The Siege (1998)

Denzel Washington: Anthony Hubbard

Photos 

Quotes 

• [Frank Haddad's son is among those who have been rounded up by the Army] 

  General William Devereaux : And his name is Haddad?

  Anthony 'Hub' Hubbard : Frank Haddad, Junior.

  Colonel Hardwick, Army Intelligence : His father's a Shiite. We're checking him out.

  Anthony 'Hub' Hubbard : Check this out, pal. His father's a federal agent for ten years.

  Colonel Hardwick, Army Intelligence : Don't get in my face, Hubbard. I might decide you're an Ethiopian.

  Anthony 'Hub' Hubbard : And you're just stupid enough to think that's an insult.

• Anthony 'Hub' Hubbard : [upon learning Devereaux's plans to torture Tariq]  Are you people insane? What are you talkin' about?

  General William Devereaux : The time has come for one man to suffer in order to save hundreds of lives.

  Anthony 'Hub' Hubbard : One Man? What about two, huh? What about six? How about public executions?

  General William Devereaux : Feel free to leave whenever you like, Agent Hubbard.

  Anthony 'Hub' Hubbard : Come on General, you've lost men, I've lost men, but you - you, you *can't* do this! What, what if they don't even want the sheik, have you considered that? What if what they really want is for us to herd our children into stadiums like we're doing? And put soldiers on the street and have Americans looking over their shoulders? Bend the law, shred the Constitution just a little bit? Because if we torture him, General, we do that and everything we have fought, and bled, and died for is over. And they've won. They've already won!

  General William Devereaux : Escort him out.

• Anthony 'Hub' Hubbard : You will go to prison...

  Agent Frank Haddad : You know what happens to women in prison?

  Elise Kraft : Mmmmm... yummm!

• Anthony 'Hub' Hubbard : "London. Paris. Athens. Rome. Belfast. Beruit. We're not the first city to have to deal with terrorism. Tel Aviv. The day after they bombed the market in Tel Aviv the market was open and it was full. This is New York City. We can take it."

• Anthony 'Hub' Hubbard : [conversing with Elise]  You think I want to lose them? You think I'm in the losing people business, huh? If I don't take them out properly, they hit the streets in two hours! I don't care if I find semtex, plutonium, dynamite; self-lighting charcoal briquettes! Without the right warrant, they walk.

• Anthony 'Hub' Hubbard : [to General Devereaux during the Mexican standoff]  You have the right to remain silent. You have the right to a fair trial. You have the right not to be tortured, not to be murdered, rights that you took away from Tariq Husseini. You have those rights because of the men who came before you who wore that uniform. Because of the men and women who are standing here right now waiting for you to give them the order to fire. Give them the order, General.

  General William Devereaux : Do you think that I would hesitate to kill you, or every Federal Agent in this room, if I thought it was in the best interest of my country?

  Anthony 'Hub' Hubbard : No, no, no, you wouldn't hesitate, I know that. But they might.

  [motions to soldiers in room] 

  Anthony 'Hub' Hubbard : Give the order. Make murderers out of these young kids, give the order.

  [Devereaux is silent] 

  Anthony 'Hub' Hubbard : Give 'em the order, General!

  [pause] 

  General William Devereaux : [over his shoulder]  Stand down, Sergeant.

• General William Devereaux : Are you questioning my patriotism?

  Anthony 'Hub' Hubbard : I am questioning your judgment!

  General William Devereaux : [after a pause]  I am here serving my president, and quite possibly not in the best interests of our nation. My profession does not allow me to make that kind of distinction.

• General William Devereaux : Elise Kraft wouldn't know the difference between a sheik and a prophylactic of the same name.

  Anthony 'Hub' Hubbard : Thanks for the heads-up.

• Anthony 'Hub' Hubbard : [upon informing Devereaux that he is being arrested]  William Devereaux, you are under arrest for the torture and murder of Tariq Husseini, an American citizen.

  General William Devereaux : Is this some kind of a joke?

  Anthony 'Hub' Hubbard : You see me laughing, general?

• Sharon Bridger : I ran the network in Iraq for two years. Samir recruited them from among the Sheik's followers and I trained them in the north. The Sheik was going to help us overthrow Saddam, I mean, he was our ally. We were financing him. Then there was a policy shift. It's not like we sold them out exactly, we just stopped helping them.

  [pause] 

  Sharon Bridger : They were slaughtered.

  [pause] 

  Sharon Bridger : So I uh, quit the operation. I took another assignment.

  Anthony 'Hub' Hubbard : But you helped them first.

  Sharon Bridger : What do you mean?

