VICE (2013) s04e15 Episode Script
Flint Water Crisis & Libya on the Brink
1 (theme music playing) This week on Vice, the water crisis that's poisoning the people of Flint, Michigan.
All: Flint lives matter! (man speaking) People are dying.
Who want to be next? Not me.
So this is the Flint Water Treatment Facility, which is where they failed to treat the water for corrosion, which led to the entire lead crisis.
(crying) It's all right.
And then the rise of ISIS in Libya.
(man shouts) (gun firing) This place is completely annihilated.
This is what the sharp end of the US war on ISIS in Libya looks like.
(men shout in foreign language) Libya is on the brink of falling into chaos.
(theme music playing) (guns firing) (men shouting) Hands up, hands up! Don't shoot! Over the past year, America looked on in disbelief as the water crisis in Flint, Michigan, unfolded.
Today, President Obama declared Flint, Michigan, a disaster area.
Smith: It didn't seem possible that in the 21st century, Americans' lives could be at risk because of the water coming from their taps.
Government failed you.
Hillary Clinton: The governor of that state acted as though he didn't really care.
Recently, both state and city officials have been brought up on felony charges as the people of Flint continue to feel the after-effects of this story of mismanagement, corruption and cover-ups.
(crowd chanting) Flint lives matter! Flint lives matter! We're here at the state capitol where Governor Snyder is going to be giving the State of the State address, but there are hundreds and hundreds of protesters from across Michigan who don't care what the governor has to say.
In fact, they just want to send him a very clear message and they want him gone.
I just want to know-- what are you carrying in your hand? All: Flint lives matter! Shihab-Eldin: Flint, Michigan, is surrounded by 1/5 of the world's surface drinking water.
But in 2013, Governor Snyder's emergency manager made the inexplicable decision to switch the city's water supply to the toxic Flint River to save money, leading to one of the most severe public health crises in the United States and criminal charges for city and state officials.
So this is the Flint Water Treatment Facility, which is where they treat the city's water supply.
But when they made the switch over from Detroit, which came from a lake, to the Flint River, where the water is more corrosive, they failed to treat the water for corrosion, which led to the entire lead crisis that the city is now facing.
(Sheldon Neeley speaking) We're at the limit? Shihab-Eldin: Most of the facility is off-limits to visitors.
But even here, the water appears to be undrinkable.
To find out just how dangerous improperly treated water can be, we met with the scientist who first exposed the alarming levels of lead in Flint's water.
What specifically caused the lead in the water in Flint? The lack of corrosion control.
The Flint River had more chloride in it.
So when this corrosion inhibitor was not added, as required by Federal law, it was allowing the chlorine to disappear and allowing bacteria to grow.
And one of those bacteria was to Legionella.
Reporter: State officials say the new cases push the total number to 91, with 12 deaths during 2014.
We actually predicted it would happen.
We said, "If you do not have corrosion control "in a system like Flint, "you'd expect to see a Legionella outbreak.
You'd expect to see people dying.
" Unfortunately, that prediction proved to be true.
The water was eating holes in the lead pipe.
The water was leaching lead.
And Michigan's Department of Environmental Quality and the EPA-- did they actively try to discredit you or others when you were bringing this to the public's attention? Oh, yeah, we had to fight them.
We had to fight the very agencies we pay to protect us.
And we now know that they knew about this for, you know, a good 18 months and were completely working overtime to make sure no one would find out about it.
There's no doubt in your mind this was a cover-up? Oh, no question.
I mean, the lies that they were telling to cover this mistake up-- if this isn't criminal, I don't know what is.
Shihab-Eldin: As outrage continues against the officials who allowed this to happen, we spoke to the now-former mayor of Flint, Dayne Walling, who personally flipped the switch that started this crisis.
(applause) I pushed the button that closed the valve so that water from the Detroit system was no longer flowing in the water-treatment plant.
It was like cutting a ribbon at a-- at a new business.
And, you know, I look back on that with regret every single day.
You told reporters the city's water is safe to drink.
All of our tests, ever since this year, have been comparable with what we used to get out of Detroit.
How did that come to be? I mean, it feels as though it was obvious.
I-- I believed it was true when I said it.
And it was true-- it was accurate with the information I had.
But it wasn't-- it wasn't right.
Shihab-Eldin: Lee-Anne Walters was the first resident to push for an investigation into the water system she knew was harming her family.
My family's been exposed to lead.
One of my children has been poisoned.
Beginning of June, I developed this lovely rash.
Wow.
It has never gone away since.
My kids started developing rashes.
And we didn't know-- understand, like, what was going on.
We noticed that he started complaining of headaches, giving us a hard time eating.
My son will be five in March.
He weighs 36 lbs.
His twin is 53.
