderate that tends to be crtical of both sides. However, it was obvious the degree of liberal bias in your reporting.

Yes Cheney's motives and actions are ethically questionable. But can you blame the mistrust of the CIA by Chaney and Rumsfeld? Was it not the CIA that failed to bring attention and urgency to the alarming growth and influence of radical islam in the form of Al-Queida all through out the 90's? Was it not the failure of the CIA and CIA connected agencies to prevent or divert the 9/11 attacks? The laundry list of intelligence failures ranging from the fall of communism to a back stabbing North Korea (another failed deal from the 90's) provides a foundation of motivation to move intelligence gathering from the CIA to the military.

I agree that the CIA scored a touchdown in Afghanastan. But failed to win the game by the not getting the ultimate prize of capturing Bin Laden. My last two points are this:

1. I was against going into Iraq because history has already proven how easy it is to fail in the middle east. Simply put, the Russians went through the an insurgency in Afghanastan. Mind you it was on much greater scale. Every arab male between the age of 18 and 45 travelled from every country in the middle east to join the fight ultimately leading to a demoralized Russian withdraw. Was there anyone in the CIA that theorized there was great probability that radical islamists and Al-Queida would take the same page out of the "we beat the Russians in Afghanastan" playbook?

Point 2: I wish your documentary had gone into more detail regarding George Tenet's and the rest of the CIA's plan of action in dealing with this new war on terrorism.

Dan Miller
Atlanta, GA