Philip Shenon's Commission Lays a Few 9/11 Conspiracy Theories to Rest

A few years ago, I stumbled on a very colorful article from New York magazine about 9/11 conspiracy theories, "The Ground Zero Grassy Knoll." It included the work of one of the theorists, Nick Levis, who categorized our beliefs about why the attacks happened using what he called "HOP" levels. As Mark Jacobson explained it in New York, Levis promoted the idea that what people believed could be broken down into four theories:

"(A) The Official Story (a.k.a. "The Official Conspiracy Theory"). The received Bushian line: Osama, 19 freedom-haters with box cutters, etc. As White House press secretary Ari Fleischer said, there was "no warning."

"(B) The Incompetence Theory (also the Stupidity, Arrogance, "Reno Wall" Theory). Accepts the Official Story, adds failure by the White House, FBI, CIA, NSA, etc. to heed ample warnings. This line was advanced, with much ass-covering compensation, in The 9/11 Commission Report.

"(C) LIHOP (or "Let It Happen on Purpose"). Many variations, but primarily that elements of the U.S. government and the private sector were aware of the hijackers' plans and, recognizing that 9/11 suited their policy goals, did nothing to stop it.

"(D) MIHOP ("Made It Happen on Purpose"). The U.S. government or private forces planned and executed the attacks."

Before reading Philip Shenon's spellbinding new book, The Commission, The Uncensored History of the 9/11 Commission, my own theories about 9/11 straddled the fence between B and C. I certainly believed in the government's incompetence at every level. But I was also willing to believe that those at the top were vile enough to have Let it Happen on Purpose, since, for instance, they proved to be vile enough to take us to war by knowingly promoting false justifications that have resulted in the slaughter and displacement of millions of people -- a clear case of MIHOP. I never attended any conspiracy theory meetings, but I was a soft LIHOP -- unashamed but also willing to be convinced that our leaders were not as vile in this case as so many other policies have shown them to be.

After reading The Commission, which peels back much of the "ass-covering" that the actual Commission did in pursuit of its congressional mandate, I've given up my LIHOP-hood. I'm fully on board with the Incompetence Theorists. Shenon doesn't attack government ineptitude head-on. He reveals the terrifying extent of it -- from the FAA to the CIA -- through a series of gripping vignettes, through the stories and relationships of dozens of people affected by 9/11, from the Jersey Girls But-For-Whom-the-Commission-Would-Never-Have-Been, to Henry Kissinger, who, in a meeting with them, spilled hot coffee and nearly fell off his seat when one of them asked if he had any clients whose last named is Bin Laden.

According to Shenon's blog on the book's website, the conspiracy theorists are mad at him for not promoting their views more fully in his book. But the rest of us (especially us former LIHOPs) should be dazzled by this surprisingly vibrant exposé of the government commission of our time.

Shenon, who came to write the book because he was the New York Times reporter who covered the 9/11 Commission from the time of its establishment, was kind enough to answer a few questions about the book and his work in our recent email exchange.

1. For a book about a government commission, your book is a particular gripping read. It has the pace and drama of a thriller, including short chapters and stark Law and Order-like chapter titles. Did you realize it had that potential when you started writing it or did you begin to write the book in another way and eventually arrive at this story-telling device?

I worried at first about the short chapters -- that a chapter of less than 20 or 30 pages wouldn't be taken seriously as good book-writing, dare I say literature. But I didn't see any other way to do this. I had to juggle a big cast of characters across several cities and several years. I knew the book's structure was going to be mostly chronological, not thematic, and I didn't want artificial transitions to force anecdotes and people into the same chapter when they really didn't belong together.

I'm gratified -- and relieved -- that a lot of people like it this way. People have crazily busy lives, and they're willing to commit themselves to pushing on to the next chapter if they know it means only another eight or 10 pages of reading. A lot of very smart people I know don't have time for much more. I have also spent my career as a newspaper reporter, so bite-size narratives are my life.

2. The 9-11 Commission didn't want to point fingers as to who in government bore the responsibility for the intelligence failures that allowed the attacks to happen, but your reporting points pretty decisively at Condi Rice for consistently, even stubbornly, refusing to pass on the warnings from Richard Clarke and others to the President. It turns out there were dozens of dramatic warnings of attacks, spanning most of 2001. How aware were you of Condi Rice's failings in this regard before you began researching the book? Was it widely known that there were warnings throughout 2001 - in addition to the famous Aug. 6 PDB - that she ignored?

