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Just released: Breaking stories about it here, and here.

Michael Isikoff writes in Newsweek: "In the summer of 2003, Warren Bass, an investigator for the 9/11 Commission, was digging through highly classified National Security Council documents when he came across a trove of material that startled him. Buried in the files of former White House counterterrorism czar Richard Clarke, the documents seemed to confirm charges that the Bush White House had ignored repeated warnings about the threat posed by Osama bin Laden. Clarke, it turned out, had bombarded national-security adviser Condoleezza Rice in the summer of 2001 with impassioned e-mails and memos warning of an Al Qaeda attack--and urging a more forceful U.S. government response. One e-mail jumped out: it pleaded with officials to imagine how they would feel after a tragedy where 'hundreds of Americans lay dead in several countries, including the U.S.,' adding that 'that future day could happen at any time.' The memo was written on Tuesday, Sept. 4, 2001 -- just one week before the attacks on New York's World Trade Center and the Pentagon.

"But when Bass tried to impress the significance of what he had discovered upon the panel, he ran into what he thought was a roadblock -- his boss. Philip Zelikow, a respected University of Virginia historian hired to be the 9/11 Commission's executive director, had long been friendly with Rice. The two had coauthored a book. Rice had later placed him on a Bush transition team that reorganized the NSC (and ended up diminishing Clarke's role). At Rice's request, Zelikow had also anonymously drafted a new Bush national-security paper in September 2002 that laid out the case for preventive war.

"In commission staff meetings, Zelikow disparaged Clarke as an egomaniac and braggart who was unjustly slandering his friend Rice, according to [Shenon's] new book. . . .

"Rove himself, according to Shenon, always feared that a report which laid the blame for 9/11 at the president's doorstep was the one development that could most jeopardize Bush's 2004 re-election. That's one reason why White House lawyers tried to stonewall the commission from the outset. When Clarke finally did testify about his warnings to Rice, Shenon reports, White House counsel Alberto Gonzales and his aides feverishly drafted tough questions and phoned them in to GOP commissioners to undermine Clarke's credibility. Later, when Attorney General John Ashcroft unveiled a memo that seemed to cast the antiterror record of the Clinton Justice Department in an unflattering light, Gonzales and his aides high-fived each other."

By a New York Times reporter who covered the 9/11 Commission, the book reveals how pivotal the role of the controversial Condoleezza Rice aide, Philip Zelikow, was in the "findings" of the Commission -- and particularly how he may have directed the outcome -- no surprise -- to look favorably on Rice, himself and the Bush Administration.

The book includes information confirming that Zelikow talked regularly to Karl Rove during the course of the Commission, which he was prohibited from doing. Zelikow claims that they were not talking about the Commission's work (and we have a bridge in Brooklyn to sell you.)

Based on advance information about allegations and facts in the book, BuzzFlash awarded Zelikow its BuzzFlash GOP Hypocrite of the week on February 1.

We suspect that this book will be a credible insight into the behind-the-scences machinations to make sure that the so-called 9/11 Commission basically would become a bi-partisan absolution of both political parties. Zelikow, although he denies it, appears to have been the agent of the Bush Administration in ensuring that the White House -- particularly Bush and Rice who were warned in advance about potential hijackings -- did not bear any serious blame for its gross negligence, of which Zelikow himself was culpable.

One block site claims to have somehow gotten an advance audio version of the book and says that it includes information such as the following. The blog reporting about Shenon's expose is by the credible Max Holland. Read about Holland before you read about what he says is in the book, so you understand his credentials: "Max Holland has worked as a journalist in Washington, D.C., for more than twenty years. In 2001, he won the J. Anthony Lukas Work-in-Progress Award for a forthcoming narrative history of the Warren Commission. He is a contributing editor at The Nation and The Wilson Quarterly, and his articles have also appeared in The Atlantic, American Heritage, the Washington Post, the Los Angeles Times, and the Boston Globe. From 1998 to 2003 he was a research fellow at the University of Virginia�s Miller Center of Public Affairs. His work has also been supported by fellowships from the Guggenheim Foundation, the National Endowment for the Humanities, and the Woodrow Wilson Center for Scholars."

So here are some of the things Holland says are in Shenon's book on the 9/11 commission:

The book�s critical revelations, however, revolve almost entirely around the figure of Philip Zelikow, a University of Virginia professor and director of the Miller Center of Public Affairs prior to his service as the commission�s executive director. Shenon delivers a blistering account of Zelikow�s role and leadership, and an implicit criticism of the commissioners for appointing Zelikow in the first place�and then allowing him to stay on after his myriad conflicts-of-interest were revealed under oath.

Shenon�s narrative is built from extensive interviews with staff members and several, if not all, the commissioners. He depicts Zelikow as exploiting his central position to negate or neutralize criticism of the Bush administration so that the White House would not bear, in November 2004, the political burden of failing to prevent the attacks.