How do you sit by watching the people who put you in office, showing you rashes all over their body, hair loss-- your constituents bringing in all this discolored water, begging you for help, and how do you say you didn't know? I-- I'm deeply, you know, sorry for what's happened with Flint's water crisis, for everyone who's been affected by lead and all the other issues that we've had.
The emergency managers were put in place with this austerity framework.
It was "cut services, raise fees.
" And that was the best that the governor and state were willing to offer a place like Flint.
We happen to be a largely African-American city, a city where there's a high concentration of poverty.
And that's wrong.
Shihab-Eldin: Flint eventually switched back to Detroit's water supply.
But the damage to their lead pipes is so bad that the people still don't trust their water.
We suffer, but we livin'.
We here.
We can't just pack up and leave.
Why not? 'Cause we don't have the money for it.
This is what we got to go through every day, all day, until this problem is fixed.
I don't drink it.
I barely want to wash my dishes with it.
I won't let my granddaughter bathe in it or shower in it or brush her teeth in it because we don't know the long-term effects of this.
I was drinking this water up until, I would say, about a month ago.
And then when I kept seeing on the news-- I said, "Fuck that shit.
" They was sayin' lead and shit.
But I was drinkin' it! You don't trust the government? No-- oh, no! You can't trust 'em.
The only thing you can trust-- it's cold outside right now.
Brown: You imagine yourself waking up, not knowing for two whole years you're drinking poisonous water.
People are dying.
Who want to be next? Not me.
All: Oh, wade in the water Wade in the water, children Wade in the water God's gonna trouble the water Amen! The things that we're going through in 2016, in Flint, Michigan, should be unheard of.
In a country that has been so rich and so vibrant as this, reality is what we're dealing with is third-world-country stuff.
(applause) We knew that the problem was far bigger than they were letting it be known.
But they continued to say that it was fine, and it wasn't.
And now, what's the situation today? It's toxic.
You can't drink it.
You can't brush your teeth with it.
Some people go to other areas just to take baths.
The lead is still in the pipes now, so there is nothing safe about this water.
So there are some people who don't have a car and can't go get supplies, or who are not receiving these supplies? That is correct.
What do those people do? They drink the water.
Shihab-Eldin: The government's response to the crisis has been so slow and so dysfunctional that local law enforcement has taken it upon themselves to step in and help.
I don't trust the government's testing.
In the jail, I'm giving them bottled water.
The inmates have better than the people that are out here.
Isn't there something wrong with that? Everybody's talking.
Mm-hmm.
Everybody-- all the politicians-- everybody's talking.
Somebody had to get off their ass and do it.
And I thought, "I have a jail.
"I've got the community-service workers.
I've got deputies.
I can do this.
" Shihab-Eldin: Sheriff Robert Pickell has worked in Flint for 18 years and he's seen how this once-thriving industrial city became one of the most impoverished in the nation.
General Motors pulled out and we're unable to get the industry to come in.
But you really have to have industry, you know, if you're going to be a vibrant city.
If this was Grosse Pointe or Ann Arbor, this never would have happened.
Shihab-Eldin: Authorities have been replacing the lead-service lines in Flint for months now.
But so far, they've completed less than 1% of the work.
and many homes continue to test positive for elevated levels of lead.
So we're at a community family fun night, where families are bringing their kids in order to play, but also to be tested for lead poisoning.
(chattering) You ready? It's all right, sweetie.
That's all.
Good job! What a big boy today! Almost there.
No, no.
There's no more poke.
We're just going to collect the blood, honey.
Okay? I know.
Little more.
Shihab-Eldin: Young children are especially vulnerable to lead poisoning, which can cause developmental delays, hearing loss, and even death.
Well, he has scars on his legs.
Mine.
Like that.
And they're on both legs.
Mm-hmm.
He was getting bumps all over.
You took him to the doctor? Yeah, they said it was a virus.
They said because of the lead in his blood, he couldn't get rid of it.
How does this affect children in Flint? I mean, what are the repercussions of having lead in the water? Lead destroys kids' potentials.
It creates anti-social behavior.
It reduces IQ.
Brain damage? Oh, yeah.
No, absolutely.
They knew a long time ago that they were poisoning people from it.
They could care less.
(gibberish) Shihab-Eldin: The crisis in Flint caused a nation-wide uproar so intense that in May, President Obama visited Flint and took a sip of filtered local water.
And this used a filter.
But Congressman Dan Kildee, who was born and raised in Flint, says what happened there is just a symptom of a larger crisis spreading across America.
This is an important story because it rips the cover off some of the falsehoods of the current promise that America represents.
This is happening in one way or another all over the country.
You look at older cities that are mostly poor, mostly African-American, and you see a lot of the same things going on-- crumbling schools, empty buildings, no real investment.
We let these cities get to the point where they're just one bad decision away from complete collapse.
