Filmed six months before the invasion of Iraq, John Pilger travels to Afghanistan, Pakistan, and Washington to test the official case for the war on terror against what he finds on the ground. He interviews villagers near Tora Bora who describe US bombing raids that killed civilians rather than al-Qaeda fighters, and he presses American officials and policymakers, including figures behind the neoconservative push for regime change in Iraq, on the gap between stated justifications and actual strategy. Pilger traces the argument back to planning documents written years earlier that called for US dominance in the Middle East regardless of any terrorist threat. He also revisits Afghanistan's postwar reality, where warlords the US backed during the campaign hold power again and reconstruction promises have gone unmet. Pilger narrates throughout in his usual direct, accusatory style, treating the war on terror less as a response to September 11 than as cover for a longer-standing geopolitical plan.