The Commission includes these specific revelations:

� Kean and Hamilton appreciated that Zelikow was a friend and former colleague of then-national security adviser Condoleeza Rice, one of the principal officials whose conduct would be scrutinized. Zelikow had served with her on the National Security Council (NSC) during the presidency of Bush�s father, and they had written a book together about German reunification. The commission co-chairmen also knew of Zelikow�s October 2001 appointment to the President�s Foreign Intelligence Advisory Board. According to Shenon, however, Zelikow failed to disclose several additional and egregious conflicts-of-interest, among them, the fact that he had been a member of Rice�s NSC transition team in 2000-01. In that capacity, Zelikow had been the �architect� responsible for demoting Richard Clarke and his counter-terrorism team within the NSC. As Shenon puts it, Zelikow �had laid the groundwork for much of went wrong at the White House in the weeks and months before September 11. Would he want people to know that?�

� Karen Heitkotter, the commission�s executive secretary, was taken aback on June 23, 2003 when she answered the telephone for Zelikow at 4:40 PM and heard a voice intone, �This is Karl Rove. I�m looking for Philip.� Heitkotter knew that Zelikow had promised the commissioners he would cut off all contact with senior officials in the Bush administration. Nonetheless, she gave Zelikow�s cell phone number to Rove. The next day there was another call from Rove at 11:35 AM. Subsequently, Zelikow would claim that these calls pertained to his �old job� at the University of Virginia�s Miller Center.

� The full extent of Zelikow�s involvement with the incumbent administration only became evident within the commission on October 8, 2003, almost halfway into the panel�s term. Determined to blunt the Jersey Girls� call for his resignation or recusal, Zelikow proposed that he be questioned under oath about his activities. General counsel Daniel Marcus, who conducted the sworn interview, brought a copy of the r�sum� Zelikow had provided to Kean and Hamilton. None of the activities Zelikow now detailed�his role on Rice�s transition team, his instrumental role in Clarke�s demotion, his authorship of a post-9/11 pre-emptive attack doctrine�were mentioned in the r�sum�. Zelikow blandly asserted to Marcus that he did not see �any of this as a major conflict of interest.� Marcus�s conclusion was that Zelikow �should never have been hired� as executive director. But the only upshot from these shocking disclosures was that Zelikow was involuntarily recused from that part of the investigation which involved the presidential transition, and barred from participating in subsequent interviews of senior Bush administration officials.

� Some two months later, as Bob Kerrey replaced disgruntled ex-Senator Max Cleland on the panel, the former Nebraska senator became astounded once he understood Zelikow�s obvious conflicts-of-interest and his very limited recusal. Kerrey could not understand how Kean and Hamilton had ever agreed to put Zelikow in charge. �Look Tom,� Kerrey told Kean, �either he goes or I go.� But Kean persuaded Kerrey to drop his ultimatum.

� In late 2003, around the time his involuntary recusal was imposed, Zelikow called executive secretary Karen Heitkotter into his office and ordered her to stop creating records of his incoming telephone calls. Concerned that the order was improper, a nervous Heitkotter soon told general counsel Marcus. He advised her to ignore Zelikow�s order and continue to keep a log of his telephone calls, insofar as she knew about them.

� Although Shenon could not obtain from the GAO an unredacted record of Zelikow�s cell phone use�and Zelikow used his cell phone for most of his outgoing calls�the Times reporter was able to establish that Zelikow made numerous calls to �456� numbers in the 202 area code, which is the exclusive prefix of the White House.

� Even after his recusal, Zelikow continued to insert himself into the work of �Team 3,� the task force responsible for the most politically-sensitive part of the investigation, counter-terrorism policy. This brief encompassed the White House, which meant investigating the conduct of Condoleeza Rice and Richard Clarke during the months prior to 9/11. Team 3 staffers would come to believe that Zelikow prevented them from submitting a report that would have depicted Rice�s performance as �amount[ing] to incompetence, or something not far from it.�

BuzzFlash note:

Being by a respected New York Times reporter, we expect that the book will focus on process in terms of the failures of the Commission. We doubt that it will shed much light on 9/11 itself, but rather focuses on the internal politics of the 9/11 Commission, which was a political creature from start to finish.

About the author:

Philip Shenon is an investigative reporter with The New York Times, where he has worked since 1981. He was the lead reporter on the investigation of the September 11 commission and has held several of the most important assignments of the Washington Bureau, including chief Defense Department correspondent, diplomatic correspondent, Congressional correspondent and Justice Department Correspondent. He was one of two Times reporters embedded with American grounds troops during the invasion of Iraq and worked in pre-war Iraq, Kuwait, Saudi Arabia and Iran for Times foreign staff. This is his first book. (Representation: Kathy Robbins/The Robbins Office)

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