Condoleezza Rice has a lot to answer for about her performance as national security adviser in 2001, and I had no idea how much until I got into the reporting of the book. Like every other reporter covering the 9/11 commission, I focused too much on the infamous Aug. 6, 2001 Presidential Daily Brief: "Bin Laden Determined to Strike in U.S.," as if it were the one and only clear warning to the White House of catastrophe that summer. The truth is that the Aug. 6 PDB was only the tip of the iceberg -- that the White House, and Rice in particular, were being told virtually every day in the spring and summer of 2001 that the United States faced a dire terrorist threat, and that no one ruled out an attack on American soil.

I was really struck by one CIA report to the White House, dated June 30, 2001, with an incredibly stark headline, "Bin Laden Threats Are Real," which seemed a desperate effort to attract somebody's attention in the West Wing. And yet, the documentary records suggests that Rice just wasn't very interested in the threat and, in fact, demoted her counterterrorism adviser, Richard Clarke, in the early months of 2001. Compare Rice to her predecessor, Sandy Berger, who pressed Clinton to focus on Al Qaeda and gave Clarke instant access to the Oval Office.

3. What were the three or four biggest surprises that turned up when you did the research for the book that you hadn't known when you were reporting on the 9/11 Commission for the Times?

I was startled to learn of the battles within the commission's staff, particularly between some of the teams of investigators and Philip Zelikow, the executive director. I had no sense at all of those struggles while the commission was in business, if only because the staff was barred by Zelikow from talking to reporters. I also had no understanding of just how much control Zelikow had over the commission's day-to-day investigation. Other surprises: That so many of the commissioners and staff questioned George Tenet's truthfulness, to the point where they required him to testify under oath in private interviews; that the commission had missed so much evidence at the National Security Agency, almost certainly the commission's most grievous research failure; that Zelikow had several contacts with Karl Rove and apparently ordered his secretary to stop logging any phone calls with the White House.

4. If your book were a novel, I'd say that it's "character driven" as much as, if not more than, "plot driven." You make a great many players in this complicated drama come to life, including the controversial Director of the 9-11 Commission, Dr. Philip Zelikow, a serious historian with a great many ties to -- also known as "conflicts of interest" with -- the Bush administration. Insiders and outsiders, including the Jersey Girls, had many objections to him in this position. What's been his reaction to the book, if any?

I understand that Dr. Zelikow is not pleased with the book, although I believe it is much, much fairer to him than has been suggested by some of the news reports about the book. There are pages and pages of him in the book responding to the criticism of his performance and explaining his decision-making, and much of that material is drawn from my extended email interview of him. (He preferred to answer my questions by email, not face-to-face.) And there are several instances in which others are quoted in the book defending him, including the commission's top lawyer - a Democrat - and Democratic commissioners Lee Hamilton and Jamie Gorelick. On my website, I have posted the full email exchange, so readers can decide for themselves if I was fair to Dr. Zelikow.

5. Let's talk about conspiracy theories. The magnitude of the attacks and of the failures of the government to stop them are read by some to this day as evidence that they were "an inside job." That's certainly not the story you're telling here, but there were some events or issues that fueled these suspicions. Can you talk about the NORAD problem in this regard?

I have trouble accepting some of the big conspiracy theories about 9/11 if only because, after 20 years in and out of Washington, I just can't imagine the federal government being nearly competent enough to carry out what would have been such a vast, complicated operation in total secrecy. But there are lots of conspiracy theories out there, and NORAD is responsible for many of them. For more than two years after 9/11, NORAD, which should have been policing the skies that morning, could not come up with a coherent timeline for its actions on Sept. 11 -- why its jet fighters could not reach some of the hijacked planes in order to stop them from reaching the targets. The commission's staff believed that NORAD generals knew that any coherent timeline would show that they had bungled their mission that morning and that it was better to lie about it -- often under oath - than to tell the truth.

Elizabeth Benedict is the author of many novels, including Almost and The Practice of Deceit, as well as The Joy of Writing Sex: A Guide for Fiction Writers. Please click here if you would like a copy of her recent essay, "What I Learned About Sex on the Internet."

Comments

[DirkNeptune]

What were the "few conspiracy theories" that it lays to rest? What proof do you offer? Oh that this author doesn't feel they could have done it because it would be too difficult to keep secret? Unbelievable. That's akin to saying Bush couldn't have done it because he's too incompetent.

