The Obama administration may soon release the still classified 28 pages of the 9/11 commission’s report, the Hill reported Thursday.
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Saudi Arabia wants the pages to be made public as well.
The ranking Democrat on the House Intelligence Committee, Adam B. Schiff of California, said the release was “fairly imminent”.
Family members and survivors of the attack have pleaded with President Obama to release the pages – and Saudi leaders have said they should be released to quash speculation. ‘The Senate and House intel committees should then give the formal go-ahead to release the report since they originally produced it’.
The document is a component of a congressional investigation into the 9/11 attacks and has been kept classified since its completion in 2002.
However, a White House official also told the network that the director of National Intelligence has to review it.
None of the 28 pages have ever been made available to the public, but the forthcoming release will reportedly offer a redacted version of the documents.
But in recent years, demand for the pages’ release has reached fever pitch as victims’ families seek to sue to Saudi government. Schiff believes the documents will probably be released by Congress, although he said it is not certain who would formally do it.
Sources told CNN that intelligences agencies, law enforcement and the State Department have all reviewed and approved the release of the 28 pages with “minimal redactions”.
“The House Intelligence Committee will get the redacted report today or tomorrow”, Schiff said.
The 9/11 Commission, which built on the work of the joint congressional inquiry with access to Federal Bureau of Investigation files and secret intelligence, did not exonerate Saudi Arabia.
There’s no guarantee, however, that opening the cover on the secret chapter will provide answers to those questions.
The 28-page portion of the report, which have always been the focus of various conspiracy theories, is said to detail potential connections between the Saudi Arabian government and the terror plot.
Twenty-eight pages from a congressional inquiry into the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001 could be made public as soon as Friday, according to multiple sources.
“The reason why the 28 pages are so important is that they were the conclusion of the congressional inquiry into 9/11 as to how was that plot financed?” Graham said in an interview with NBC this spring. “Saudi Arabia has always been considered the primary source of al Qaeda funding, but we have found no evidence that the Saudi government as an institution or senior Saudi officials individually funded the organization”.
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He said the official 9/11 commission looked “very thoroughly at these allegations” and concluded “that there was no evidence to indicate that the Saudi government as an institution or senior Saudi officials individually had supported the 9/11 attacks”.
