Officials in the Saudi government, including members of the royal family and embassy staff, at times provided large sums of money, fake passports, and information to people assisting the hijackers while they were in the USA, the pages allege.
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The U.S. has never accused or prosecuted any Saudi government officials of involvement in the September 11 plot. The Bush administration claimed the decision was to protect the methods and sources of USA intelligence.
Several members of Congress said they were pleased the pages had finally been released.
“Each of the claims the 9/11 families and victims has made against the kingdom of Saudi Arabia enjoys extensive support in the findings of a broad range of investigative documents authored by multiple USA intelligence agencies”, the families said. The panel also found “no evidence that the Saudi government as an institution or senior Saudi officials individually funded” al-Qaeda.
The officials also released declassified information saying that many of Saudi agencies had been infiltrated and exploited by sympathizers of associates of Osama bin Laden’s network.
Bandar, a close family friend of the Bushes, was Saudi ambassador to USA from 1983 to 2005. Schiff warned that the committee would received a “redacted report” for release.
Bayoumi had “extensive contact with Saudi government establishments in the United States and received financial support from a Saudi company affiliated with the Saudi Ministry of Defense”, the document states.
Al Sharbi, who was taking flight lessons in the Phoenix area before 9/11, was captured in 2002 in the same place in Pakistan as Abu Zubaydah, a top al-Qaida trainer who was apprehended and waterboarded dozens of times by USA interrogators.
President George W. Bush, who was in office during 9/11 and when the report was created, had a friendly relationship with Prince Bandar.
The result of a joint 2002 congressional investigation, the report sheds light on the potential role the Saudi government played in the attacks, which killed almost 3,000 people.
Abdullah Al-Saud, the Saudi ambassador to the US, said Riyadh also supports the move. The document alleges that at least two people who supported the hijackers were Saudi intelligence officers.
Many US officials who opposed declassifying the information say they worry the move will damage diplomatic relations with a key US ally in the region. The U.S. refused, and the Saudis didn’t find the man.
The document, a section of a 2002 congressional inquiry into the September 11 attacks, had been kept secret out of concern that it might fray diplomatic relations between the United States and Saudi Arabia.
“The American public deserved to see the reports’ declassified contents and now they can”, Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., said.
The pages also say that the inquiry obtained information “indicating that Saudi Government officials in the United States may have other ties to al-Qa’ida and other terrorist groups”, but the commission that authored them acknowledged that much of the info “remains speculative and yet to be independently verified”.
Saudi Ambassador to the United States Abdullah Al-Saud put out a statement after the document’s release Friday welcoming its publication, though he didn’t address the details it contains.
“The bottom line is it’s not true that these were aggressively pursued because people didn’t want these leads aggressively pursued”, he said. Why did Obama drag his feet for nearly 8 years?
George W Bush classified the chapter to protect intelligence sources and methods and, it is thought, to avoid upsetting Saudi Arabia, a close USA ally at the time.
Documents show that while officials suspected Gulf kingdom’s involvement in global terror, they could not establish any definitive links..
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But McGlinchey said the supposed transparency was a political move.