The folks making these decisions don't care about people who live in Flint.
Nobody in Flint wants sympathy.
We just want justice.
Five years ago, a violent revolution removed Libyan dictator Muammar Gaddafi from power.
But in the chaos that followed, an attack on US personnel in Benghazi killed our ambassador there and several other employees, sparking an intense partisan debate here at home.
We were misled that there were supposedly protests and then something sprang out of that-- an assault sprang out of that-- What difference at this point does it make? It is our job to figure out what happened and do everything we can to prevent it from ever happening again, Senator.
Lost in that argument, however, is what's happening on the ground in Libya today, where, in the power vacuum Gaddafi left behind, ISIS is beginning to step in and fill the void.
Man: This is the place where time stopped for American in Libya.
It's the US Consulate in Benghazi.
In 2012, the US Ambassador and three other Americans were killed in a Islamist attack by the group Ansar al-Sharia.
But since then, the debate in America has focused on who is to blame for the events that happened that day, not what happened to Libya in the years afterwards.
And what's happened is that Ansar al-Sharia and ISIS have teamed up to control much of the city for years.
While ISIS grew in Syria and Iraq, they're now gaining strength in a Libya which is controlled by two dueling governments.
They've already taken control of an entire city in the center of the country-- Sirte.
And they've made advances all along the coast, including in Benghazi.
For the past 18 months, the forces that are loyal to the Eastern government have been fighting ISIS in Benghazi.
We went to a neighborhood that was liberated from ISIS fighters only days earlier.
How safe is this street? (speaking foreign language) Colonel Jamal al-Zahawi is the commander of the Libyan army brigade that controls this area.
So, this area here has just been freed of ISIS-- Islamic State fighters.
But they've left a lot of surprises behind, like this table here, which is wired to an IED.
You can see the wire go up the frame, so that when you open the door, it explodes.
All this stuff is still very fresh and active.
Evidence of ISIS's presence was everywhere.
Looks like it.
Yes? Yes.
You know? I know this one.
It's a famous brand.
Ostrovsky: While the neighborhood has been reclaimed, it remains an active war zone.
We watched as the colonel's troops attacked an ISIS-controlled stronghold nearby.
They're moving an aircraft missile into position.
That's no airplane, but they've fashioned it so that they can shoot it off of the ground.
I hope they know how to make sure it explodes over there and not right here because that's a 200-lb bomb.
(man speaking foreign language) (men speaking foreign language) This area has been cleared of ISIS, but about a mile that way, they're still there, where that rocket is about to land.
(men talking) (distant explosion) Ostrovsky: The US government recently raised the estimated number of ISIS fighters in Libya to as many as 6,000, double the number from a year earlier.
Now discussions have started on whether the US should support loosening a UN arms embargo on Libya and allow the arming of the forces fighting ISIS.
General Khalifa Haftar is the head of the Libyan Army for the internationally- recognized Eastern government.
He told us what's at stake if ISIS isn't defeated.
(speaking foreign language) Ostrovsky: That's why it's so important for General Haftar to defeat ISIS in Benghazi.
On the outskirts of the city, we visited the frontlines with a group of his special-forces soldiers as they encircled an ISIS stronghold.
(gunfire) So we can hear gunfire probably coming from the cement factory, which we just passed.
They're heading out on a patrol.
The fighting here is house-to-house.
They've put these holes in the walls so that they don't have to walk down the streets.
They use buildings like this, just people's houses, as positions now because this neighborhood has been turned into a frontline.
Wow, that's just a couple hundred yards from here.
Their position is down there.
ISIS is so close, soldiers sit in windows to guard against a surprise attack.
I do not envy this man's job, waiting for a bullet to come through this window.
So right now, they're just trying to draw them out of their holes with their fire.
We sat down with the commander of Haftar's special forces on the frontline, Fadl Faraj al-Hassi.
Unfortunately, Americans stopped paying attention to what's happening in Benghazi after the American ambassador died here.
He was killed by a group called Ansar al-Sharia.
Now there's ISIS here as well.
What's the difference between these two groups? (speaking foreign language) (gunfire popping) No, no, no.
(gunfire) What the fuck is that? Why, why, why, why? There's shooting.
No.
Who's shooting? (speaking English) There's obviously still fighting going on here.
We just heard a couple of shots.
Do you need America's help? (speaking foreign language) So apparently, there's a sniper at the top of the brown house over there.
So we should stay close to the wall when we're moving through this area.
Our camera crew made it safely across the field into cover behind this wall.
But I was 100 yards behind when an ISIS sniper in a nearby house opened fire on us.
(speaking foreign language) Were they shooting out or in? They were shooting out or in? Thank you.
Oh, fuck.
Ostrovsky: They're taking us to another position.
This time, it's one of their artillery-firing positions.