  Anthony 'Hub' Hubbard : You said they were being slaughtered, they needed to get out, they were on the terrorist watch list, so you got them visas, you and Samir.

  Sharon Bridger : I promised them we would take care of them, they were working for us!

  Anthony 'Hub' Hubbard : Doing what, exactly?

  Sharon Bridger : I told you!

  Anthony 'Hub' Hubbard : No you didn't. You told me that you trained them. Tradecrafts, subversion. That's what you said, wasn't it? You're leaving something out, aren't you, Sharon? You taught them how to make bombs. That's why you were looking for the wiring signatures on that blue bus. And now they're here, doing what you taught them how to do. Right?

  Sharon Bridger : You've got to let me... make this right! Please?

• Anthony 'Hub' Hubbard : All right, I'll tell you what I'm going to do. I'm going to take your boy Samir downtown, I'm going to strap his ass to a polygraph machine and I'm going to ask him questions about you. Then I'm going to take those transcripts, I'm going to take them to a friend of mine at the New York Times who just loves to write stories about the link between the CIA and political horror shows.

  Sharon Bridger : If you burn him, you'll lose any chance you've got.

  Anthony 'Hub' Hubbard : So what? It's lose-lose, isn't that what you said?

  Sharon Bridger : I'm not fucking with you.

  Anthony 'Hub' Hubbard : How could you possibly remember who you're fucking?

• [Hubbard and Haddad are conversing as they are walking] 

  Agent Frank Haddad : He says, "If you're on the State Department Terrorist Watch List, you cannot get into the country." So I tell him, "Ali Waziri was on the watch list, and he got in!"

  Anthony 'Hub' Hubbard : What did State Department tell you to do?

  Agent Frank Haddad : Told me to call INS.

  Anthony 'Hub' Hubbard : All right, what did INS say?

  Agent Frank Haddad : Told me to call State.

  [as they are crossing in front of an idling bus, the bus's engine backfires, emitting a noise similar to that of a gunshot. Everyone in the area takes cover, but upon hearing the bus's engine rev, get back up and continue about their business. In frustration, Hubbard throws his coffee cup at the bus's windshield] 

• [a big discussion is underway about the fight against terrorism in New York City] 

  Chief of Staff : General?

  General William Devereaux : The Army is a broadsword, not a scalpel. Trust me, senator, you do not want the Army in an American city.

  Chief of Staff : But hypothetically... how long would it take you to deploy?

  General William Devereaux : You know we can't go in until the President invokes the War Powers Act.

  Chief of Staff : I understand that, General. Let's assume, for a moment, that the order has been given.

  General William Devereaux : Twelve hours after the President gives the order we can be on the ground. One light infantry division of 10,700 men, elements of the Rapid Deployment Force, Special Forces, Delta, APCs, helicopters, tanks, and of course the ubiquitous M16A1 assault rifle. A humble enough weapon until you see it in the hands of a man outside your local bowling alley or 7-11. It will be noisy. It will be scary, and it will not be mistaken for a VFW parade.

  Army General : I wanna remind you, General Devereaux does not speak for official Army policy. A police function has become accepted as our role in Haiti and Somalia.

  General William Devereaux : Make no mistake. We will hunt down the enemy. We will find the enemy. And we will kill the enemy. No card-carrying member of the ACLU is more deadset against it than I am. Which is why I urge you - I *implore* you - do not consider this as an option.

  Chief of Staff : I know just what the President's going to say: that's exactly why your the only man for the job.

  [cut to a clip of unseen hands cleansing themselves] 

  FBI Director : I'd like to introduce Anthony Hubbard. He's my ASAC on the ground up in Brooklyn. His team was able to take out the first cell within 36 hours of the attack on the #87 Bus. He's also the man who took out the terrorist in that schoolhouse.

  [This last sentence overlays a clip of the hands assembling an explosive charge] 

  FBI Director : Hub?

  [Hubbard stands up] 

  Anthony 'Hub' Hubbard : The job of the FBI is to - to respond.

  [the mystery hands turn the key in the ignition of a van] 

  Anthony 'Hub' Hubbard : The job of the Army is to defend. With the presence of the Army, our ability to investigate will be seriously inhibited.

  [the van pulls out of a garage] 

  Anthony 'Hub' Hubbard : It will push these criminals further underground. Most importantly, you can't fight a war against an enemy you can't see.

  [the van makes its way through the streets] 

  Anthony 'Hub' Hubbard : I think if we exercise patience and restraint - allow our men and women up in New York to do their job, I think it'll be effective.