The point of your column should have focused on the lies and corruption of the 9/11 commission and why it came to be that they didn't talk about certain issues (Building #7, who funded 9/11 etc). Does this new book even talk about those omissions?

The only conspiracy theory it lays to rest is the one you listed is "A".

[ReasonIsMyReligion]

Philip Zelikow, the executive director.

Rove tool.

Don't log calls with the Whiteout House, my *ss.

[ReasonIsMyReligion]

Powerful.

Worth a repeat:
"And yet, the documentary records suggests that Rice just wasn't very interested in the threat and, in fact, demoted her counterterrorism adviser, Richard Clarke, in the early months of 2001. Compare Rice to her predecessor, Sandy Berger, who pressed Clinton to focus on Al Qaeda and gave Clarke instant access to the Oval Office. "

Condi "La la la la I can't hear you" Rice. Traitor.

[SamThornton]

Just on the point that NORAD bungled rather than abetted, I find that extremely easy to believe. It goes to how senior officers are selected to man watches maintained in war rooms in the military. During the year I spent at the Pentagon I had frequent contact with the National Military Command Center (NMCC), the tip of the spear in the national security alert system, the war room which is junior only to the one in the White House and through which all threat alerts pass.

At the time, the NMCC was always commanded by a General or Flag officer on a rotating watch. Who were these officers? They were gentlemen who had recently either ticked someone off or had otherwise screwed the pooch and were marking time until their retirement papers came through. Most were one- or two-stars. Most were understandably bitter. A couple showed up drunk from time to time.

Of course, that was then and this is now. The NORAD screwup, however, tells me that probably not much has changed.

[RebelPatriot]

HuffPost's Pick

Incompetent? Don't make me laugh:

What Bush and The competent Neocons have accomplish­ed...

Iraq War
Taken Iraqi oil off the market
Kept Iraq from opening non-US dollar bourse
Stacked Supreme Court with Neocons with a cake-walk confirmation
Escaping justice for numerous domestic and International War crimes
Escaping impeachment
Enriched war machine & Military Industrial Complex
Gutted Habeas Corpus
Rationalized torture
Installed 2 Attorney Generals that block investigations and supeonas
Conveniently misplaced trillions (Sept 10th, 2001) and later hundreds of billions of dollars
Reestablished record breaking opium production in Afghanistan
Implemented extraordinary rendition and secret torture camps
Manipulated - Stole 2000 and 2004 elections
Lied about Iraqi WMD's
Lied about Jessica Lynch-Pat Tillman
Working on reigniting Russian-American Cold War (Russian bomber flights, etc)
Gutted independent officer corps
Christianization of the military
Massive expenditures for Chem-Bio, Space Weapons, Internet cybercorps
Intimidation (or cooperation) of Media & Business
Permanent military bases in Iraq
Passed Patriot Act after convenient Anthrax and Manchurian-style Sniper attacks
Passed Military Commissions Act
Massive debt to break government (and public)
Electronic surveillance and massive databases - ongoing
Illegal warrantless wiretaps - ongoing
First-rate mercenary force enriched and empowered
Broke the Posse Comitatus precedent with Blackwater and US military domestic deployment
Blinding of America to Iranian nuclear program
Decimated New Orleans post-Katrina (dry-run for martial law)
Coopted Justice Department
Turned over regulatory agencies to the foxes of industry (ex. Mining, Forestry)
Freed Scooter Libby with no political cost
Bankruptcy "reform"
No Child Left Behind and other Orwellian named govt initiatives
Garnered cooperation of fellow CFR and Trilateral Democrats to enable agenda
Unending blank checks from Congress
Convenient benefiting from a "New Pearl Harbor"
Pulled a sham Investigation on 9-11 over on the public for a paltry $15 million

Conning the American public that they are incompetent.

What more do you want to qualify them as a success? Most people think they are incompetent because they are operating according to a different game-plan, or paradigm, than the normal person. Normal people wouldn't operate at this level of corruption and genuine evil. These people are expert Machiavellian psychopaths (with a strong dose of Straussian Noble Lie telling) and to attempt to associate normal behaviors to them is an exercise in futility. You absolutely CANNOT continue to believe that the administration is incompetent - they are completely competent and shocking us into accepting a fascist version of America.

Machiavelli laid it out how the American government would be switch-changed right before our eyes when he wrote:

He who desires or attempts to reform the government of a state, and wishes to have it accepted and capable of maintaining itself to the satisfaction of everybody, must at least retain the semblance of the old forms; so that it may seem to the people that there has been no change in the institutions, even though in fact they are entirely different from the old ones.

