The Commission

Week 4, Book 4
The Commission:  The Uncensored History of the 9/11 Investigation
by Philip Shenon

In a remarkably engrossing, well-written 400+ page tome, New York Times reporter Philip Shenon details the inner workings of the 9/11 Commission headed by Tom Kean and Lee Hamilton, ordered by Congress to investigate the reasons behind the failures in our governmental agencies that allowed 9/11 to happen.  Shenon spent two years assigned to report on the commission's activities and then spent the last three years after the report's release researching and writing this book, and the sweeping breadth of his investigation is very impressive.  He interviewed directly 8 of the 10 commissioners assigned, including Kean and Hamilton, as well as the executive director of the commission, the heretofore publicly unknown Philip Zelikow (but Vague Space will change all that!), and over 2/3 of the commission's 80 staff members.  It is an amazing, informative must-read that does get a little too bogged down in the background and details of the commission's proceedings, but is highly recommended for all my readers. 

It was also shocking - shockingly shocking - how little about the investigation has become public knowledge, and how terribly poorly so many members of our government were protecting our citizens before 9/11 (and since).  The Commission's Report - the bestselling tome that came out in the summer of 2004 and was up for a National Book Award (that it didn't win) - is widely regarded as helping to re-elect President Bush by not placing any specific blame on him for the 9/11 catastrophe.  The Report did completely refute the lie that Iraq had any connection to al Qaeda or 9/11 (a lie that continues to be told by Republicans -- including Dick Cheney and John McCain -- to this day).  But as for blaming Bush or his most incompetent cabinet officials - namely, Condoleezza Rice -- the Commissioners made a conscious effort to avoid that, in order to reach a consensus among the bipartisan Commission members and to focus the report on improvements that should be made, particularly in the spy agencies, in order to not distract media attention.  Upon reading this book, though, I can't help but think the whole thing, despite the best efforts of everyone involved, was a whitewash.  A complete and utter whitewash.

I can't say it any more clearly than this: if there is one person in our government most responsible for allowing 9/11 to happen, it was Condoleezza Rice.  And if there was one person most responsible for allowing Rice's ineptitude and incompetence to play such a major role in protecting us from such a terrorist threat, it was George W. Bush.  It's impossible to say if Al Gore had been elected president in 2000 whether or not 9/11 would have been prevented.  And it's fair to say that the Clinton administration's failure to capture Bin Laden when it had the chance was a major factor in the success of the terrorist plot.  But after reading this book, I can't help but conclude that President Bush, Dick Cheney, Rice, and Attorney General John Ashcroft did as little as humanly possible to prevent this act from happening, and at least in Rice and Ashcroft's cases, should have faced criminal prosecution for gross dereliction of duty.  Instead, Colin Powell was fired after Bush was re-elected and Condoleezza was promoted to Secretary of State.  She was confirmed by a vote of 86-13 in the Senate.  Unbelievable. 

Because this book is so sweeping, and the facts that were revealed in it so startling, I'm devoting a multi-part series to its contents, beyond the book review presented above.  I'm not sure when these parts will be published, but keep checking back to this site.  Or better yet, go buy the book and read it for yourself.  See if you get as horribly angry and disgusted with the results as I did.

Here are the series parts I plan on publishing:

Part 1:  The Politics of the 9/11 Commission

• Focused mostly on the above-mentioned Zelikow - the guy who ran the day-to-day activities of the 80 staff members (the ten politically appointed Commissioners, the big name people ostensibly in charge, did little day-to-day research and none of the writing on the final report); Zelikow was the de facto person in charge.  Zelikow worked on the Bush administration transition team and was a longtime friend of Condoleezza Rice.  He currently works in a high-level position in Rice's State Department.  Any thoughts about whether or not these facts helped to leave Rice virtually blameless in the Final Report?

Part 2: The Bush White House Stonewalling/Hiding Evidence from the Commission

• Focused mostly on Alberto Gonzalez, then White House counsel (soon to be elevated to disgraced former Attorney General - he was so bad, he made Ashcroft look good... see below), and his efforts to keep any and all information that might show Bush in a bad light to the Commission.  Remember the Presidential Daily Briefing given to Bush in August 2001 that said "Bin Laden Determined to Strike within U.S."?  Yeah, that was one of only a handful the Commission ever got to see.  There were dozens more, possibly as incriminating, that never were released.

Part 3: The Results of the Investigation and Condoleezza Rice

• The Commission's investigations uncovered a bunch of failures among all levels of government and a lot of people who should be held accountable, both in the Clinton and Bush White House.  But the main thing the Commission discovered is that there was a constant, almost deafening drumbeat of assessments from multiple government agencies (the CIA, FBI, and NSA) about the increasing likelihood of a major attack by al Qaeda -- possibly on U.S. soil -- during the summer of 2001.  All these constant, deafening warnings were completely and unilaterally ignored by the Bush administration.

• Rice gets a full expose by me.  One of the worst public servants in history, by my judgment.  She was the National Security Adviser.  She was the one in charge of all communications between the White House and the CIA and the FBI and was most responsible for preventing an attack on United States' citizens.  Obviously, she failed.  No one has ever held her accountable.

Part 4:  John Ashcroft and the FBI

• As the Attorney General, Ashcroft was the head of the Justice Department, which meant he was in charge of the FBI, the INS, the Border Patrol, and the US Marshalls.  The FBI was the most incompetent of all the agencies responsible for allowing 9/11 to happen.  Nothing about it has been changed since 9/11.  Ashcroft's should-be famous quote, in the summer of 2001, to a subordinate who constantly was trying to alert him to the terrorist threat:  "I don't want you to ever talk to me about al Qaeda, about these threats.  I don't want to hear about al Qaeda anymore."

Part 5:  President Clinton vs. President Bush and the Conclusion to the Series.

Stay tuned.  I hope you enjoy this series of posts, or at least come out very informed.  Philip Shenon put a lot of work into his book.  The 9/11 Commission staff members put a ton of work into their investigation.  All that work, at this point in history, has almost all gone for naught.  No one in the media seems to give a crap about why 9/11 happened and who was most responsible.  Why?  I don't know.  But if you'd like to find out, come back and read more. 

Comments

[Salad]

Rice is now being mentioned as a potential running-mate for McCain. If she is in fact on the ticket, will the Obama or Clinton campaigns have the guts to go after her for this?

[Bill]

I say No. They didn't even go after Patreaus (sp?) about the war.

[Switsky]

Two reasons they do not go after her.

1. She is a woman
2. She is black