  [long pause; the van is seen coming off the Queensboro Bridge as it enters Manhattan] 

  Chief of Staff : Thank you, Agent Hubbard. I, too, think that we should proceed with caution. Some of you may not know Sharon Bridger. Sharon was posted in Iraq as part of our covert operations during the Gulf War. Sharon?

  [Elise Kraft/Sharon Bridger comes in with several folders] 

  Sharon Bridger : Sir, if I may?

  [She starts passing the folders around, intercut with clips of busy Manhattan streets, and the explosives packed into the back of the van] 

  Sharon Bridger : I'm sure everyone here knows the traditional model of the terrorist network: one cell controls all others. Cut off one head, the body will wither.

  [Cut to clips of One Federal Plaza; Sharon continues in voice-over] 

  Sharon Bridger : Unfortunately the old wisdom no longer applies.

  [We see the van make a right turn] 

  Sharon Bridger : The new paradigm is each cell operates independent of the other. Cut off one head, another rises up in its place.

  [the van cruises slowly down the street] 

  Sharon Bridger : Bus 87 was the work of the first cell, whose remaining elements, we believe, the FBI took down.

  [the camera pans down the side of One Federal Plaza] 

  Sharon Bridger : This then activated cell #2:

  [the camera closes in on the van] 

  Sharon Bridger : the theater gala.

  [Agents Frank Haddad and Danny Sussman leave the building and exchange some words with two agents in the plaza] 

  Sharon Bridger : At the most we believe there are three, possibly four cells.

  Chief of Staff : Well then how much longer until we can take out the last cell?

  [Long pause; the van speeds up, and jumps the concrete barriers in front of the plaza, on a collision course with the lobby] 

  Sharon Bridger : We don't know.

  [the van crashes through the windows of the lobby. Flash cut to an aerial view over Manhattan. The camera pans down on numerous emergency vehicles in front of the ruins of One Federal Plaza] 

• [Hubbard is looking at photos of Elise when Frank comes in] 

  Agent Frank Haddad : You sleep here?

  [Hubbard looks up] 

  Agent Frank Haddad : Immigration called.

  [Cuts to Frank and Hubbard interviewing an INS official who is showing them a false-bottomed suitcase full of money, while Hubbard chews on an orange] 

  INS Official : Underneath the false bottom we found this, all in small bills, so we figure it's smurf, right?

  Anthony 'Hub' Hubbard : Mmmm-hmmm.

  INS Official : And considering yesterday's terrorist alert and where he's been recently, we better call Frank.

  Agent Frank Haddad : Who's trying to score points with his boss, bigtime.

  Anthony 'Hub' Hubbard : Has he broken any laws?

  INS Official : No sir. He is $20 under the $10,000 limit.

  Agent Frank Haddad : [immediately pulls a $20 bill out of his wallet and sets it on top of the money in the suitcase]  Not anymore.

• [the agents discuss the bus that was paint bombed] 

  Anthony 'Hub' Hubbard : See if any was sold in quantity the last month. Danny, find out what stop these guys got on the bus, maybe there's a witness.

  Agent Frank Haddad : Hub, I think we're all eager to give our weekends up on this, I know I am... but it just occurs to me, has any one committed a crime here? I mean, assault with a deadly color...?

  Anthony 'Hub' Hubbard : Here's what I don't like: they know explosives. They know our response time. They put in a call and walk.

• [Floyd Rose hops into the backseat of a car where Tina and Hubbard are sitting, observing a suspected CIA safehouse] 

  Anthony 'Hub' Hubbard : How's she living, Floyd?

  FBI Agent Floyd Rose : She's got two in the Plymouth, at least three inside, and see that guy walking his dog?

  Anthony 'Hub' Hubbard : Mmmm-hmmm.

  FBI Agent Floyd Rose : Well he did his business about an hour ago and they're still walking.

  [Cuts to Frank and Danny observing from another car] 

  Danny Sussman : I had a dog like that once.

  Agent Frank Haddad : It's not his dog, numbnuts. They're spies.

  Danny Sussman : [incredulously]  The dog works for the CIA?

• [Hub and Haddad are being summoned to the Bus 99 incident] 

  Anthony 'Hub' Hubbard : [getting in the car]  How soon can we get there?

  Agent Frank Haddad : This time of day, maybe tomorrow.

• [the agents observe and capture Samir] 

  Agent Frank Haddad : His name's Samir Nazhde. Teaches Arab Studies at Brooklyn College. He sponsored Ail Waziri's student visa. And dig this - his brother blew up a movie theatre in Tel Aviv.

  Elise Kraft : You might consider leaving him alone.

