NO END IN SIGHT 3 1/2 out of 4 stars. Stars: Paul Hughes, Richard Armitage. Rated: Not rated, but contains gruesome war images. Length: 1:42. Where: Sundance. Film trailer: http://noendinsightmovie.com/ 

It's become something of a joke among late-night comedians now, but there really was a time, just after Baghdad fell and Saddam Hussein fled, when Americans really were greeted as liberators by the Iraqi people. The idea that the country could be rebuilt and transferred to a peaceful, democratic new government seemed possible, or at least as possible as it ever did.

Charles Ferguson's documentary "No End In Sight" calmly and devastatingly lays out exactly what the American government did with that brief window of possibility -- how a combination of ignorance, arrogance, greed and just plain poor managerial skills ended up squandering those critical few months in the spring and summer of 2003. And, as the country snowballs out of control in the following four years, he convincingly makes the case that the seeds for all that chaos were planted in those early days.

Ferguson and his crew conducted interviews with dozens of players in the post-war occupation to piece together just what happened, and why decisions that seem disastrous in retrospect -- such as disbanding the Iraqi Army and sending a half-million disgruntled, armed men into the street -- were ever made.

He talks to a couple of faces familiar to those who follow politics, most notably Richard Armitage and Lawrence Wilkerson, who both served in the State Department under Colin Powell. But what's interesting is all the unfamiliar faces he finds, the career professionals in the military and the government who were on the ground in Baghdad, doing everything they could to make things work.

Years later, people like Col. Paul Hughes seem visibly haunted by the opportunities missed, and visibly disgusted by the decisions made by higher-ups in Washington who barely (if ever) visited Iraq. "No End In Sight" clearly lays blame at the doorstep of the civilian leadership, people like "czar" L. Paul Bremer, whose understanding of Iraq seemed to begin and end with the desert boots he wore with his sharp suits.

Most people who followed the war and post-war's unfolding in the news, even those who supported it, agree in a general sense that the post-war was bungled. Still, it's illuminating how Ferguson goes back and recovers so much from the "memory hole" of four years ago, the inexplicable decisions and unwise public statements ("Bring 'em on!"). He rarely simplifies and he never lapses into partisan editorializing; it's telling that the film's narrator is actor Campbell Scott, whose cool, even tones are perfect for laying out the facts and figures.

The film is a masterpiece of editing both information and images, giving us a multitude of voices and perspectives without ever losing the central narrative thread. In one riveting scene, Ferguson brilliantly cuts back and forth in a dispute between Hughes and Walter Slocombe, who was director of national security for the Coalition Provisional Authority, which oversaw the reconstruction.

Their war of words over whether the personnel in Iraq were told about the decision to disband the Iraqi Army makes for a very dramatic moment, but it also cuts to the heart of the film's thesis that the gulf between those making decisions in Washington and those seeing the effects of those decisions in Baghdad was impossibly, shamefully wide.

There have been a lot of good documentaries made about Iraq ("The War Tapes," "Iraq in Fragments," "Control Room"). Maybe too many. Maybe audiences have grown fatigued about the idea of seeing another worthy but depressing film about the war. But as the country debates the effects of the "surge" and the central question of whether Iraq can be salvaged, "No End in Sight" provides essential context as well as a powerful viewing experience.