I’m afraid that if you didn’t see the December 18, 2003, episode of Envoyé Spécial on France2, you won’t believe what follows. I saw it, and I’m not sure I believe it myself. The program was touted during prime-time news as the full story of the arrest of Saddam Hussein. Aha!, I thought. Let’s see how they are going to tell it, or spin it, or doctor it.

It was doctored all right. The original version of the special–announced in that week’s TV guides–was bumped. You can understand why: By December 18, this special on the difficulties (or, more accurately, the impossibility) of finding Saddam had a shelf life of minus four days. Yet with atmosphere shots of the Tigris at sunset–and an American colonel, with an Arab falcon on his wrist, standing in beautifully angled sunlight on the terrace of a fabulous palace–the special was just too good to be scrapped outright. And who could turn down its superb military analysis? Of course that colonel will never find his quarry: All those GIs in top-secret operations rooms staring into computer screens are no match for Saddam.

So the special was “updated.”

Believe it or not, the film was intended to show (oops!) that the Americans couldn’t find Saddam. Then, due to unforeseen circumstances, it had to be quickly touched up and remarketed as the “real” story of how they found him. The original was made some time ago, and in the Ousama bin Laden toujours introuvable spirit: “They can’t find bin Laden, they can’t find Saddam, their soldiers are getting picked off like ducks in a shooting gallery, nobody wants them in the ‘hood.” Scenes of GIs armed to the teeth, searching vainly for the intrepid leader, are interspersed with shots of seething, loyal tribesmen who swear by their mustaches that no one will betray Saddam. I think I recognized some of the hotheads who turned up in newsreels that week. They’re shouting and screaming, “Saddam forever!” and “We’ll slit the Americans’ throats!” when suddenly an Iraqi policeman comes up, grabs a guy by the arm, and drags him to the hoosegow.

That’s now. But when this French film was shot, the Saddamites got the best lighting, the best billing, the most attention, and the fullest respect–after all, they were just defending their homeland against the Occupation. At one point a GI is briefing a small patrol that will head into town with him. We hear him say in English, “We’re going to try to make friends.” In the French translation, this becomes “We’re going to look for informers.”

We also learn that Nataf, the guy who snitched on Uday and Qusay, was disowned by his family. We get an on-site, eyewitness account of the fallout from his dastardly betrayal from the baker across the street, who unwittingly provided bread to Saddam’s sons in their hideout. It was, as you can imagine, terrible: all that firepower, all that destruction. As if it wasn’t enough to kill the poor boys, they razed the house too: Look, here’s where it stood. A blind wall. A cute little toddler standing against it, the picture of innocence. Later, the assembled tribal leaders show us the letter where the family swears that they had nothing to do with the betrayal, and will have nothing more to do with the traitor. A man with a keffieh turban says that you couldn’t get an Iraqi to betray Saddam at any price, not even two million dollars.

But then the voice-over comments: “A few days later, Saddam would be found.”

If I had any doubts about the intentions of the first film, they were resolved by the second. A full-screen Old Glory flapping in the wind segues into a major exposé of the lies that justified the war. WMDs? What WMDs? There are none, there were none, and everyone knew it.

The American flag pops up at regular intervals throughout this super-dramatic political sleuth show. It isn’t graffitied with swastikas like it was in the jihadist antiwar demonstrations last year in Paris, but it is definitely sullied. And the bad guys don’t need black hats: They are clearly marked by clever camera work that flattens their faces and drains the color, giving them a macabre Halloween look. And they are always shown in power situations: at the U.N. Security Council, in the hallway of the CIA building, lying to the Senate. Their entries are filmed in slow motion–as if they could be frozen into admitting the truth–and accompanied by horror-film music to make your heart beat faster. The point is, this war was justified by deliberately false accusations about Iraq’s WMDs. That was the only justification, the whole argument, and it was a lie.

The villains are photographed at their worst in dehumanizing close-ups. The finger-pointers, on the other hand, walk through tree-shaded gardens, enter their homes through beautiful glass doors, sit intelligently in front of double-barreled bookshelves and tell us how Bush lied, because Cheney lied, because Tenet lied, and told Powell to lie, and dragged America into this senseless war. Each in turn is filmed with hushed respect: Hans Blix, Greg Thielman, and Joe Wilson, among others, tell the truth about the liars. These charming scenes with truth-tellers are interspersed with crescendo passages of the liars. And, as in the hunting-for-Saddam film that preceded it, the WMD-lies-investigation special has been updated with a few words about the insignificant matter of Saddam’s arrest. The splicing is so obvious, you can almost see the masking tape.

An antiwar demonstration on the Washington Mall gets big billing, with special focus on families of soldiers (all two of them), who say, “Bring our boys back home!” and ask, “What are we doing there?” Scenes of uranium barrels in Niger, with some clever Google searching added for good measure, prove that the purported Iraqi-purchasing contract was a fake. The Stars and Stripes come in for a quick flap, and the whole affair is wound up in the heart of the American Enterprise Institute, naturally.

The film’s “investigation” closes on the Iwo Jima monument, and explains that significant battles are engraved on its base. And what of the war in Iraq? Will it be a source of pride? Will the results wipe out the dishonor of the lies that led to it? Or, if GIs continue to die, will it be remembered as a terrible disgrace?

After the questions, there’s one last cameo for Old Glory, and then the film’s over and out.

Now we are back in the studios, and two well-groomed, rapacious anchorwomen are eliciting the last word from a young man named Philippe. Unfortunately I didn’t get his last name; maybe he’s the producer of the show, or of the films. Philippe explains to the birdy ladies that it is impossible to undertake any honest investigation on the subject in the United States today. The whole thing is taboo, the whole field is fenced in, the doors are locked tight. But you can be sure that this affair will be exploited in the current election campaign. And watch out! Howard Dean, who has been unstinting in his opposition to the war, made a phenomenal rise to prominence and favor in the Democratic camp.

Did you get that? Tremble in your boots, George W. Bush. You might not be aware of it, but a good portion of the French public, unhampered by your muzzled press, knows that Howard Dean is packing a punch you’ll be hard put to parry. The truth will come out! And maybe, says Philippe, if American soldiers keep getting killed over there…. Well, you understand, Bush: Your goose will be cooked.

Cut.

So, if you want to know how the French swallowed the capture of Saddam Hussein, Envoyé Spécial is a good indication. Like a serial philanderer whose current affair gets busted: It wasn’t supposed to pan out that way, but we’re not going to let this minor incident spoil our fun.

–Nidra Poller is a novelist living in Paris and translator, most recently, of Humanism of the Other.