A major hallmark of the 9-11 Commission, led by Co-chairmen Thomas Kean and Lee Hamilton and Executive Director Philip Zelikow, in its investigation of the 9-11-01 attacks on our country, was the desire of the Co-chairmen to make the investigation appear cordial and “non-partisan”. In pursuit of this goal, the Commissioners made two decisions at the start of the investigation that defanged the Commission to such an extent that it all but guaranteed a whitewash: They decided not to issue subpoenas; and, they decided that “pointing fingers” would
not be a “priority” of their investigation.
They also made a third decision, which had nothing to do with appearing cordial and non-partisan, but defanged the Commission as much as their decisions not to issue subpoenas or “point fingers”: the hiring of Philip Zelikow, who had numerous intimate connections with the Bush White House, as the Commission’s Executive Director. That decision, and how it affected the Commission’s work, is the central theme of Philip Shenon’s new book, “
The Commission – The
Uncensored History of the 9-11 Investigation”.
Shenon’s emphasizing of the word “Uncensored” in the subtitle of his book is significant because it serves to contrast his book with another book with a similar name: “
Without Precedent – The Inside Story of the 9-11 Commission”, which was written by Kean and Hamilton themselves. That book was one of the most self-serving and self-aggrandizing books I’ve ever read. The self-aggrandizing nature of that book is evident in the prologue, as Kean relates the following:
President Bush said he would meet with us for as long as we wanted and that he would answer any questions … After the first few exchanges, I realized the magnitude of what was happening: ten independent citizens sitting in the White House and asking questions of the president and vice-president about a national catastrophe. It was without precedent…. This was precisely how democracy is supposed to work.
Without precedent? What in the hell is without precedent about an investigation into a national catastrophe? Oh, I get it. Maybe what Kean means by the phrase “without precedent” is that this is the first investigation of a national catastrophe in our country where the investigators vowed from the very beginning not to issue subpoenas and not to “point fingers” and used an Executive Director who was intimately close to the group of people who should have been the main focus of the investigation.
The way in which the 9-11 Commission’s Co-chairmen defanged their Commission from the beginning is very important for us to consider, not only because it prevented the American people from learning a lot more about the cause of the worst attack on American soil since the
British invaded Washington, D.C., in 1814. Just as important as that is what this whole sad affair says about the way our leaders bow down to U.S. Presidents (and some Vice Presidents) as if they were royalty. That is not at all conducive to the maintenance of democracy in our country, and it is a major reason why we are now on the verge of losing our democracy. Americans need to think long and hard about these issues and elect representatives who don’t harbor such archaic attitudes.
An investigation where “pointing fingers” is not a priorityKean made it clear in his opening statement at the Commission’s
first hearing that “pointing fingers” would not be a priority:
We will be following paths, and we will follow those individual paths wherever they lead… We may end up holding individual agencies, people, and procedures to account. But our fundamental purpose will not be to point fingers.
That statement may sound innocent enough on the surface. But the phrase “point fingers” is really just a crude and child-like synonym for “assign blame”. By saying that “pointing fingers” was not one of their priorities they were really saying that assigning blame would not be a priority, but by disavowing their intention to “point fingers” they hoped to make themselves sound above the fray.
In their own book Hamilton and Kean were a bit more forthcoming about their intentions. Noting that many of the victims’ families were not happy about their decision not to point fingers, they explained “We would be unyielding and comprehensive in uncovering facts, but our purpose was not to
assign blame to individuals for 9/11”.
That’s absurd. Catastrophes or any other untoward events fall into two general categories regarding their root causes. They can be caused by natural phenomena (such as hurricanes) or they can be caused by human activities, including malfeasance, neglect, or carelessness. Or they can be caused by combinations of events in those two categories. To the extent that a catastrophe is caused by natural phenomena over which humans have no control, there is nothing that can be done to prevent the likelihood of future occurrences, and therefore there is little to be gained by investigating it. Only when humans either had a hand in causing the catastrophe or in failing to prevent it can an investigation produce information that might be useful in preventing further catastrophes. So by deemphasizing “pointing fingers” or “assigning blame” from the very beginning, an investigator seriously reduces the likelihood that the investigation will find anything useful.
I’ve been involved in numerous investigations throughout my life. When I was in the U.S. Air Force part of my responsibilities included investigating aircraft accidents. When I worked as an epidemiologist for public health departments one of my main responsibilities was to investigate public health epidemics or emergencies. Never in my life did anyone involved with any of these investigations say that assigning blame would not be a priority. That is the major purpose of any investigation into a catastrophe. Without identifying what people did wrong or what they could have done differently to prevent the catastrophe or lessen its effects, we have no basis on which to prevent or respond better to future occurrences.
An investigation into a national catastrophe without subpoenasThe routine issuing of subpoenas should have been a no-brainer. Shenon describes the opinions of the Commission’s Democratic commissioners – with the exception of Lee Hamilton – on that issue:
To Jamie Gorelick, it was obvious: Every request made to the Bush administration for documents or other information should include a subpoena. Subpoenas did not have to be seen as threatening if they were used routinely, she argued: a subpoena was simply evidence of the commission’s determination to get what it needed. She explained there was a “nice” way of doing it… If the commission held off on subpoenas until late in the investigation, she warned, there would be no time to go to court to enforce them. The other Democrats, apart from Hamilton, agreed.
Shenon describes Kean and Hamilton’s attitude on this issue:
But Kean and Hamilton had already made up their minds on this issue, too. There would be no routine subpoenas, they decreed; subpoenas would be seen as too confrontational, perhaps choking off cooperation from the Bush administration…
In “Without Precedent”, Kean and Hamilton provide extensive rationalizations for why they objected to routine subpoenas. Their bottom line was very revealing. It was that subpoenas “would have led half the country … to question our motives”, and “We were investigating a national catastrophe,
not a White House transgression” (emphasis added).