The soldiers took us even closer to the ISIS-held cement factory we'd passed earlier.
They said it was too dangerous without an escort.
So this is what they sent-- a Russian-made tank.
In the previous week, General Haftar had driven ISIS fighters back from much of the city, except here.
Now his fighters needed heavy artillery like this to soften up fortified ISIS defenses.
(gun fires) So what's your objective from this position? (speaking foreign language) (gunfire) This isn't any anti-terrorist operation.
This right here is full-on war.
(fires) Ostrovsky: While these forces seem to be winning the battle here for now, in another part of the country, ISIS has been on the offensive-- like at a checkpoint near the small town of Abu Grain outside the ISIS-controlled city of Sirte, where soldiers from the Islamist-leaning Western government are trying to keep ISIS contained.
Just months before we visited here, ISIS fighters launched a bloody raid.
Here, seen on closed-circuit TV, the ISIS fighters arrive in pick-up trucks, then fire at the checkpoint soldiers in the distance.
One of the ISIS militants brazenly moves into the open without cover, then makes a "cutthroat" gesture to his enemy.
The ISIS fighter on the left is shot.
Before retreating, ISIS soldiers stick around long enough to kill three guards.
Observers like attorney David Tafuri see attacks like these and worry that ISIS is slowly winning the battle for control of Libya.
During the revolution, Tafuri flew to Benghazi to help the rebel government free up $1.
5 billion in frozen Gaddafi assets.
Since then, he's worked alongside Libyan officials to foster good governments within this fractured country.
Libya is on the brink of falling into chaos.
And if something is not done soon, it will become a failed state.
One of the biggest threats to the United States is having more failed states around the world.
If ISIS takes control of a place like Libya, it will become much more powerful than it already is.
It will have access to all of the oil resources that Libya has.
It will have a foothold in North Africa, and ultimately, it will strike against the United States and other Western countries.
Ostrovsky: While we were in Libya, we saw evidence that the United States was at least willing to intervene in Libya on a limited basis.
Overnight, we conducted an airstrike in Libya targeting an ISIL training camp near Sabratha.
The ISIL fighters at these facilities were planning external attacks on US and other Western interests in the region.
Ostrovsky: On the day of the American attack, we set off for the site of the bombing.
The city of Sabratha is all the way over on the western edge of the country and just 50 miles away from Tripoli.
When we arrived, we were told as many as 200 ISIS fighters were still hiding in the city.
It was hard to tell the good guys from the bad.
Ostrovsky: As soon as we got here, we got an escort from the local militia which is a local Islamist militia as well, who up until now claimed that there was no ISIS here.
But they said that they're going to take us to the site of the airstrike now.
And we have to trust them because we don't really have any other choice.
Ostrovsky: At the bomb site, we discovered the power of a US airstrike.
This place is completely annihilated.
This is what the sharp end of the US war on ISIS in Libya looks like.
(man speaking English) So here is some of the ammo that was here when the airstrike took place.
That's a big knife.
They're saying that's for cutting people's heads off.
So this looks like the Islamic State whiteboard because it says the Islamic State Caliphate own it, and obviously, the Islamic State black flag.
While we were at the site, we heard that two Serbian diplomatic personnel, Sladjana Stankovic and Jovica Stepic, were among the dead.
Oh my God, there's some of that woman's hair in here.
That's her watch and jewelry.
The militia commander said he removed her hair and other items on the day of the bombings to help identify her.
The United States and Serbian governments agreed in March to fully investigate the circumstances surrounding the deaths of the diplomats.
The target of the US strike was a Tunisian named Noureddine Chouchane, the alleged mastermind behind two attacks inside Tunisia that claimed the lives of 60 people.
It remains unclear whether Chouchane died in the attack.
But the American strike dealt a blow to ISIS in the region.
This is the city morgue.
This is where they brought a lot of the bodies from the airstrike.
Bloody mattresses, blood all over the floors.
Wow, there's just a pile of body bags in here.
It smells awful.
Ostrovsky: More than 40 ISIS militants were believed to have been killed in the attack.
A few days after our trip to the bomb site, ISIS reminded the residents of Sabratha it hadn't gone away by killing four members of the same security team that had protected us on our visit.
While the American airstrike showed how effective US air power can be in the global fight against ISIS, it was only the third such strike inside Libya in the last five years.
The West and the US are very reluctant to intervene in any country because of the bad experiences that we've had in Iraq and in Afghanistan.
But at the same time, we're caught in this very difficult situation where if we don't intervene, groups like ISIS will take control and take power and ultimately engage in terrorist attacks against the West that will require us to come back and fight them.
Ostrovsky: Late last year, the United States reportedly sent special operations teams to Libya to coordinate the fight against ISIS.
