I find the history and information about this guy fascinating. Notice his "area of academic expertise." Perfect guy for the job.

Read just the bold for the juicy parts.

Philip D. Zelikow

http://www.ichblog.eu/content/view/32/1/

Mike Whitney is right on top with this one. I for myself got the same insight a few days ago, as I learned of the presidents use of this bombing as an excuse for staying there / surge the troops.

This is a must read to understand the philosophy behind the perpetrators.

***

The bombing of the Golden Mosque

By Mike Whitney
01/20/07 "ICHBlog" -- - We’ve heard a lot about the bombing of Samarra’s Golden Mosque lately. Bush has brought it up twice in the last week alone. It’s a critical part of the administration’s rationale for the occupation of Iraq, so we can expect to be reminded of it nearly as often as 9-11.

The destruction of the Golden-dome Mosque took place in February 2005 and has been identified as the “catalyzing event” that plunged the country into sectarian violence. That, at least, is just the official version. No one knows really what happened because the administration refused to conduct an independent investigation and the media excluded any account that didn’t square with the Pentagon’s spin on events.

What we’re left with is mere speculation.

...

Senior Rice aide, Philip Zelikow resigns
By Sue Pleming Mon Nov 27, 2:55 PM ET

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Philip Zelikow, one of U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice's closest advisers on Iraq and the Middle East, will quit his post to return to university teaching, a State Department official said on Monday.

In his resignation letter to Rice which was made available to Reuters, Zelikow said "family and professional concerns" led to his decision to return to the University of Virginia next year."

Here is some interesting writing by Eric Alterman that asks some key questions regarding 9/11. The piece covers the new pre-9/11 revelations in Bob Woodward's book State of Denial as well as Philip Zelikow's connections to Condi Rice and George W. Bush.
http://www.americanprogress.org/issues/2006/11/think_again_911.html

A delicious piece of propaganda from the NY Times today. Apparently, Philip Zelikow, the executive director of the 9/11 Commission, is really the good cop to Cheney's bad cop. The premise for the article is that Zelikow has been expressing the views of Condoleezza Rice recently, and those views contradict certain White House positions on torture and intelligence.

For example, one of his memos "described the potential for Iraq to become a 'catastrophic failure.' Another, among several that have come to light in recent weeks, was an early call for changes in a detention policy that many in the State Department believed was doing tremendous harm to the United States.

Others have proposed new diplomatic initiatives toward North Korea and the Middle East, and one went as far as to call for a reconsideration of the phrase 'war on terror' because it alienated many Muslims — an idea that quickly fizzled after opposition from the White House."

In terms of 9/11, this depiction of Zelikow attempts to distance him from his role as White House insider and cover-up artist; at one point, the Times speculates over Zelikow being "an in-house contrarian." The idea that Zelikow opposes current detention polices, or objects to the term "war on terror," is ludicrous. This is the man who crafted the 9/11 Commission Report and its recommendations for further centralization of intelligence gathering at the level of the executive branch.

This is the editorial comment at the top of the Buzzflash frontpage right now:

Members of the Sept. 11 commission said today that they were alarmed that they were told nothing about a White House meeting in July 2001 at which George J. Tenet, then the director of central intelligence, warned Condoleezza Rice about an imminent Al Qaeda attack. Philip D. Zelikow, the executive director of the Sept. 11 commission, is quoted in this article. He is a past and current aide to Rice and was, one can assume, selected to be the staff head of the committee so that the White House could suppress the truth and direct the committee through a loyal surrogate.

Here's the linked article:

http://tinyurl.com/qsro6