By Kit Klarenberg
Global Delinquents
November 19, 2025
All my investigations are free to read, thanks to the enormous generosity of my readers. Independent journalism nonetheless requires investment, so if you value this article or any others, please consider sharing, or even becoming a paid subscriber. Your support is always gratefully received, and will never be forgotten. To buy me a coffee or two, please click this link.
This year's anniversary of 9/11 passed without mainstream mention. Almost two-and-a-half decades on, the media appears to have lost all interest in that fateful, world-changing day. This is despite the April 2023 release of a bombshell court filing by the Office of Military Commissions, which concluded at least two of the alleged hijackers were CIA assets, having been recruited "via a liaison relationship" with Saudi intelligence. The same document offers illuminating insight into how the 9/11 Commission buried this, among other inconvenient truths.
Central to the coverup was Commission chief Philip Zelikow. Commission investigator Dana Leseman, dubbed "CS-2" in the filing, told representatives of the Office of Military Commissions - the legal body overseeing the prosecution of 9/11 defendants - Zelikow consistently sought "to blunt" inquiries "into Saudi involvement with the hijackers." Leseman was formally charged with investigating "the possible link" between Riyadh and the 9/11 attacks, but Zelikow was determined she would not succeed.
His wrecking efforts included blocking Leseman's requests to conduct interviews with certain individuals of interest, and obtain documents that could shed light on Riyadh's foreknowledge of, if not active participation in, 9/11 - and the CIA's by extension. More widely, Zelikow had exclusive control over who the Commission did and did not interview, and on what topics, strictly limiting which witnesses were grilled, and the evidence heard.
Leseman was fired by Zelikow in April 2003, after obtaining a classified index to the House and Senate's joint inquiry into 9/11, "from a source other than official channels." The index listed sensitive documents possessed by the FBI and other US government agencies, detailing "suspected Saudi involvement in the 9/11 attacks." While "a minor security violation", Zelikow summarily terminated Leseman and seized the index. News of her defenestration didn't leak at the time. No other staffer was permitted to view the document thereafter.
Elsewhere in the filing, Bill Clinton's counter-terror czar Richard Clarke, who has long-charged the CIA had a relationship with some of the alleged hijackers, told investigators Zelikow was explicitly selected by George W Bush's National Security Advisor Condoleezza Rice "to prevent damage to the Bush Administration by blocking the Commission's line of inquiry into the Saudi connection."
Clarke further asserted his belief the Saudi-led effort to penetrate Al Qaeda "may have [been] organized by high level employees at the CIA," and "most of the records" of the top-secret mission "were destroyed in an effort to cover up the operation." Tellingly, Clarke relayed how after he expressed his opinion the CIA "was running a 'false flag' operation to recruit the hijackers" publicly, "he received an 'angry call' from George Tenet," CIA Director during 9/11. Despite his wrath, Tenet "did not deny the allegation."
'Act Preemptively'
Philip Zelikow's appointment to head the 9/11 Commission was the culmination of the body's thoroughly troubled gestation. Initially, the Bush administration vehemently rejected mass public demand for any official investigation into the attacks. It was not until November 2002 the Commission was begrudgingly established at long last. Its initial chief, Henry Kissinger, resigned within mere weeks due to conflicts of interest. This included awkward questions over whether he counted any Saudi Arabians - particularly individuals with the surname bin Laden - as clients.
Zelikow had a panoply of conflicts of interest of his own, some of which were well-established at the time. Others only emerged when the Commission was underway. For one, he enjoyed a long-running relationship with Condoleezza Rice, and was part of George W Bush's transition team, overseeing the new administration's National Security Council taking office. This process led to the White House's Counterterrorism Security Group being downgraded, and its chief Richard Clarke demoted, creating layers of bureaucracy between him and senior government officials.
A secret report produced by Clarke's team in January 2000 concluded US intelligence was ill-equipped to respond to a major, ever-growing domestic terror threat. It outlined 18 recommendations, with 16 accompanying funding proposals, to "seriously weaken" Al Qaeda. Its findings were ignored by the Bush administration. Numerous memos authored subsequently by Clarke, urgently requesting high-level meetings to discuss Al Qaeda and outline strategies for combating the group at home and abroad, were similarly disregarded.
Meanwhile, in September 2002, the Bush administration submitted a 31-page document, The National Security Strategy of the United States, to Congress. It set out a very clear blueprint for the looming War On Terror, calling for a massive buildup in US military spending, and Washington to "act preemptively" against "rogue states", such as Iraq. While it bore the President's signature, the incendiary document was secretly written by none other than Zelikow.
His authorship only became known by the Commission when the investigation was almost over, prompting several key staffers and a commissioner to threaten to quit. The body's chiefs Thomas Kean and Lee Hamilton were apparently unaware when Zelikow was appointed. The pair subsequently charged the Commission was set up to fail. Its investigations got off to a glacial start, in part due to funding issues. The Commission was initially given a paltry $3 million dollars to complete its work.
By contrast, a concurrent probe of the space shuttle Columbia's crash, in which just seven people died, was granted $50 million. In March 2003, due to repeated demands from its staffers, the Commission was allocated a further $9 million - $2 million less than requested. Despite these grave teething problems, that same month - three months into the 16-month-long probe, and before a single hearing had even been convened - Zelikow produced a complete outline of the Commission's final report.
The finished article, released in July 2004, followed Zelikow's preordained design very closely. In the intervening time, he personally rewrote several statements submitted by staffers, which informed the report's findings. In one instance, he amended a statement to strongly insinuate, without making the direct accusation, Saddam Hussein and Al Qaeda had a relationship of some kind, horrifying its authors. This false claim was frequently peddled by White House officials to justify the criminal 2003 Anglo-American invasion of Iraq.