But General Haftar says more can be done to roll back ISIS gains in Libya-- a strategic country whose location along the Mediterranean is the gateway to Europe and beyond.
(speaking foreign language)
All: Flint lives matter! (man speaking) People are dying.
Who want to be next? Not me.
So this is the Flint Water Treatment Facility, which is where they failed to treat the water for corrosion, which led to the entire lead crisis.
(crying) It's all right.
And then the rise of ISIS in Libya.
(man shouts) (gun firing) This place is completely annihilated.
This is what the sharp end of the US war on ISIS in Libya looks like.
(men shout in foreign language) Libya is on the brink of falling into chaos.
(theme music playing) (guns firing) (men shouting) Hands up, hands up! Don't shoot! Over the past year, America looked on in disbelief as the water crisis in Flint, Michigan, unfolded.
Today, President Obama declared Flint, Michigan, a disaster area.
Smith: It didn't seem possible that in the 21st century, Americans' lives could be at risk because of the water coming from their taps.
Government failed you.
Hillary Clinton: The governor of that state acted as though he didn't really care.
Recently, both state and city officials have been brought up on felony charges as the people of Flint continue to feel the after-effects of this story of mismanagement, corruption and cover-ups.
(crowd chanting) Flint lives matter! Flint lives matter! We're here at the state capitol where Governor Snyder is going to be giving the State of the State address, but there are hundreds and hundreds of protesters from across Michigan who don't care what the governor has to say.
In fact, they just want to send him a very clear message and they want him gone.
I just want to know-- what are you carrying in your hand? All: Flint lives matter! Shihab-Eldin: Flint, Michigan, is surrounded by 1/5 of the world's surface drinking water.
But in 2013, Governor Snyder's emergency manager made the inexplicable decision to switch the city's water supply to the toxic Flint River to save money, leading to one of the most severe public health crises in the United States and criminal charges for city and state officials.
So this is the Flint Water Treatment Facility, which is where they treat the city's water supply.
But when they made the switch over from Detroit, which came from a lake, to the Flint River, where the water is more corrosive, they failed to treat the water for corrosion, which led to the entire lead crisis that the city is now facing.
(Sheldon Neeley speaking) We're at the limit? Shihab-Eldin: Most of the facility is off-limits to visitors.
But even here, the water appears to be undrinkable.
To find out just how dangerous improperly treated water can be, we met with the scientist who first exposed the alarming levels of lead in Flint's water.
What specifically caused the lead in the water in Flint? The lack of corrosion control.
The Flint River had more chloride in it.
So when this corrosion inhibitor was not added, as required by Federal law, it was allowing the chlorine to disappear and allowing bacteria to grow.
And one of those bacteria was to Legionella.
Reporter: State officials say the new cases push the total number to 91, with 12 deaths during 2014.
We actually predicted it would happen.
We said, "If you do not have corrosion control "in a system like Flint, "you'd expect to see a Legionella outbreak.
You'd expect to see people dying.
" Unfortunately, that prediction proved to be true.
The water was eating holes in the lead pipe.
The water was leaching lead.
And Michigan's Department of Environmental Quality and the EPA-- did they actively try to discredit you or others when you were bringing this to the public's attention? Oh, yeah, we had to fight them.
We had to fight the very agencies we pay to protect us.
And we now know that they knew about this for, you know, a good 18 months and were completely working overtime to make sure no one would find out about it.
There's no doubt in your mind this was a cover-up? Oh, no question.
I mean, the lies that they were telling to cover this mistake up-- if this isn't criminal, I don't know what is.
Shihab-Eldin: As outrage continues against the officials who allowed this to happen, we spoke to the now-former mayor of Flint, Dayne Walling, who personally flipped the switch that started this crisis.
(applause) I pushed the button that closed the valve so that water from the Detroit system was no longer flowing in the water-treatment plant.
It was like cutting a ribbon at a-- at a new business.
And, you know, I look back on that with regret every single day.
You told reporters the city's water is safe to drink.
All of our tests, ever since this year, have been comparable with what we used to get out of Detroit.
How did that come to be? I mean, it feels as though it was obvious.
I-- I believed it was true when I said it.
And it was true-- it was accurate with the information I had.
But it wasn't-- it wasn't right.
Shihab-Eldin: Lee-Anne Walters was the first resident to push for an investigation into the water system she knew was harming her family.
My family's been exposed to lead.
One of my children has been poisoned.
Beginning of June, I developed this lovely rash.
Wow.
It has never gone away since.
My kids started developing rashes.
And we didn't know-- understand, like, what was going on.
We noticed that he started complaining of headaches, giving us a hard time eating.
My son will be five in March.
He weighs 36 lbs.
His twin is 53.
How do you sit by watching the people who put you in office, showing you rashes all over their body, hair loss-- your constituents bringing in all this discolored water, begging you for help, and how do you say you didn't know? I-- I'm deeply, you know, sorry for what's happened with Flint's water crisis, for everyone who's been affected by lead and all the other issues that we've had.
