Philip Zelikow: NYT book review takes view that he tried to bias 9/11 Commission
... A talented historian who wrote a book with Rice, [9/11 Commission executive director Philip] Zelikow came to be loathed by much of the commission’s staff for his arrogance. Some staff members and more than a few people in the Washington press corps even viewed him as a White House mole, intent on sanitizing the Bush administration’s record. According to Shenon, Zelikow did not inform the leaders of the commission of his role in drafting the White House’s September 2002 “pre-emptive defense” doctrine and was frequently in touch with both Rice and Karl Rove.
The very first expert witness to appear before the commission was the State Department’s legal adviser during the Reagan administration, Abraham Sofaer, who championed the notion of pre-emptive war in his testimony. According to Shenon, “members of the commission’s staff would look back on Sofaer’s testimony as the first evidence that Zelikow might try to use the commission to promote the war with Iraq.”
In addition, Zelikow extended an invitation to Laurie Mylroie, an eccentric academic at the American Enterprise Institute who believed that Saddam Hussein had been behind the first bombing of the World Trade Center in 1993, to testify that Saddam Hussein and Al Qaeda were linked. “After the hearing with Mylroie,” Shenon writes, Zelikow “made it clear to the commission’s staff that he wanted the issue of Al Qaeda-Iraq links pursued aggressively.” Shenon’s verdict is unequivocal: “He wanted to put the commission’s staff on record as saying that there was at least the strong possibility that Osama bin Laden and Saddam Hussein had collaborated to target the United States before 9/11.” The commission staff rebelled and Zelikow retreated.
Another major issue was the respective records of the Clinton and Bush administrations in confronting, or failing to confront, terrorism. Shenon suggests that the Clinton administration was, in fact, preoccupied by terrorism (even though it did too little to combat it), while the Bush administration focused on issues like Russia and China. The 9/11 staff, we are told, uncovered dozens of instances in which Clinton spoke about terrorism. Bush, by contrast, referred to it only in the context of state-sponsored terrorism and as demonstrating the need for missile defense. Once again, Zelikow apparently intervened, and, Shenon writes, “the comparison between Bush and Clinton came out of the final draft over the objections of the staff.”...
Read entire article at Jacob Heilbrunn in a review in the NYT BOok Review of Philip Shenon's The Commission: The Uncensored History of the 9/11 Investigation.
The very first expert witness to appear before the commission was the State Department’s legal adviser during the Reagan administration, Abraham Sofaer, who championed the notion of pre-emptive war in his testimony. According to Shenon, “members of the commission’s staff would look back on Sofaer’s testimony as the first evidence that Zelikow might try to use the commission to promote the war with Iraq.”
In addition, Zelikow extended an invitation to Laurie Mylroie, an eccentric academic at the American Enterprise Institute who believed that Saddam Hussein had been behind the first bombing of the World Trade Center in 1993, to testify that Saddam Hussein and Al Qaeda were linked. “After the hearing with Mylroie,” Shenon writes, Zelikow “made it clear to the commission’s staff that he wanted the issue of Al Qaeda-Iraq links pursued aggressively.” Shenon’s verdict is unequivocal: “He wanted to put the commission’s staff on record as saying that there was at least the strong possibility that Osama bin Laden and Saddam Hussein had collaborated to target the United States before 9/11.” The commission staff rebelled and Zelikow retreated.
Another major issue was the respective records of the Clinton and Bush administrations in confronting, or failing to confront, terrorism. Shenon suggests that the Clinton administration was, in fact, preoccupied by terrorism (even though it did too little to combat it), while the Bush administration focused on issues like Russia and China. The 9/11 staff, we are told, uncovered dozens of instances in which Clinton spoke about terrorism. Bush, by contrast, referred to it only in the context of state-sponsored terrorism and as demonstrating the need for missile defense. Once again, Zelikow apparently intervened, and, Shenon writes, “the comparison between Bush and Clinton came out of the final draft over the objections of the staff.”...
Related Links
Philip Zelikow both criticized and defended over work on 9-11 Commission Philip Zelikow's independence as director of the 9-11 Commission reportedly comes into question in new book