President Bush and Vice President Dick Cheney appear for three hours of private questioning before the 9/11 Commission. (Former President Clinton and former Vice President Al Gore met privately and separately with the Commission earlier in the month.) [New York Times, 4/30/2004; Washington Post, 4/30/2004]
Testifying Together, without Oaths or Recordings – The Commission permits Bush and Cheney, accompanied by White House counsel Alberto Gonzales, to appear together, in private, and not under oath. Author Philip Shenon will comment that most of the commissioners think this is an “obvious effort… to ensure that the accounts of Bush and Cheney did not differ on the events of 9/11.” [Shenon, 2008, pp. 342-343] Their testimony is not recorded. Commissioners can take notes, but these are censored by the White House. [Knight Ridder, 3/31/2004; Newsweek, 4/2/2004; New York Times, 4/3/2004]
Questions Similar to Those Asked of Clinton – The Commission draws its questions from a previously-assembled list of questions for Bush and Cheney that Commission members have agreed to ask. According to commissioner Bob Kerrey: “It’s essentially the same set of questions that we asked President Clinton with one exception, which is just what happened on the day of September 11th. What was your strategy before, what was your strategy on September 11, and what allowed the FAA to be so surprised by a hijacking?” [Washington Post, 4/29/2004]
‘Three Hours of Softballs’ – After Bush starts the meeting with an apology for an attack by Attorney General John Ashcroft on commissioner Jamie Gorelick (see April 13-April 29, 2004), the Democratic commissioners are disarmed. Commissioner Slade Gorton will comment: “They knew exactly how to do this. They had us in the Oval Office, and they really pulled the talons and the teeth out of many of the Democratic questions. Several of my colleagues were not nearly as tough in the White House as they were when we went in that day.” Author Philip Shenon will call it “three hours of softballs.” Some of the toughest questions are asked by Republican John Lehman, who focuses on money allegedly passed by an acquaintance of the Saudi ambassador’s wife to two of the hijackers (see December 4, 1999). Lehman will say that Bush “dodged the questions.” [Shenon, 2008, pp. 343-345]
Cheney Says Little – Although the Commission’s Democrats are expecting Bush to defer to the vice president in his responses, reportedly Bush “thoroughly dominate[s] the interview.” Philip Zelikow, the Commission’s executive director, will later recall that Cheney only “spoke five percent of the time.” [Draper, 2007, pp. 292] According to four unnamed individuals that are in the room during the meeting, Cheney “barely spoke at all.” [Gellman, 2008, pp. 344] Gorelick will say: “There was no puppeteering by the vice president. He barely said anything.” [Shenon, 2008, pp. 344]
Early Departure – Two commissioners, Lee Hamilton and Bob Kerrey, leave the session early for other engagements. They will later say they had not expected the interview to last more than the previously agreed upon two-hour length. [Associated Press, 5/1/2004]
‘Unalloyed Victory’ for Bush – The press’ reaction is so positive that Shenon will call the meeting an “unalloyed victory” for Bush. [Shenon, 2008, pp. 345]
May-June 2004: Zelikow Has Portions of 9/11 Commission Report Rewritten to Be More Favorable to National Security Adviser Rice
9/11 Commission Executive Director Philip Zelikow tells the staff team working on the Bush administration’s response to terrorist threats in the summer of 2001 that their drafts must be rewritten to cast National Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice in a better light. Rice’s testimony about the administration’s prioritizing of terrorism has been contradicted by former counterterrorism “tsar” Richard Clarke, who said that al-Qaeda was not a high priority for the White House. The Commission staffers think that Clarke is telling the truth, because, in the words of author Philip Shenon, Clarke had left a “vast documentary record” about the White House’s inattention to terrorism. Clarke’s account is also corroborated by other National Security Council (NSC) members, the CIA, and the State Department.
Zelikow’s Reaction – However, Zelikow, a close associate of Rice (see 1995 and January 3, 2001), tells the staffers their version is “too Clarke-centric” and demands “balance.” Shenon will comment: “He never said so explicitly, but Zelikow made clear to [the staffers] that the Commission’s final report should balance out every statement of Clarke’s with a statement from Rice. The team should leave out any judgment on which of them was telling the truth.”
Support from Commission Lawyer – Zelikow is supported to a point in this dispute by Daniel Marcus, the Commission’s lawyer. Marcus thinks that the staffers are making Clarke into a “superhero,” and that there were some “limitations and flaws” in his performance. Marcus also sees that the staff’s suspicions of Zelikow and his ties to Rice are no longer hidden, but will later say, “In a sense they overreacted to Philip because they were so worried about him they pushed and pushed and pushed, and sometimes they were wrong.”