The emergency managers were put in place with this austerity framework.
It was "cut services, raise fees.
" And that was the best that the governor and state were willing to offer a place like Flint.
We happen to be a largely African-American city, a city where there's a high concentration of poverty.
And that's wrong.
Shihab-Eldin: Flint eventually switched back to Detroit's water supply.
But the damage to their lead pipes is so bad that the people still don't trust their water.
We suffer, but we livin'.
We here.
We can't just pack up and leave.
Why not? 'Cause we don't have the money for it.
This is what we got to go through every day, all day, until this problem is fixed.
I don't drink it.
I barely want to wash my dishes with it.
I won't let my granddaughter bathe in it or shower in it or brush her teeth in it because we don't know the long-term effects of this.
I was drinking this water up until, I would say, about a month ago.
And then when I kept seeing on the news-- I said, "Fuck that shit.
" They was sayin' lead and shit.
But I was drinkin' it! You don't trust the government? No-- oh, no! You can't trust 'em.
The only thing you can trust-- it's cold outside right now.
Brown: You imagine yourself waking up, not knowing for two whole years you're drinking poisonous water.
People are dying.
Who want to be next? Not me.
All: Oh, wade in the water Wade in the water, children Wade in the water God's gonna trouble the water Amen! The things that we're going through in 2016, in Flint, Michigan, should be unheard of.
In a country that has been so rich and so vibrant as this, reality is what we're dealing with is third-world-country stuff.
(applause) We knew that the problem was far bigger than they were letting it be known.
But they continued to say that it was fine, and it wasn't.
And now, what's the situation today? It's toxic.
You can't drink it.
You can't brush your teeth with it.
Some people go to other areas just to take baths.
The lead is still in the pipes now, so there is nothing safe about this water.
So there are some people who don't have a car and can't go get supplies, or who are not receiving these supplies? That is correct.
What do those people do? They drink the water.
Shihab-Eldin: The government's response to the crisis has been so slow and so dysfunctional that local law enforcement has taken it upon themselves to step in and help.
I don't trust the government's testing.
In the jail, I'm giving them bottled water.
The inmates have better than the people that are out here.
Isn't there something wrong with that? Everybody's talking.
Mm-hmm.
Everybody-- all the politicians-- everybody's talking.
Somebody had to get off their ass and do it.
And I thought, "I have a jail.
"I've got the community-service workers.
I've got deputies.
I can do this.
" Shihab-Eldin: Sheriff Robert Pickell has worked in Flint for 18 years and he's seen how this once-thriving industrial city became one of the most impoverished in the nation.
General Motors pulled out and we're unable to get the industry to come in.
But you really have to have industry, you know, if you're going to be a vibrant city.
If this was Grosse Pointe or Ann Arbor, this never would have happened.
Shihab-Eldin: Authorities have been replacing the lead-service lines in Flint for months now.
But so far, they've completed less than 1% of the work.
and many homes continue to test positive for elevated levels of lead.
So we're at a community family fun night, where families are bringing their kids in order to play, but also to be tested for lead poisoning.
(chattering) You ready? It's all right, sweetie.
That's all.
Good job! What a big boy today! Almost there.
No, no.
There's no more poke.
We're just going to collect the blood, honey.
Okay? I know.
Little more.
Shihab-Eldin: Young children are especially vulnerable to lead poisoning, which can cause developmental delays, hearing loss, and even death.
Well, he has scars on his legs.
Mine.
Like that.
And they're on both legs.
Mm-hmm.
He was getting bumps all over.
You took him to the doctor? Yeah, they said it was a virus.
They said because of the lead in his blood, he couldn't get rid of it.
How does this affect children in Flint? I mean, what are the repercussions of having lead in the water? Lead destroys kids' potentials.
It creates anti-social behavior.
It reduces IQ.
Brain damage? Oh, yeah.
No, absolutely.
They knew a long time ago that they were poisoning people from it.
They could care less.
(gibberish) Shihab-Eldin: The crisis in Flint caused a nation-wide uproar so intense that in May, President Obama visited Flint and took a sip of filtered local water.
And this used a filter.
But Congressman Dan Kildee, who was born and raised in Flint, says what happened there is just a symptom of a larger crisis spreading across America.
This is an important story because it rips the cover off some of the falsehoods of the current promise that America represents.
This is happening in one way or another all over the country.
You look at older cities that are mostly poor, mostly African-American, and you see a lot of the same things going on-- crumbling schools, empty buildings, no real investment.
We let these cities get to the point where they're just one bad decision away from complete collapse.
The folks making these decisions don't care about people who live in Flint.
Nobody in Flint wants sympathy.
