Bush's Brain Involved in 9/11 Comission Report

NYT's Reporter Claims Rove Influenced 9/11 Commission Report
By Max Holland
Washington Decoded
Wednesday 30 January 2008

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 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 resume 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 resume. 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.
The Commission will be reviewed in the February issue of Washington DeCoded.

Congress and the Drums of War in Iran

We have traitors on both side of the isle in Washington. They voted yesterday "to support the prudent and calibrated use of all instruments of United States national power in Iraq, including diplomatic, economic, intelligence, and military instruments, in support of the policy described in paragraph (3) with respect to the Government of the Islamic Republic of Iran and its proxies". Additionally, they officially called the Islamic Revolutionary Guards as "TERRORISTS". Those signing on were Clinton, Feinstein, Reed, Reid, Levin, and Durbin among the many Democrats and all the Republicans with the exception of Hagel and Lugar. McCain, although he was a cosponser, did not vote. Neither did Obama. Some of the text follows:

SA 2948. Mr. KYL (for himself, Mr. LIEBERMAN, Mr. COLEMAN, and Mr. GRAHAM) submitted an amendment intended to be proposed to amendment SA 2011 proposed by Mr. NELSON of Nebraska (for Mr. LEVIN) to the bill H.R. 1585, to authorize appropriations for fiscal year 2008 for military activities of the Department of Defense, for military construction, and for defense activities of the Department of Energy, to prescribe military personnel strengths for such fiscal year, and for other purposes; which was ordered to lie on the table; as follows:

At the end of subtitle C of title XV, add the following:

SEC. 1535. SENSE OF SENATE ON IRAN.

(a) Findings.--The Senate makes the following findings:

(1) General David Petraeus, commander of the Multi-National Force Iraq, stated in testimony before a joint session of the Committee on Armed Services and the Committee on Foreign Affairs of the House of Representatives on September 10, 2007, that ``[i]t is increasingly apparent to both coalition and Iraqi leaders that Iran, through the use of the Iranian Republican Guard Corps Qods Force, seeks to turn the Shi'a militia extremists into a Hezbollah-like force to serve its interests and fight a proxy war against the Iraqi state and coalition forces in Iraq''.

(2) Ambassador Ryan Crocker, United States Ambassador to Iraq, stated in testimony before a joint session of the Committee on Armed Services and the Committee on Foreign Affairs of the House of Representatives on September 10, 2007, that ``Iran plays a harmful role in Iraq. While claiming to support Iraq in its transition, Iran has actively undermined it by providing lethal capabilities to the enemies of the Iraqi state''.

(3) The most recent National Intelligence Estimate on Iraq, published in August 2007, states that ``Iran has been intensifying aspects of its lethal support for select groups of Iraqi Shia militants, particularly the JAM [Jaysh al-Mahdi], since at least the beginning of 2006. Explosively formed penetrator (EFP) attacks have risen dramatically''.

(4) The Report of the Independent Commission on the Security Forces of Iraq, released on September 6, 2007, states that ``[t]he Commission concludes that the evidence of Iran's increasing activism in the southeastern part of the country, including Basra and Diyala provinces, is compelling ..... It is an accepted fact that most of the sophisticated weapons being used to `defeat' our armor protection comes across the border from Iran with relative impunity''.

(5) General (Ret.) James Jones, chairman of the Independent Commission on the Security Forces of Iraq, stated in testimony before the Committee on Armed Services of the Senate on September 6, 2007, that ``[w]e judge that the goings-on across the Iranian border in particular are of extreme severity and have the potential of at least delaying our efforts inside the country. Many of the arms and weapons that kill and maim our soldiers are coming from across the Iranian border''.

(6) General Petraeus said of Iranian support for extremist activity in Iraq on April 26, 2007, that ``[w]e know that it goes as high as [Brig. Gen. Qassem] Suleimani, who is the head of the Qods Force ..... We believe that he works directly for the supreme leader of the country''.

(7) Mahmoud Ahmedinejad, the president of Iran, stated on August 28, 2007, with respect to the United States presence in Iraq, that ``[t]he political power of the occupiers is collapsing rapidly. Soon we will see a huge power vacuum in the region. Of course we are prepared to fill the gap''.