Staffer Regrets Not Resigning Earlier – One of the key staffers involved in the dispute, Warren Bass, had previously considered resigning from the Commission due to what he perceived as Zelikow’s favoring of Rice. At this point he regrets not resigning earlier, but does not do so now. Bass and his colleagues merely console themselves with the hope that the public will read between the lines and work out that Clarke is telling the truth and Rice is not.
“Tortured Passages” – Shenon will comment: “[T]he results of the team’s work were some of the most tortured passages in the final report, especially in the description of the performance of the NSC in the first months of the Bush presidency. It was written almost as a point, counterpoint—Clarke says this, Rice says the opposite—with no conclusion about what the truth finally was.” [Shenon, 2008, pp. 394-396]
Summer 2004: 9/11 Commission’s Zelikow Investigated over Mishandling of Classified Information
9/11 Commission executive director Philip Zelikow is investigated by the Justice Department following a complaint by the CIA that he mishandled classified information. Zelikow did not leak information to reporters, but there are suspicions he has included classified information in e-mails with other people on the Commission, including e-mails that were sent overseas. The CIA received notification that Zelikow may have mishandled the information from an unnamed member of the Commission’s staff. Zelikow is not interviewed during the investigation, and will later say that he does not become aware of it until later and that his security clearances will later be renewed. Zelikow will also say that the investigation may be an attempt by the CIA to play “hardball” in a dispute over the declassification of information, and to “criminalize this dispute and target me in the process.” The CIA will deny this, saying that they could have leaked news of the investigation to the press, but did not do so. Some of the Commission’s staff find the investigation to be ironic, because Zelikow fired staffer Dana Lesemann for a less serious breach of the rules for handling classified documents soon after the Commission started. The information is closely held within the 9/11 Commission, and even some commissioners do not learn of the investigation. It is unclear how the investigation concludes and how seriously it is taken at the Justice Department. [Shenon, 2008, pp. 406-410]
Before June 2004: 9/11 Commission Awards Contract to Distribute Final Report to Executive Director Zelikow’s Publisher; Publisher Can Keep Profits
The 9/11 Commission awards the contract to publish and distribute its final report to W. W. Norton & Company, a leading publisher. The contract is awarded by the commission’s executive director, Philip Zelikow, who had previously edited or written eight books published by Norton. It is Zelikow’s idea to award the contract to a private publisher, as the Government Printing Office would not be able to print a large number of copies of the report quickly and would charge a high price, and commission chairman Tom Kean allows Zelikow to select the publisher. Norton is chosen over the other two publishers considered, Times Books, an imprint of Henry Holt & Company, and PublicAffairs Books, as Zelikow says it offers the best package, security will be good, and it will sell the report for a reasonable $10. One of the conditions of the contract with Norton enables the publisher to keep any profits it may make, even though the report was drafted at the taxpayer’s expense. Several of the commissioners do not know of Zelikow’s connection to the publisher until long after the contract is signed, although Zelikow will say he does not have a conflict of interest as he had long ago waived royalties from his other books published by Norton. [Shenon, 2008, pp. 399-400]
Before June 2004: 9/11 Commission Consultant Complains Report Is ‘Indulgent’ of Senior Administration Officials
Ernest May, a consultant hired by the 9/11 Commission to help with the drafting of its final report, tells the Commission’s executive director, Philip Zelikow, that the report is “indulgent” towards senior officials in both the Bush and Clinton administrations. He thinks that the report is incomplete in many ways as it is being censored by the two groups of commissioners—Democrats and Republicans. However, he believes the effect on the report goes beyond what is reasonable. According to May, the report fails to hold accountable officials that should take a share of the blame for failing to prevent 9/11, and the judgments about Presidents George Bush and Bill Clinton, as well as their senior aides, are overly forgiving. However, these comments do not spur Zelikow to take any action and do not have an impact on the final version of the report. In addition, May generally does not share them with other staffers on the Commission. In an article published after the report, May will write, “The report is probably too balanced,” adding: “Individuals, especially the two presidents and their intimate advisers, received even more indulgent treatment. The text does not describe Clinton’s crippling handicaps as leader of his own national security community. Extraordinarily quick and intelligent, he, more than almost anyone else, had an imaginative grasp of the threat posed by al-Qaeda. But he had almost no authority enabling him to get his government to address this threat.” Daniel Marcus, the Commission’s lawyer, will agree with some of this. “We did pull our punches on the conclusions because we wanted to have a unanimous report,” he will say. “There was this implicit threat, occasionally made explicit on both sides of the aisle on the Commission, that by God, if you get explicit in criticizing Bush on this, we’re going to insist on being explicit in criticizing Clinton, and vice versa.” [Shenon, 2008, pp. 387, 413]