We just want justice.
Five years ago, a violent revolution removed Libyan dictator Muammar Gaddafi from power.
But in the chaos that followed, an attack on US personnel in Benghazi killed our ambassador there and several other employees, sparking an intense partisan debate here at home.
We were misled that there were supposedly protests and then something sprang out of that-- an assault sprang out of that-- What difference at this point does it make? It is our job to figure out what happened and do everything we can to prevent it from ever happening again, Senator.
Lost in that argument, however, is what's happening on the ground in Libya today, where, in the power vacuum Gaddafi left behind, ISIS is beginning to step in and fill the void.
Man: This is the place where time stopped for American in Libya.
It's the US Consulate in Benghazi.
In 2012, the US Ambassador and three other Americans were killed in a Islamist attack by the group Ansar al-Sharia.
But since then, the debate in America has focused on who is to blame for the events that happened that day, not what happened to Libya in the years afterwards.
And what's happened is that Ansar al-Sharia and ISIS have teamed up to control much of the city for years.
While ISIS grew in Syria and Iraq, they're now gaining strength in a Libya which is controlled by two dueling governments.
They've already taken control of an entire city in the center of the country-- Sirte.
And they've made advances all along the coast, including in Benghazi.
For the past 18 months, the forces that are loyal to the Eastern government have been fighting ISIS in Benghazi.
We went to a neighborhood that was liberated from ISIS fighters only days earlier.
How safe is this street? (speaking foreign language) Colonel Jamal al-Zahawi is the commander of the Libyan army brigade that controls this area.
So, this area here has just been freed of ISIS-- Islamic State fighters.
But they've left a lot of surprises behind, like this table here, which is wired to an IED.
You can see the wire go up the frame, so that when you open the door, it explodes.
All this stuff is still very fresh and active.
Evidence of ISIS's presence was everywhere.
Looks like it.
Yes? Yes.
You know? I know this one.
It's a famous brand.
Ostrovsky: While the neighborhood has been reclaimed, it remains an active war zone.
We watched as the colonel's troops attacked an ISIS-controlled stronghold nearby.
They're moving an aircraft missile into position.
That's no airplane, but they've fashioned it so that they can shoot it off of the ground.
I hope they know how to make sure it explodes over there and not right here because that's a 200-lb bomb.
(man speaking foreign language) (men speaking foreign language) This area has been cleared of ISIS, but about a mile that way, they're still there, where that rocket is about to land.
(men talking) (distant explosion) Ostrovsky: The US government recently raised the estimated number of ISIS fighters in Libya to as many as 6,000, double the number from a year earlier.
Now discussions have started on whether the US should support loosening a UN arms embargo on Libya and allow the arming of the forces fighting ISIS.
General Khalifa Haftar is the head of the Libyan Army for the internationally- recognized Eastern government.
He told us what's at stake if ISIS isn't defeated.
(speaking foreign language) Ostrovsky: That's why it's so important for General Haftar to defeat ISIS in Benghazi.
On the outskirts of the city, we visited the frontlines with a group of his special-forces soldiers as they encircled an ISIS stronghold.
(gunfire) So we can hear gunfire probably coming from the cement factory, which we just passed.
They're heading out on a patrol.
The fighting here is house-to-house.
They've put these holes in the walls so that they don't have to walk down the streets.
They use buildings like this, just people's houses, as positions now because this neighborhood has been turned into a frontline.
Wow, that's just a couple hundred yards from here.
Their position is down there.
ISIS is so close, soldiers sit in windows to guard against a surprise attack.
I do not envy this man's job, waiting for a bullet to come through this window.
So right now, they're just trying to draw them out of their holes with their fire.
We sat down with the commander of Haftar's special forces on the frontline, Fadl Faraj al-Hassi.
Unfortunately, Americans stopped paying attention to what's happening in Benghazi after the American ambassador died here.
He was killed by a group called Ansar al-Sharia.
Now there's ISIS here as well.
What's the difference between these two groups? (speaking foreign language) (gunfire popping) No, no, no.
(gunfire) What the fuck is that? Why, why, why, why? There's shooting.
No.
Who's shooting? (speaking English) There's obviously still fighting going on here.
We just heard a couple of shots.
Do you need America's help? (speaking foreign language) So apparently, there's a sniper at the top of the brown house over there.
So we should stay close to the wall when we're moving through this area.
Our camera crew made it safely across the field into cover behind this wall.
But I was 100 yards behind when an ISIS sniper in a nearby house opened fire on us.
(speaking foreign language) Were they shooting out or in? They were shooting out or in? Thank you.
Oh, fuck.
Ostrovsky: They're taking us to another position.
This time, it's one of their artillery-firing positions.
The soldiers took us even closer to the ISIS-held cement factory we'd passed earlier.
They said it was too dangerous without an escort.
