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UQ Wire: Commission Confidential - Rove & Zelikow
New book links Karl Rove to 9/11 Commission coverup
Report From Max Holland - Washington DeCoded
INTRODUCTION & MEDIA ADVISORY
Dear members of the media
From Kyle F. Hence
9/11 Citizenswatch
There need to be hearings now about this deeply compromised commission. Rove and Zelikow must be issued subpoenas, as
should the telecom companies to get their cell phone records of all communications between Zelikow and senior officials
at the White House. Accountability and transparency are hallmarks of a healthy government beholden to the people it
serves. With this Commission we got neither and as a result the entire Commission Report must be called into question. A
new investigation is now required to do what the Zelikow Commission did not do, fulfill its mandate to provide a "full
accounting of the facts and circumstances" surrounding the September 11th attacks.
9/11 CitizensWatch, which I served as Co-Director, was the first to formally call for the resignation of Zelikow,
closely followed by the Jersey widows of the 9/11 Family Steering Committee. We were far more right and justified than
we even knew at the time. And now that we know this about Zelikow and we know that the Commission failed to answer 70%
of the questions posed by the Family Steering Committee the case is now clear the U.S. Government must convene a new
investigation, this time, co-chaired by a member of the 9/11 Family Steering Committee and a formally appointed public
advocate who sits with the Commissioners. But first hearings are in order and should be conducted immediately by the
House Oversight Committee and Senate Government Affairs Committee. It's time to do right by the victims, their families
and the nation and re-open this 9/11 investigation. Chairman Kean and Vice-Chair Hamilton should be called upon to fully
support this new investigation in light of their betrayal of their promise to conduct a full and fair independent
investigation.
9/11 CitizensWatch will soon issue an open letter to the Congress on this issue. And one to the former Commissions and
staff. Look for it ahead of the release of Shenon's book on the 5th.
Regards,
Kyle F. Hence
9/11 Citizenswatch
Also, check out:
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Washington DeCoded - http://www.washingtondecoded.com
Political language is designed to make lies sound truthful . . .
and to give an appearance of solidity to pure wind.
George Orwell, 1946
Commission Confidential
EXTRA By Max Holland
In a revelation bound to cast a pall over the 9/11 Commission, Philip Shenon will report in a forthcoming book that the
panel's executive director, Philip Zelikow, engaged in “surreptitious” communications with presidential adviser Karl
Rove and other Bush administration officials during the commission's 20-month investigation into the 9/11 attacks.
Shenon, who led The New York Times' coverage of the 9/11 panel, reveals the Zelikow-Rove connection in a new book
entitled The Commission: The Uncensored History of the 9/11 Investigation, to be published next month by Twelve Books.
The Commission is under an embargo until its February 5 publication, but Washington DeCoded managed to purchase a copy
of the abridged audio version from a New York bookstore.
In what's termed an "investigation of the investigation," Shenon purports to tell the story of the commission from start
to finish. The book's critical revelations, however, revolve almost entirely around the figure of Philip Zelikow, a
University of Virginia professor and director of the Miller Center of Public Affairs prior to his service as the
commission's executive director. Shenon delivers a blistering account of Zelikow's role and leadership, and an implicit
criticism of the commissioners for appointing Zelikow in the first place, and then allowing him to stay on after his
myriad conflicts-of-interest were revealed under oath.
Shenon’s narrative is built from extensive interviews with staff members and several, if not all, the commissioners. He
depicts Zelikow as exploiting his central position to negate or neutralize criticism of the Bush administration so that
the White House would not bear, in November 2004, the political burden of failing to prevent the attacks.
The Commission includes these specific revelations:
--Kean and Hamilton appreciated that Zelikow was a friend and former colleague of then-national security adviser
Condoleeza Rice, one of the principal officials whose conduct would be scrutinized. Zelikow had served with her on the
National Security Council (NSC) during the presidency of Bush's father, and they had written a book together about
German reunification. The commission co-chairmen also knew of Zelikow's October 2001 appointment to the President's
Foreign Intelligence Advisory Board. According to Shenon, however, Zelikow failed to disclose several additional and
egregious conflicts-of-interest, among them, the fact that he had been a member of Rice's NSC transition team in
2000-01. In that capacity, Zelikow had been the "architect" responsible for demoting Richard Clarke and his
counter-terrorism team within the NSC. As Shenon puts it, Zelikow "had laid the groundwork for much of went wrong at the
White House in the weeks and months before September 11. Would he want people to know that?"