June 2004: 9/11 Commission Executive Director Zelikow Discusses Key Presidential Daily Brief with CIA Analyst, Allegedly Pressures Analyst to Accept White House Version of Events
9/11 Commission Executive Director Philip Zelikow telephones a CIA analyst who co-wrote a Presidential Daily Briefing (PDB) item entitled “Bin Laden Determined to Strike in US.” President George Bush received the briefing in August 2001 (see August 6, 2001). The tone of the conversation will be disputed. According to an anonymous Commission staffer who overhears part of the conversation and who talks to author Philip Shenon, Zelikow pressures the analyst to accept the version of the PDB offered by Bush and National Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice, and say that it contained historical information and was written in response to a request by President Bush for such briefing. Zelikow is close to Rice (see January 3, 2001) and defends her interests on the Commission (see May-June 2004). However, Zelikow will later deny pressuring the analyst, saying he was merely trying to prepare a summary of what was known about the PDB for the commissioners and that he had little time, so the interview was conducted by telephone. Nevertheless, the call is in violation of several internal Commission rules, including the requirement that significant interviews be conducted in the presence of at least two staff members. Shenon will describe the call as “a private inquiry into the origins of what was, without doubt, the most controversial document in the investigation.” [Shenon, 2008, pp. 374-376] Zelikow will try to stop one of the commissioners, Richard Ben-Veniste, from talking to the analyst and a colleague (see Early July 2004).
June 2004: Top Democrat Helps Get Passages Critical of National Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice Deleted from Final Text of 9/11 Commission Report
As the 9/11 Commission report is being finalized, the consultant charged with drafting it, Ernest May, comes to favor an account of the Bush administration’s treatment of terrorism before 9/11 given by former counterterrorism “tsar” Richard Clarke. Clarke has said that the administration did not pay enough attention to the problem of terrorism, whereas his former superior, National Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice, had argued the administration did what it could, but the attacks were unstoppable. May comes to this conclusion after reviewing the documentation obtained by the commission, despite the fact that he is close to the commission’s executive director Philip Zelikow, who had worked with Rice in the past (see 1995 and January 3, 2001) and is trying to downplay Clarke’s role. The language of the draft report reflects May’s views, but others working on the report, including an unnamed prominent Democrat on the staff, say the language is “inflammatory,” and get it taken out of the report. According to May, the report is then written in such a way as to avoid “even implicit endorsement of Clarke’s public charge.” [Shenon, 2008, pp. 390-391]
June 2004: Zelikow Has Comparison with Clinton Unfavorable to Bush Deleted from 9/11 Commission Report
The 9/11 Commission’s executive director, Philip Zelikow, has a comparison between Presidents George Bush and Bill Clinton that shows Bush in a bad light removed from the 9/11 Commission report.
Clinton and Bush – The comparison was drafted by commission staffer Alexis Albion at the request of vice-chairman Lee Hamilton, a Democrat, and shows how Clinton and Bush addressed terrorism in general and al-Qaeda in particular in their public remarks. It is intended as a measure of how the two presidents had prioritized the issue, although there is the obvious problem that Clinton was in office for eight years, but Bush only eight months before the attacks. Albion found that Clinton addressed terrorism dozens of times, including in every State of the Union address and a speech to the UN General Assembly, and that he often warned about al-Qaeda and similar groups. By contrast, Bush rarely talked about terrorism, and when he did he focused on state-sponsored terrorism and missile defense against rogue states.
Controversial – Albion and other members of her team are aware that the comparison will anger the Bush White House, in particular because other sections of the report will not be especially critical of the current administration. A statement that Bush spoke little about terrorism before 9/11 will probably be seen as the commission’s most direct personal criticism of him. However, they feel strongly that it should be in the report, as what the president says sets the agenda for the rest of the government and media.
Zelikow’s Reaction – Zelikow is angered by the comparison, almost yelling that it is “unreasonable” and “unfair,” as Bush “hadn’t been in office long enough to make a major address on terrorism.” Author Philip Shenon will describe Zelikow’s rage about this issue: “Zelikow’s anger was so off the scale on this issue that some of the staff members wondered if this was simply a show on his part to intimidate them into backing down.” Albion is supported by Daniel Marcus, the commission’s lawyer. According to Shenon: “[Marcus] thought it was one of Zelikow’s most overt displays of his partisanship, of his desire to protect the administration. Obviously it was significant if Bush, who was now claiming that he had been gravely worried throughout 2001 about terrorist threats, never bothered to mention it in public during that same period. ‘You’d think he would say something about it once in a while, right?’ asked Marcus.” However, Zelikow gets his way and the comparison is removed from the report.