Discourses on Livy

[galilei]

Great list, RebelPatriot.
I'm going to add:

Buried USA in debt at interest in which many of them have some kind of personal stake.

and, for perspective:
'Pulled a sham Investigation on 9-11 over on the public for a paltry $15 million'

The 9/11 investigation only happened at the insistence and sacrifice of many victim families and with great resistance from the Bush Administration (see the documentary at: http://www.911pressfortruth.com/ )
Investigators complained that evidence was shipped overseas to be scrapped before they could see it, commissioners complained that the White House and Zelikow stonewalled them at every step, and that they were underfunded and rushed. Political insiders were lined up (some with ties to a Unocal v. Bridas lawsuit regarding Afghan Pipelines). Commission member Max Cleland called the investigation 'a scam', and was forced to resign with a sinecure appointment to the Import-Export bank. The commission began 26 months after the event, when the evidence was gone, the deck was stacked, and the pressure was unavoidable.

By contrast, the Space Shuttle Columbia exploded at 9:00am on Feb 1, 2003. The Columbia Accident Investigation Board was empowered by 10:30 the same day (still 9 months before the 9/11 Commission began), had a budget that rang in at 26 million dollars, and a massive effort was undertaken to find every tiny piece across three states and reassemble the shuttle ( http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v241/galilei2k4/fig1.gif ) in order to figure out what happened.
This, when the most likely answer was going to be, 'incompetence'.

[batguano]

Jeez, I hardly know where to start. How about with the recent release of "Twenty-five U.S. Military Officers Challenge Official Account of 9/11" by Alan Miller http://www.opednews.com/articles/genera_alan_mil_080112_twenty_five_u_s__mil.htm

Some quotes from these military officers; Official Account of 9/11: “Impossible”, “A Bunch of Hogwash”, “Total B.S.”, “Ludicrous”, “A Well-Organized Cover-up”, “A White-Washed Farce”

January 14, 2008 – Twenty-five former U.S. military officers have severely criticized the official account of 9/11 and called for a new investigation. They include former commander of U.S. Army Intelligence, Major General Albert Stubblebine, former Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense, Col. Ronald D. Ray, two former staff members of the Director of the National Security Agency; Lt. Col. Karen Kwiatkowski, PhD, and Major John M. Newman, PhD, and many others. They are among the rapidly growing number of military and intelligence service veterans, scientists, engineers, and architects challenging the government’s story. The officers’ statements appear below, listed alphabetically.

Lt. Col. Robert Bowman, PhD “A lot of these pieces of information, taken together, prove that the official story, the official conspiracy theory of 9/11 is a bunch of hogwash. It’s impossible,” said Lt. Col. Robert Bowman, PhD, U.S. Air Force (ret). [1] With doctoral degrees in Aeronautics and Nuclear Engineering, Col. Bowman served as Director of Advanced Space Programs Development under Presidents Gerald Ford and Jimmy Carter.

“There’s a second group of facts having to do with the cover up,” continued Col. Bowman. “Taken together these things prove that high levels of our government don’t want us to know what happened and who’s responsible. Who gained from 9/11? Who covered up crucial information about 9/11? And who put out the patently false stories about 9/11 in the first place? When you take those three things together, I think the case is pretty clear that it’s highly placed individuals in the administration with all roads passing through Dick Cheney.”
Regarding the failure of NORAD to intercept the four hijacked planes on 9/11, Col. Bowman said, “I'm an old interceptor pilot. I know the drill. I've done it. I know how long it takes. I know the rules. … Critics of the government story on 9/11 have said: ‘Well, they knew about this, and they did nothing’. That's not true. If our government had done nothing that day and let normal procedure be followed, those planes, wherever they were, would have been intercepted, the Twin Towers would still be standing and thousands of dead Americans would still be alive.”



I would also like to re-post some comments from other Hufpo Nation people here that leap out at me;

"If you really accept the incompetence theory - then you're as naive as they hoped you'd be. Incompetence my ass"! DemandTruth

"So basically Elizabeth, you're saying that everybody's lying, but it's ok because they're only covering up incompetence". Gold9472

"Elizabeth has gone way out of her way to avoid facts that point to the American Public getting something other than the truth of what happened". tompoe

Maybe Elizabeth, you should go back and read a few books on the subject, there are more than a few (W. G. Tarpley's "9/11 Synthetic Terror" eg)

[brently]

People believe the incompetence theory becuase it is easier to do so. Not because of the facts, which point squarely at Cheney, the CIA, and the Moussad, but rather because it makes us feel better about out country.