--Karen Heitkotter, the commission's executive secretary, was taken aback on June 23, 2003 when she answered the
telephone for Zelikow at 4:40 PM and heard a voice intone, “This is Karl Rove. I’m looking for Philip.” Heitkotter knew
that Zelikow had promised the commissioners he would cut off all contact with senior officials in the Bush
administration. Nonetheless, she gave Zelikow’s cell phone number to Rove. The next day there was another call from Rove
at 11:35 AM. Subsequently, Zelikow would claim that these calls pertained to his “old job” at the University of
Virginia’s Miller Center.
--The full extent of Zelikow's involvement with the incumbent administration only became evident within the commission
on October 8, 2003, almost halfway into the panel’s term. Determined to blunt the Jersey Girls’ call for his resignation
or recusal, Zelikow proposed that he be questioned under oath about his activities. General counsel Daniel Marcus, who
conducted the sworn interview, brought a copy of the résumé Zelikow had provided to Kean and Hamilton. None of the
activities Zelikow now detailed, his role on Rice's transition team, his instrumental role in Clarke's demotion, his
authorship of a post-9/11 pre-emptive attack Doctrine, were mentioned in the résumé. Zelikow blandly asserted to Marcus
that he did not see “any of this as a major conflict of interest.” Marcus’s conclusion was that Zelikow “should never
have been hired” as executive director. But the only upshot from these shocking disclosures was that Zelikow was
involuntarily recused from that part of the investigation which involved the presidential transition, and barred from
participating in subsequent interviews of senior Bush administration officials.
--Some two months later, as Bob Kerrey replaced disgruntled ex-Senator Max Cleland on the panel, the former Nebraska
senator became astounded once he understood Zelikow’s obvious conflicts-of-interest and his very limited recusal. Kerrey
could not understand how Kean and Hamilton had ever agreed to put Zelikow in charge. “Look Tom,” Kerrey told Kean,
“either he goes or I go.” But Kean persuaded Kerrey to drop his ultimatum.
--In late 2003, around the time his involuntary recusal was imposed, Zelikow called executive secretary Karen Heitkotter
into his office and ordered her to stop creating records of his incoming telephone calls. Concerned that the order was
improper, a nervous Heitkotter soon told general counsel Marcus. He advised her to ignore Zelikow’s order and continue
to keep a log of his telephone calls, insofar as she knew about them.
--Although Shenon could not obtain from the GAO an unredacted record of Zelikow’s cell phone use--and Zelikow used his
cell phone for most of his outgoing calls--the Times reporter was able to establish that Zelikow made numerous calls to
“456” numbers in the 202 area code, which is the exclusive prefix of the White House.
--Even after his recusal, Zelikow continued to insert himself into the work of "Team 3," the task force responsible for
the most politically-sensitive part of the investigation, counter-terrorism policy. This brief encompassed the White
House, which meant investigating the conduct of Condoleeza Rice and Richard Clarke during the months prior to 9/11. Team
3 staffers would come to believe that Zelikow prevented them from submitting a report that would have depicted Rice's
performance as "amount[ing] to incompetence, or something not far from it."
--In Without Precedent, Kean and Hamilton's 2006 account of the 9/11 panel, the two co-chairmen wrote that Zelikow was a
controversial choice
. . [but] we had full confidence in Zelikow's independence and ability--and frankly, we wanted somebody who was
unafraid to roil the waters from time to time. He recused himself from anything involving his work on the NSC
transition. He made clear his determination to conduct an aggressive investigation. And he was above all a historian
dedicated to a full airing of the facts. It was clear from people who knew and worked with him that Zelikow would not
lead a staff inquiry that did anything less than uncover the most detailed and accurate history of 9/11.
Shenon's radically different account of the commission's inner workings promises to achieve what none of the crackpot
conspiracy theorists have managed to do so far: put the 9/11 Commission in disrepute.
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