Q&A USA

On March 19, 2003, Iraqi General Mohammed Al-Rawi (Yigal Naor) flees his residence amid the bombardment of Baghdad. Before leaving the compound, he passes a notebook to his aide Seyyed, instructing him to warn his officers to get to their safehouses and wait for his signal.

Four weeks later, U.S. Army Chief Warrant Officer Roy Miller (Matt Damon) and his platoon check a warehouse for Iraqi weapons of mass destruction. To Miller's surprise, the warehouse has not been secured, with looters making their way in and out, as soldiers from the 101st Airborne Division are too few to do much. After a firefight with a sniper, Miller finds that the warehouse is empty, the third consecutive time he has found nothing. Later, at a debriefing, Miller brings up the point that the majority of the intel given to him is inaccurate and anonymous. High-ranking officials quickly dismiss his concerns. Afterward, CIA agent Martin Brown (Brendan Gleeson) tells him that the next place he is to search was inspected by a UN team two months before and that it too has been confirmed empty.

Meanwhile, U.S. Department of Defense official Clark Poundstone (Greg Kinnear) welcomes returning Iraqi exile politician Ahmed Zubaidi (Raad Rawi) at the airport. There Poundstone is questioned by Wall Street Journal reporter Lawrie Dayne (Amy Ryan). She says she needs to speak directly to "Magellan", but Poundstone brushes her off.

Meanwhile, while checking another unpromising site, Miller is approached by an Iraqi who calls himself "Freddy" (Khalid Abdalla). Freddy tells him that he saw some Ba'ath Party VIPs meeting in a nearby home. They include Al-Rawi and his officers and aides in Baghdad, who are discussing the current situation. Al-Rawi decides to wait for the Americans to offer him a deal, and attack if they don't. As the meeting ends, Miller and his men burst into the house. Al-Rawi narrowly escapes, but Seyyed is captured. Before Miller can extract much information, Seyyed is taken away by Special Operations personnel - however, Miller keeps Al-Rawi's notebook. Dayne complains to Poundstone again, but he states that the stakes are much larger than her role in selling newspapers.

Miller goes to Brown's hotel room in the Green Zone, where he tells him what happened and gives him the notebook. Brown arranges for Miller to get into the prison where Seyyed is being interrogated. Miller is then approached by Dayne, who questions him about the false reports of WMDs. Miller bluffs his way in to see Seyyed. Near death after being tortured, he tells Miller that they "did everything you asked us to in the meeting." When Miller asks what meeting he is talking about, he says one word: "Jordan." Miller then confronts Dayne about the bogus intel she published, but she refuses to identify Magellan, her source. After Miller tells her he suspects that Al-Rawi is Magellan, Dayne reluctantly confirms that Magellan met with a high-ranking official in February in Jordan.

Miller realizes that Poundstone's men are hunting Al-Rawi, and can think of only one reason: Al-Rawi confirmed there was no Iraqi WMD program and is now a major liability. Poundstone confiscates the notebook from Martin; it contains the locations of Al-Rawi's safe houses. When Miller tries to arrange a meeting with Al-Rawi, he is abducted by Al-Rawi's men following Poundstone's announcement of the decision to disband the entire Iraqi army. Al-Rawi tells Miller that he informed Poundstone that the WMD program had been dismantled after the First Persian Gulf War; Poundstone, however, reported that Al-Rawi had confirmed there were WMDs so the US government would have an excuse to invade. Poundstone's men attack the locations listed in the notebook. When they get to the general's hiding place, he flees, ordering one man to kill Miller. Miller manages to kill his captor and races after Al-Rawi. Miller finally captures Al-Rawi, but Freddy suddenly appears and shoots the general, stating that the fate of Iraq is "not his to decide." With his only witness against Poundstone now dead, Miller tells Freddy to flee.

Later, Miller writes a scathing report. He confronts Poundstone in a meeting and gives him the report, but Poundstone dismisses it, telling Miller that WMDs do not matter. Poundstone then rejoins the meeting, only to see Iraqi factional leaders reject Zubaidi, the US's choice as leader of Iraq, as an American puppet and storm out. Afterwards, Dayne receives Miller's report by email. The recipient list includes reporters for major news agencies around the world.

While picking up his son and daughter for a weekend visit, Jack (Christopher Meloni) tells his estranged wife Adrienne (Diane Lane) that he still "loves her" and wants to move back home. (It is made clear that Jack left his family for another woman.) Adrienne suggests that his remorse is due to his falling out with the other woman, but in any event says she needs time and space to think. The rift that this causes between the daughter and her mother is palpable. Typical teenage angst and rebellion follow and Adrienne is sure she is losing her daughter over the events that are unfolding in her marriage.

Adrienne drives to Rodanthe, North Carolina, to look after a friend's bed-and-breakfast for the weekend while she's away. The house is rustic, romantic, and right on the beach, and partially in the surf at high tide.

The only guest for the weekend, Paul (Richard Gere), is a very TYPE A personality surgeon who arrives at the inn with his own emotional baggage. He has flashbacks of a surgery which ended tragically. The family of the patient, who live in Rodanthe, is suing him. The husband wrote to Paul asking to speak to him; this is what brings him to Rodanthe.

A storm moves in and Paul and Adrienne team up to protect the inn. They dine together, share stories, and eventually turn to each other for emotional comfort. A genuine romance is born. With Adrienne’s advice and moral support, Paul opens up to the patient's widower and in doing so faces his own pain.

Paul carries guilt for passing up a relationship with his son in favor of his career and decides to go down to South America to salvage his relationship with his son. Paul is now very reluctant to leave Adrienne and Rodanthe but he knows that he must go to his estranged son Mark (James Franco) who left his stressful practice with his workaholic dad to become a physician there ("a Doctors Without Borders type of thing").

During their separation, Adrienne and Paul exchange numerous handwritten letters expressing their longing to be with each other once again. On the evening that Adrienne and Paul are to finally reunite, he does not show up. Adrienne is unable to determine if he caught his flight back from South America from the airlines. Unfortunately, Paul has been killed in a flash mudslide. His son, Mark, arrives at Adrienne's door the following day with a box of Paul's personal belongings, as well as gratitude to Adrienne for "giving him back the father he knew when he was a child".

Adrienne is seen struggling, for what appears to be days or weeks, with a nearly unbearable grief. Eventually, her daughter (wiser and more mature now) is able to coax the story from her mother. This is a turning point for their relationship and it allows Adrienne to begin to deal with her loss. She tells her daughter the story of a very special type of love and encourages her daughter to seek that out for herself someday.

Adrienne finally is granted a respite from her heart-rending sadness when, during a solitary sojourn along the beach on a strikingly beautiful day, she looks up to see a small herd of magnificent wild horses go thundering on by her. She, her children and her best friend walk down to the dock where Adrienne and Paul had danced, and Adrienne is finally able to kiss Paul goodbye.