"Yeah, ... those guys are so dumb, they couldn't even prevent this when they knew it was coming. So silly, those morons." It's comforting to think this way--allows homeostatis.

The truth is too scary: we have been duped, and our fellow citizens murdered, for the sake of empire and control of strategic oil reserves.

[galilei]

Not only does Henry Kissinger spill hot coffee in his lap when you ask him if he works for the Bin Laden family, he also just happens to have planned an assassination and fascist coup that took place on September the 11th (Salvador Allende, in 1973). That's quite a first choice to investigate 9/11, don't you think?
Seriously, I have to start inviting you incompetnce theorists over for poker night. I get four aces every hand, but it's just a coincidence!

[Gold9472]

:) That is a really good point.

[Nommo]

Are you suggesting that such a level of competence is, for you, a relief? You don't think that at least some heads should have rolled? So if it happens again, it's ok because the same numbnuts are in place?

Strange.

[Gold9472]

So basically Elizabeth, you're saying that everybody's lying, but it's ok because they're only covering up incompetence. First of all, without a REAL investigation that follows every path wherever it may lead, and actually holds people accountable for either incompetence OR criminality, we'll never truly know which it was. Personally, after seeing everything this Administration, and their friends in Congress have been capable of, I wouldn't put criminality with regard to the 9/11 attacks past ANY of them. Secondly, lying under oath, and obstruction of justice are ALSO punishable offenses, and both were committed several times during the time of the 9/11 Commission. Shouldn't people be held accountable for that? Finally, Shenon's book reiterated already known information for the most part. Just elaborations. There is so much more like that mentioned on www.cooperativeresearch.org's 911 Timeline. You mention the fact that he mentions "the Jersey Girls But-For-Wh­om-the-Com­mission-Wo­uld-Never-­Have-Been, to Henry Kissinger, who, in a meeting with them, spilled hot coffee and nearly fell off his seat when one of them asked if he had any clients whose last named is Bin Laden", but you fail to mention that those same individuals are STILL looking for truth, accountability, and justice for the 9/11 attacks. The bottom line is, we need a REAL investigation, and we need accountability. Without that, the 9/11 issue will never die.

[tompoe]

Elizabeth has gone way out of her way to avoid facts that point to the American Public getting something other than the truth of what happened. It isn't about conspiracy theories. It's about getting the truth as to what happened. Explain why the towers fell at free-fall speeds into their own footprint, as opposed to the laws of physics that would dictate when a building falls over, it falls in one direction or another. Easy enough to do. Elizabeth prefers not to explain that, or anything else coming from those in the Public that would like answers. But, then, she needs to keep her options open for pay opportunities from corporate thugs, so . . .

[FearlessFreep]

You don't have to believe in conspiracy theories to see the need for a second 9/11 commission.

[DemandTruth]

If you really accept the incompetence theory - then you're as naive as they hoped you'd be. I'm sorry. How could that many people be so incompetent? And when does willfully ignoring credible warnings cross over into the "Let It Happen" area? They had warnings. We know that. Are you asking us to assume that they were too "incompetent" to heed those warnings, but they WOULD HAVE if only they'd been less incompetent? Please. They were competent enough to "win" two elections and make the entire Republican and Democratic government line up behind them and acquiesce to everything they wanted to do. They were competent enough to twist intelligence, or make it up out of whole cloth (all making it seem believable enough to swallow for long enough) to lead us into a preemptive WAR for chrissake! The "incompetence" is just the fallback cover.

And since we all already KNOW they had credible warnings of an attack before 9/11 but did nothing, why are they doing such a good job of convincing us we must give them MORE spying powers and other sweeping powers to gain "intelligence" to "keep us safe"? The intelligence they had legally obtained before 9/11 wasn't enough to keep us safe. In fact, it was ignored and covered up! And yet here they are scaring and bullying Congress and American citizens into giving up our privacy and civil rights - exactly what they want! Does this sound like the accomplishments of incompetents to you? Not me.

And WHO were they wiretapping, for WHAT information almost a YEAR BEFORE 9/11, anyway? Would incompetent bumblers be able to pull that off, as they still seem to be doing?

Incompetence my ass!

[slg]

Nicely stated without even mentioning WTC7.

There will be no CHANGE in America until there is a complete and independent investigation of all the "coincidences" that allowed 9/11 to happen.

YES, WE CAN handle the Truth!