  Anthony 'Hub' Hubbard : Why would I consider doing that?

  Elise Kraft : Play him like a cop and haul him in now and get your arrest, or tag him and let him lead you to the really big fish.

  Agent Frank Haddad : [curses in Arabic]  You're fishing and he's getting visas for bombers.

  Elise Kraft : You ever heard of catch and release?

  Agent Frank Haddad : Yes, and he's on the next plane for Tunis.

  [Samir is now leaving a cafe] 

  Anthony 'Hub' Hubbard : Take him down.

  Agent Frank Haddad : [keys his radio]  Go.

  [Three agents take Samir, and lead them to Hub's car] 

  Agent Frank Haddad : Samir Nazhde, my name is Frank Haddad, I'm a Federal Agent. We have reason to believe you are an accessory to the bombing of Bus 87.

  Samir Nazhde : Are you crazy?

  Agent Frank Haddad : You are an associate of Ali Waziri.

  Samir Nazhde : Who? I know no one by that name.

  Agent Frank Haddad : You got him a student visa.

  Samir Nazhde : I sign these applications as a matter of course, hundreds of them. Everyone wants to come to the land of opportunity and Baywatch.

  Agent Frank Haddad : You spent two years in Israeli jails during the Intifada.

  Samir Nazhde : The only ones who didn't were women like you.

  [Frank backhands Samir across the mouth] 

  Anthony 'Hub' Hubbard : Frank...

  Agent Frank Haddad : Sorry, personal matter.

  [to Samir] 

  Agent Frank Haddad : You're going downtown, my friend.

  Samir Nazhde : You cannot hold me. I know my rights! I watch American television!

  Agent Frank Haddad : Defrauding the INS is a federal offense.

  [hands him off to the agents] 

  Agent Frank Haddad : Reservation for one, please.

• [Hub and Floyd arrive at the Redhook chop shop in a beat-up car in need of service] 

  Anthony 'Hub' Hubbard : [to a mechanic]  Yo.

  [the Hispanic mechanic looks up from under the car he is servicing] 

  Mechanic : Que pasa?

  Anthony 'Hub' Hubbard : Tariq around?

  [the mechanic gestures to the office in the back. Hub eyes the other mechanics in the shop, including a mechanic changing a tire and one doing a compression check. As he enters the office, Tariq is talking on the phone to someone in Arabic] 

  Anthony 'Hub' Hubbard : Tariq?

  [Tariq holds a finger up to indicate "hold on," then quickly lowers the receiver] 

  Tariq Husseini, Auto Shop Owner : How can I help you?

  Anthony 'Hub' Hubbard : You're Tariq Husseini?

  Tariq Husseini, Auto Shop Owner : He's out.

  Anthony 'Hub' Hubbard : Damn. Do you think you could give him a message?

  Tariq Husseini, Auto Shop Owner : Of course.

  Anthony 'Hub' Hubbard : Tell him the FBI is after him.

  Tariq Husseini, Auto Shop Owner : You're joking.

  Anthony 'Hub' Hubbard : [takes out his gun and badge]  I'm not joking. Put the phone down, put your hands in the air.

• [Hubbard holds a briefing on the first identified bomber from Bus #87] 

  Anthony 'Hub' Hubbard : Ladies and gentlemen, meet the late, uh, Ali Waziri, one of the bombers of Bus 87. We were able to trace this sucker to a... group in Ramallah. That's West Bank - not West Side - for all of you just joining us from Nebraska. Tina?

  Tina Osu : We've pulled his landing card and his I-94. So now we know he came in three days ago, out of Frankfurt. What we need now is to fill in the time between his arrival and the incident. We need all known associations, and most of all, we need an address. Here's the kicker, guys: Ali Waziri was on the Terrorist Watch List. How'd he get into the country?

• [Hubbard approaches Elise at the warehouse where Bus 4199 is being stored] 

  Elise Kraft : Hi there.

  Anthony 'Hub' Hubbard : I'm Anthony Hubbard. I'm the Assistant Special Agent in Charge.

  Elise Kraft : Oh, shit! I've been trying to liaise with you all day. I'm Elise Kraft, National Security Council.

  [shakes hands with Hubbard] 

  Anthony 'Hub' Hubbard : Pleasure. You been trying to liaise with me all day? Have you checked the phone book? We've got fourteen lines, not including the unlisted ones.

  [pause] 

  Elise Kraft : Hi, I'm Elise Kraft, National Security Council.

  Anthony 'Hub' Hubbard : How ya doin'? I'm Colin Powell. Whaddaya people want with my bus?