My latest read – The Commission

Want to get your blood boiling — in less than a chapter?  The Commission: What we didn’t know about 9/11 is guaranteed to get your heart racing, stomach knotted, fists pounding and indeed blood boiling.  That’s a lot to open with but come back up-to-speed with events surrounding 9/11 and learn about the backdoor dirty politics played by the Cheney Bush Administration over the 9/11 commission.  You will feel moved to action regardless of where you stand on the political spectrum…okay, unless your a neocon.

Philip Shenon, the NYTimes staff writer in Washington DC has offered a behind the scenes look at the twisted politics and power in Washington and NYC regarding the Commission and events surrounding their investigation of the 9/11 terrorist attacks.

Where do you start?  There is so much to consider.  Remember the Jersey Girls or those senior Cheney Bush Administration officials who actually fought against the formation of the commission?

Philip Zelikow was appointed Executive Director and throughout the book Shenon documents how Zelikow was viewed by the commission staff as a mole for the Cheney Bush White House.

Zelikow served President elect Bush as a member of his transition team prior to being appointed Executive Director.  To no surprise soon after the Commission’s report was published Zelikow accepted an offer from Condoleezza Rice to work in the White House.

Bush’s originally nominated Henry Kissinger to head the commission. But when victims families met with him including the Jersey Girls it was disclosed Kissinger’s own consulting company client list includes the Bin Ladin family.  This was met with outrage and Kissinger resigned the following day.

During public hearings in NYC Shenon documents how the commission was handicapped by the ego of newly elected mayor Michael Bloomberg.  Bloomberg saw the commission as something “from Washington” and wanted little to do with them while public testimony was scheduled in “his” city.

That was set against the tension filled events it took the commission to get ‘approval’ from the Cheney Bush White House to even have Condoleezza Rice appear.  Bush first issued ‘executive privilege’ as the reason he did not permit Rice to testify.  Also as part of the negotiation the White House won the consent that the commission would not ask for any further testimonials following Rice’s appearance.  Here is the tension filled ‘allotted time’ with commissioner Richard Ben-Veneste.

Shenon explains Rice’s “historical data” comments as well as acknowledging that behind the scenes, as part of the deal by Cheney Bush to permit Rice to address the commission, she was in fact given a time limit of 10 minutes of questions/per commissioner.  Finally Shenon gracefully explains how she was able to spin other questions and make statements in her remarks in order to eat up the allotted time. In the clip above Ben-Veneste is allocated a small series of questions.  Time limits on testifying?

Cheney and Bush even refused to testify under oath, and somehow they were able to ‘negotiate’ a meeting with the Commissioners without ANY written notes regarding their joint appearance.  There was no option to interview Bush individually.  That statement frustrated the Commission staff.

The commission also felt so mislead by the military that series discussion within the commission developed about submitting a request to the Justice Department regarding criminal actions against the Pentagon.  Is it any surprise that the final report issued by the Commission was not well received?

The book includes a number of eye-opening events that confuse the reader if the goals were to find why the terrorists caught America flat-footed.  My stomach was knotted several times where politics played-out as more important that the lives lost on 9/11.

Tags: 9/11 Commission, 9/11, Bush Administration, Kissinger, Jersey Girls, reading, trends