Endnotes – Despite this, Albion does manage to reinsert material from the comparison into the endnotes at the back of the commission’s final report. For example, endnote 2 to chapter 6 reads: “President Clinton spoke of terrorism in numerous public statements…. Clinton repeatedly linked terrorism groups and WMD as transnational threats for the new global era.” Endnote 164 to the same chapter reads: “Public references by candidate and then President Bush about terrorism before 9/11 tended to reflect… [his concern with] state-sponsored terrorism and WMD as a reason to mount a missile defense.” [Shenon, 2008, pp. 396-398]
June 2004: Zelikow, 9/11 Commission Team Leader Delete Passages about Apparent Saudi Support for Hijackers from Main Text of Final Report
In a late-night editing session, 9/11 Commission Executive Director Philip Zelikow and Dieter Snell, head of the Commission team investigating the 9/11 plot, delete sections of the 9/11 Commission Report linking two of the hijackers, Khalid Almihdhar and Nawaf Alhazmi, to suspected Saudi government operatives.
Evidence of Saudi Link – The sections were drafted by two of Snell’s team members, Mike Jacobson and Raj De, and deal with Omar al-Bayoumi, a Saudi who had helped the two hijackers (see January 15-February 2000); Fahad al-Thumairy, another of their associates (see June 9, 2000); cash transfers from the wife of the Saudi ambassador in Washington to an associate of al-Bayoumi (see December 4, 1999); and a taxi driver who said he had seen the two hijackers in Los Angeles (see 2002).
Disagreement – However, Snell, a former prosecutor, is opposed to these sections, as he thinks the hijackers’ links to Saudi intelligence are not 100 percent proven, so it is better to leave them out. Jacobson is notified of the editing session just before midnight; he calls De and they both go into the Commission’s offices to discuss the material. Snell says that the final report should not contain allegations that cannot be backed up conclusively, but Jacobson and De say demanding this level of proof would exonerate the guilty.
Saudi Ties Moved to Endnotes – Zelikow appears sympathetic to Jacobson and De, and had also entertained suspicions of the Saudis at one point. However, he apparently sees his role at this late stage as that of a mediator and allows Snell to delete the sections from the main body of the report, although Jacobson and De are then permitted to write endnotes covering them. [Shenon, 2008, pp. 398-399] Material unfavorable to Pakistan is also omitted from the report (see July 22, 2004).
Early June 2004: 9/11 Commission’s Zelikow Accepts Lack of Connections between Iraq and Al-Qaeda
Philip Zelikow, the executive director of the 9/11 Commission, finally accepts the fact that he cannot successfully spin or browbeat the commission staff into reporting links between Iraq and al-Qaeda as factual (see July 12, 2004). His most recent efforts to rewrite a report claiming such links was thwarted by angry commission staffers (see January 2004), and for months he has dodged charges that he is a White House “plant,” there to ensure the commission makes the kind of conclusions that Bush officials want it to make. Now, he finally admits that there is no evidence to support the claim of a connection between Iraq and al-Qaeda, although there was some minor contact. Author Philip Shenon will later write: “The intelligence showed that when bin Laden wanted to do business with Iraq, Iraq did not want to do business with al-Qaeda…. Saddam Hussein saw [Osama] bin Laden… as a threat to his own very brutal and very secular rule in Iraq.” The widely reported story about 9/11 hijacker Mohamed Atta meeting an Iraqi spy in Prague (see April 8, 2001 and September 14, 2001) has been examined and re-examined, and found to be unsupported (see December 2001). Zelikow is forced to admit the reality of the situation. Shenon will write: “Even if he wanted to, there was little Zelikow could do to rescue the administration now…. If Zelikow tried to tamper with the report now, he knew he risked a public insurrection by the staff, with only a month before the commission’s final report was due.” Bush officials are horrified at the prospect of the commission reporting flatly that there are no verifiable links of any kind between al-Qaeda and Iraq. Since the failure of the US to find WMDs in Iraq, the Bush administration has shifted its rationale for invading that nation—now it was a punitive measure against one of the backers of the 9/11 attacks, and senior Bush officials, most notably Vice President Cheney, have been advocating that point for over a year. [Shenon, 2008, pp. 381-385]
