9/11 panel director 'helped demote Clarke'
By Shaun Waterman
UPI Homeland and National Security Editor
WASHINGTON, April 9 (UPI) --
The man directing the inquiry into the Sept. 11 terror attacks was part of a controversial change to the White House crisis management machinery that some have said contributed to the failure to stop the plot.
Phillip Zelikow, the executive director of the Sept. 11 commission, was a key player in restructuring the White House's National Security Council during the Bush transition, national security adviser Condoleezza Rice told the commission Thursday.
The restructuring downgraded the importance of counter-terror czar Richard A. Clarke's NSC working group, which he and others maintain contributed to the failure to stop the hijacking plot.
Zelikow -- a longtime associate of Rice's who co-authored a book with her -- was tasked "to help us think about the structure of the terrorism (working group) -- Dick Clarke's operations," Rice told former Democratic Nebraska Sen. Bob Kerrey at the hearing.
The revelation is likely to raise new questions about the role of Zelikow on the commission, which is seeking to discover why the United States was caught so utterly unawares on Sept. 11.
Clarke's group, the Counter-terrorism Security Group, or CSG, handled the government's day-to-day activities aimed at stopping terrorism and disrupting terrorist activities. Clarke was the "crisis management guy," Rice told the hearing.
But in his book, published simultaneously with his testimony to the commission last month, Clarke explained how the new White House structure Zelikow and Rice designed effectively demoted the CSG and him as its coordinator, cutting off the access to the president and other cabinet level officials -- called principals in White House jargon -- that he had enjoyed under Clinton.
"No longer would the (CSG) coordinator be a member of the Principals Committee. No longer would the CSG report to the principals, but instead to a committee of deputy secretaries."
This change, Clarke has said, slowed down policy-making and meant that the CSG coordinator was no longer able to advocate the importance of counter-terrorism where it really mattered: to the president and other members of the cabinet.
Rice insisted Thursday that Clarke had all the access he needed to do his job.
Relatives of some of those who died in the attacks -- who have organized themselves into a vocal, aggressive and highly effective lobby that was pivotal in achieving the inquiry in the face of White House opposition -- have called on a number of occasions for Zelikow to resign because his position on the transition team, and his closeness to Rice, create the appearance of a conflict of interest.
The commission chairman and vice chairman have said repeatedly that they have complete confidence in Zelikow, adding that he has recused himself from those parts of the investigation relating directly to the transition.
But this doesn't silence his critics.
"Zelikow has conflicts," Bill Harvey told United Press International. His wife, Sara, was killed Sept. 11 in New York. "I'm not sure that his recusal is sufficient. His fingerprints are all over that decision."
Commission spokesman Al Felzenberg has several times declined to make Zelikow available to answer questions about the issue, saying it was "a personnel matter."
Zelikow apparently enjoys support from most members of the commission. Although Kerrey said Thursday that the question of Zelikow's role and his relationship with Rice had been "a question that's been a concern for me from the first day I came onto the commission," few appear to share his concern.
Sen. Bob Graham, D-Fla., who has been a vocal critic of the administration's prosecution of the war against terror and who rarely toes any line, sees Zelikow as an asset to the commission, stressing that he was brought into the transition as an academic, not a political operative.
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