(8) Ambassador Crocker testified to Congress, with respect to President Ahmedinejad's statement, on September 11, 2007, that ``[t]he Iranian involvement in Iraq--its support for extremist militias, training, connections to Lebanese Hezbollah, provision of munitions that are used against our force as well as the Iraqis--are all, in my view, a pretty clear demonstration that Ahmedinejad means what he says, and is already trying to implement it to the best of his ability''.

(9) General Petraeus stated on September 12, 2007, with respect to evidence of the complicity of Iran in the murder of members of the Armed Forces of the United States in Iraq, that ``[t]e evidence is very, very clear. We captured it when we captured Qais Khazali, the Lebanese Hezbollah deputy commander, and others, and it's in black and white ..... We interrogated these individuals. We have on tape ..... Qais Khazali himself. When asked, could you have done what you have done without Iranian support, he literally throws up his hands and laughs and says, of course not ..... So they told us about the amounts of money that they have received. They told us about the training that they received. They told us about the ammunition and sophisticated weaponry and all of that that they received''.

(10) General Petraeus further stated on September 14, 2007, that ``[w]hat we have got is evidence. This is not intelligence. This is evidence, off computers that we captured, documents and so forth ..... In one case, a 22-page document that lays out the planning, reconnaissance, rehearsal, conduct, and aftermath of the operation conducted that resulted in the death of five of our soldiers in Karbala back in January''.

(11) The Department of Defense report to Congress entitled ``Measuring Stability and Security in Iraq'' and released on September 18, 2007, consistent with section 9010 of Public Law 109-289, states that ``[t]here has been no decrease in Iranian training and funding of illegal Shi'a militias in Iraq that attack Iraqi and Coalition forces and civilians ..... Tehran's support for these groups is one of the greatest impediments to progress on reconciliation''.

(12) The Department of Defense report further states, with respect to Iranian support for Shi'a extremist groups in Iraq, that ``[m]ost of the explosives and ammunition used by these groups are provided by the Iranian Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps-Qods Force ..... For the period of June through the end of August, [explosively formed penetrator] events are projected to rise by 39 percent over the period of March through May''.

(13) Since May 2007, Ambassador Crocker has held three rounds of talks in Baghdad on Iraq security with representatives of the Government of the Islamic Republic of Iran.

(14) Ambassador Crocker testified before Congress on September 10, 2007, with respect to these talks, stating that ``I laid out the concerns we had over Iranian activity that was damaging to Iraq's security, but found no readiness on Iranians' side at all to engage seriously on these issues. The impression I came with after a couple rounds is that the Iranians were interested simply in the appearance of discussions, of being seen to be at the table with the U.S. as an arbiter of Iraq's present and future, rather than actually doing serious business ..... Right now, I haven't seen any sign of earnest or seriousness on the Iranian side''.

(15) Ambassador Crocker testified before Congress on September 11, 2007, stating that ``[w]e have seen nothing on the ground that would suggest that the Iranians are altering what they're doing in support of extremist elements that are going after our forces as well as the Iraqis''.

(b) Sense of Senate.--It is the sense of the Senate--

(1) that the manner in which the United States transitions and structures its military presence in Iraq will have critical long-term consequences for the future of the Persian Gulf and the Middle East, in particular with regard to the capability of the Government of the Islamic Republic of Iran to pose a threat to the security of the region, the prospects for democracy for the people of the region, and the health of the global economy;

(2) that it is a vital national interest of the United States to prevent the Government of the Islamic Republic of Iran from turning Shi'a militia extremists in Iraq into a Hezbollah-like force that could serve its interests inside Iraq, including by overwhelming, subverting, or co-opting institutions of the legitimate Government of Iraq;

(3) that it should be the policy of the United States to combat, contain, and roll back the violent activities and destabilizing influence inside Iraq of the Government of the Islamic Republic of Iran, its foreign facilitators such as Lebanese Hezbollah, and its indigenous Iraqi proxies;

(4) to support the prudent and calibrated use of all instruments of United States national power in Iraq, including diplomatic, economic, intelligence, and military instruments, in support of the policy described in

[Page: S11866] GPO's PDF

paragraph (3) with respect to the Government of the Islamic Republic of Iran and its proxies;

(5) that the United States should designate the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps as a foreign terrorist organization under section 219 of the Immigration and Nationality Act and place the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps on the list of Specially Designated Global Terrorists, as established under the International Emergency Economic Powers Act and initiated under Executive Order 13224; and

(6) that the Department of the Treasury should act with all possible expediency to complete the listing of those entities targeted under United Nations Security Council Resolutions 1737 and 1747 adopted unanimously on December 23, 2006 and March 24, 2007, respectively.