In other words – and the issue of subpoenas is very similar to the issue of “pointing fingers” – they decided before the investigation began that the Bush administration was blameless. And that explains a lot of things about their investigation.
Nevertheless, despite their great reluctance to “appear confrontational” with the Bush administration, Hamilton and Kean didn’t mind being confrontational with lesser beings, such as those who worked for the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) or the North American Aerospace Defense Command (NORAD). In chapter 4 of their book they explain that they had to make an exception and issue subpoenas to the FAA and NORAD because those agencies provided so much false information that they could not be trusted to cooperate with the Commission without the pressure of a subpoena. How did Hamilton and Kean know that the FAA and NORAD provided false information to them? They knew that because the FAA and NORAD version of the events surrounding Flight 77 suggested
purposeful failure by the Bush administration to prevent the attack on the Pentagon by Flight 77. Since Kean and Hamilton had already determined that the purpose of their Commission was
not to investigate
a White House transgression, the FAA and NORAD testimony didn’t fit into their preconceived version of reality, so that testimony had to be attacked.
Conflicts of interestPhilip Zelikow, as Executive Director, had a great amount of power in the running of the Commission’s activities. But his conflicts of interest were so glaring that he never should have been allowed to participate in the Commission’s activities, let alone play a major role in running them: He was very close to Condoleezza Rice, who should have been a major focus of the investigation, and he had even
co-authored a book with her; as part of the Bush transition team he had shown his disinterest in terrorism by actively and successfully
advocating the demotion (See page 2) of the administration’s top counterterrorism expert, Richard Clarke; and, he had been the secret author of a national security strategy paper that
advocated preemptive war against Iraq and that served as a blueprint for the Bush administration’s rationale for invading Iraq. With all of that, Zelikow, if the Commission were to do its job, might very well be placed in the position of investigating himself.
The inside jacket of Shenon’s book explains the implications of Zelikow’s conflicts of interest:
The Executive Director of the Commission, Philip Zelikow, maintained a clandestine
relationship with Karl Rove and took actions that were seen as shielding President Bush and Condoleezza Rice from the panel’s scrutiny. Investigative staffers at the Commission believe Zelikow repeatedly sought to minimize the administration’s intelligence failures in the months leading up to 9/11, which had the effect of helping to ensure President Bush’s re-election in 2004.
One good example of this type of activity is that Zelikow reached an agreement with the Bush administration in the first days of the investigation, that the Commission could have access to material from the Congressional inquiry into 9/11, only pending a review by the White House.
So Zelikow’s conflicts of interest were huge, and lethal to attempts to ferret out the truth. Yet, though he didn’t consider
his conflicts of interest to represent a problem, like all hypocrites, when it came to other peoples’ conflicts of interest, Zelikow was very authoritarian about it. Shenon quotes what Zelikow had to say to his staff on this issue:
Prepare a confidential memo to me that describes any potential conflicts of interest that may arise with your work on the commission… In making these judgments, consider outside perception – ask yourself how it would look if this information was made public and you had not disclosed it.
The lesson we should learn from thisIf it’s not clear from this brief description that the 9/11 Co-chairmen and their Executive Director, in their investigation of the 9/11 attacks on our country, treated the Bush administration as if they were above the laws of our nation, then I haven’t done a good job of explaining it. Certainly reading Shenon’s entire book would make that point clear. Hell, reading Kean’s and Hamilton’s book should make that point clear, though Kean and Hamilton certainly didn’t mean to give that impression.
Treating a country’s rulers as if they are above the law is a major step towards tyranny. In that regard, the 9/11 Commission’s investigation is just one aspect of a much larger phenomenon. George Bush’s violations of his nation’s laws and Constitution are numerous, grave, and in many cases
quite obvious. Although approximately half of Americans agree that impeachment hearings against Bush (and Cheney too) should be held, and impeachment advocacy among the public would undoubtedly rise substantially once hearings got started and the average American became more knowledgeable about the many Bush crimes, still no action is taken by our elected representatives. The fact that there is not more widespread outrage over this speaks to the sorry state of our democracy.
Kean and Hamilton further demonstrate their anti-democratic attitudes by their snide comments about so-called “conspiracy theorists” throughout their book. Here’s just one example:
Many people have reasonable questions about how Lee Harvey Oswald could have acted alone in assassinating President Kennedy; a smaller subset of conspiracy theorists propagate outrageous notions: Kennedy was assassinated by the CIA or by some shadowy secret society of the rich and powerful…
September 11 has generated its own share of conspiracy theorists… We often confronted questions about one conspiracy theory or another. Then there were the more irrational theories. Did the U.S. government have foreknowledge of the attacks: Did the military issue a “stand-down” order on 9/11 to allow the attacks to take place? Did a missile hit the Pentagon instead of a plane?...
In other words, reasonable people may wonder about conspiracy theories, but it’s “outrageous” to think that the CIA or rich and powerful men might be involved in a dark conspiracy. I guess Kean and Hamilton think that assassinations of presidents are more likely to be carried out by crazy people acting alone than by the rich and powerful, and that it’s outrageous to think otherwise.
Whatever one might think about the Bush administration’s purposeful involvement in the 9/11 attacks, the 9/11 Commission shed little or no light on that issue. They never took the issue seriously, and they were determined
not to investigate it, because in their mind it is unseemly and ungentlemanly to even
consider the possibility that the rich and powerful might be involved in terrible crimes against their country.