So this is what they sent-- a Russian-made tank.
In the previous week, General Haftar had driven ISIS fighters back from much of the city, except here.
Now his fighters needed heavy artillery like this to soften up fortified ISIS defenses.
(gun fires) So what's your objective from this position? (speaking foreign language) (gunfire) This isn't any anti-terrorist operation.
This right here is full-on war.
(fires) Ostrovsky: While these forces seem to be winning the battle here for now, in another part of the country, ISIS has been on the offensive-- like at a checkpoint near the small town of Abu Grain outside the ISIS-controlled city of Sirte, where soldiers from the Islamist-leaning Western government are trying to keep ISIS contained.
Just months before we visited here, ISIS fighters launched a bloody raid.
Here, seen on closed-circuit TV, the ISIS fighters arrive in pick-up trucks, then fire at the checkpoint soldiers in the distance.
One of the ISIS militants brazenly moves into the open without cover, then makes a "cutthroat" gesture to his enemy.
The ISIS fighter on the left is shot.
Before retreating, ISIS soldiers stick around long enough to kill three guards.
Observers like attorney David Tafuri see attacks like these and worry that ISIS is slowly winning the battle for control of Libya.
During the revolution, Tafuri flew to Benghazi to help the rebel government free up $1.
5 billion in frozen Gaddafi assets.
Since then, he's worked alongside Libyan officials to foster good governments within this fractured country.
Libya is on the brink of falling into chaos.
And if something is not done soon, it will become a failed state.
One of the biggest threats to the United States is having more failed states around the world.
If ISIS takes control of a place like Libya, it will become much more powerful than it already is.
It will have access to all of the oil resources that Libya has.
It will have a foothold in North Africa, and ultimately, it will strike against the United States and other Western countries.
Ostrovsky: While we were in Libya, we saw evidence that the United States was at least willing to intervene in Libya on a limited basis.
Overnight, we conducted an airstrike in Libya targeting an ISIL training camp near Sabratha.
The ISIL fighters at these facilities were planning external attacks on US and other Western interests in the region.
Ostrovsky: On the day of the American attack, we set off for the site of the bombing.
The city of Sabratha is all the way over on the western edge of the country and just 50 miles away from Tripoli.
When we arrived, we were told as many as 200 ISIS fighters were still hiding in the city.
It was hard to tell the good guys from the bad.
Ostrovsky: As soon as we got here, we got an escort from the local militia which is a local Islamist militia as well, who up until now claimed that there was no ISIS here.
But they said that they're going to take us to the site of the airstrike now.
And we have to trust them because we don't really have any other choice.
Ostrovsky: At the bomb site, we discovered the power of a US airstrike.
This place is completely annihilated.
This is what the sharp end of the US war on ISIS in Libya looks like.
(man speaking English) So here is some of the ammo that was here when the airstrike took place.
That's a big knife.
They're saying that's for cutting people's heads off.
So this looks like the Islamic State whiteboard because it says the Islamic State Caliphate own it, and obviously, the Islamic State black flag.
While we were at the site, we heard that two Serbian diplomatic personnel, Sladjana Stankovic and Jovica Stepic, were among the dead.
Oh my God, there's some of that woman's hair in here.
That's her watch and jewelry.
The militia commander said he removed her hair and other items on the day of the bombings to help identify her.
The United States and Serbian governments agreed in March to fully investigate the circumstances surrounding the deaths of the diplomats.
The target of the US strike was a Tunisian named Noureddine Chouchane, the alleged mastermind behind two attacks inside Tunisia that claimed the lives of 60 people.
It remains unclear whether Chouchane died in the attack.
But the American strike dealt a blow to ISIS in the region.
This is the city morgue.
This is where they brought a lot of the bodies from the airstrike.
Bloody mattresses, blood all over the floors.
Wow, there's just a pile of body bags in here.
It smells awful.
Ostrovsky: More than 40 ISIS militants were believed to have been killed in the attack.
A few days after our trip to the bomb site, ISIS reminded the residents of Sabratha it hadn't gone away by killing four members of the same security team that had protected us on our visit.
While the American airstrike showed how effective US air power can be in the global fight against ISIS, it was only the third such strike inside Libya in the last five years.
The West and the US are very reluctant to intervene in any country because of the bad experiences that we've had in Iraq and in Afghanistan.
But at the same time, we're caught in this very difficult situation where if we don't intervene, groups like ISIS will take control and take power and ultimately engage in terrorist attacks against the West that will require us to come back and fight them.
Ostrovsky: Late last year, the United States reportedly sent special operations teams to Libya to coordinate the fight against ISIS.
But General Haftar says more can be done to roll back ISIS gains in Libya-- a strategic country whose location along the Mediterranean is the gateway to Europe and beyond.
(speaking foreign language)