Additionally, they slipped this in too:

SA 2951. Mrs. DOLE submitted an amendment intended to be proposed to amendment SA 2011 proposed by Mr. NELSON of Nebraska (for Mr. LEVIN) to the bill H.R. 1585, to authorize appropriations for fiscal year 2008 for military activities of the Department of Defense, for military construction, and for defense activities of the Department of Energy, to prescribe military personnel strengths for such fiscal year, and for other purposes; which was ordered to lie on the table; as follows:

At the end of title X, add the following:

SEC. 1070. NOTIFICATION OF CERTAIN RESIDENTS AND CIVILIAN EMPLOYEES AT CAMP LEJEUNE, NORTH CAROLINA, OF EXPOSURE TO DRINKING WATER CONTAMINATION.

(a) Notification of Individuals Served by Tarawa Terrace Water Distribution System, Including Knox Trailer Park.--Not later than one year after the date of the enactment of this Act, the Secretary of the Navy shall make reasonable efforts to identify and notify directly individuals who were served by the Tarawa Terrace Water Distribution System, including Knox Trailer Park, at Camp Lejeune, North Carolina, during the years 1958 through 1987 that they may have been exposed to drinking water contaminated with tetrachloroethylene (PCE).

Apparently, while condemning Iran and voting to use whatever means necessary to bend them to our will, they wanted to mention, "Oh, by the way, the water at Camp Lejune is contaminated and sometime in the next year we will find out who was living there thirty years ago and let them know that they might want to go see a doctor if they are still alive".

Who are these crazy people in Washington representing? They do NOT represent me. Do they represent you?

My family and I were planning to go to Washington this weekend to attend the march on Saturday. We have changed our plans at the last minute. Although we would love to be a part of the activities, we will wait and go to Washington when we can visit Congress. But we have to catch them before they leave on vacation. I wish I could have that many vacation days. I will end this post with a bumper sticker quote:

"If progress means to move forward, what does Congress mean?"

On Being the Change in a Free Speech Zone

As a teenage girl, I wished to grow up being a teacher of peace. I took the required history classes in high school, all taught by gym teachers and sexual deviants. (In Mr. Lafavie's class, if you wore a short skirt and sat on the front row you were guaranteed a good grade. I was not that girl.) I thought, "Why do they only teach about the wars and war generals. Where is the history of the peacemakers?".
I was on my own on this one. I could not rely on the public school system to teach me. Early on, in elementary school, I was labeled as "gifted". The problem came when I entered high school and got involved in too many extracurricular activities; band, drama, chorus, part time job, bowling league and boyfriends. Looking back, I am not surprised that my grades slipped. I even failed AP English. My failure became a blessing.
I was placed in a normal level English class taught by a very inspirational teacher we called Bev. I was leary about being in a regular level class filled with the "popular" kids; cheerleaders and jocks. After all, all my friends were in the AP classes. Ok, Ok, I admit it, I was a geek...band fag.......a nerd. But once I got over my own insecurities, this became my favorite class.
It was taught in a trailer beside the main school building as our school had outgrown itself. It was the only high school in the county back then and we were busting out at the seems with students. There were over 400 in my graduating class.
Bev taught us that there were people who dedicated their lives to peace and nonviolence. She taught us to use our voice and speak out about injustices. At this time I had already attended my first protest, a pro-choice rally about an hour away from my town. I had already visited DC twice and seen the protesters camped out on the lawn of the national mall. I knew I had Democratic leanings and disliked Capitalistic Republicans. In the late 80s though, things seemed peaceful, but I would be at the ready, should things change.
Things have changed, war is the norm. I am now ready to be the change, to teach peace. I am ready to stand up and be heard. I am ready to stand arm and arm with my fellow peacemakers. But we have to be VERY loud for anyone in Washington to hear our message. We all have to speak in unison. But are we united in the same cause? Can we narrow all the ills into one message? Change! Peace! Change to Peace! But can they hear us way over here in our "free speech zones"?