The long-classified document detailing possible connections between the government of Saudi Arabia and the September 11 terrorist plot released on Friday is a wide-ranging catalog of meetings and suspicious coincidences.
Advertisement
“We hope the release of these pages will clear up, once and for all, any lingering questions or suspicions about Saudi Arabia’s actions, intentions, or long-term friendship with the United States”.
However, the United States probed links between the government of Saudi Arabia and the 9/11 attacks, finding no proven ties.
Sens. Richard Burr and Dianne Feinstein, the chair and top Democrat of the Senate Intelligence Committee, issued a statement that they agreed with the decision to declassify the report.
Saudi Foreign Minister Adel bin Ahmed Al-Jubeir said the report totally exonerated Saudi Arabia.
Graham said a federal judge in Florida is combing through 80,000 pages that include reports from the FBI’s investigation into the hijackers’ activities in Sarasota, Florida, to see if they should be released in a Freedom of Information Act suit brought by the corporate parent of Florida Bulldog, an investigative reporting organization.
The release of the previously classified pages is unlikely to end the controversy over the role of Saudi Arabia, an important US partner in the Middle East. Many US officials who opposed their release had anxious they would damage diplomatic relations. Fifteen of the 19 hijackers were Saudi nationals and several had little experience living in the West.
An independent panel completed the 9/11 Commission Report in 2002, but 28 pages of the report have been withheld until now. Al-Qudhaeein and his associate were flying to Washington, D.C.to attend a party at the Saudi Embassy, and both claimed their tickets were paid for by the Saudi Embassy. Al-Qudhaeein then attempted to enter the cockpit on two occasions. The plane made an emergency landing and the FBI investigated, but did not prosecute.
The newly declassified pages also say a telephone number found in a telephone book of Abu Zubaydah, a Saudi-born al Qaeda operative captured in Pakistan, was for a Colorado corporation that managed the affairs of the residence of Prince Bandar bin Sultan, the former Saudi ambassador to Washington.
“Several government agencies, including the CIA and the FBI, have investigated the contents of the “28 Pages” and have confirmed that neither the Saudi government, nor senior Saudi officials, nor any person acting on behalf of the Saudi government provided any support or encouragement for these attacks”, he said. The most well-known investigation was by the 9/11 Commission, which in 2004 stated that it found “no evidence that the Saudi government as an institution or senior Saudi officials individually funded” al-Qaida.
Several members of Congress said they were pleased the pages had finally been released.
For example, a suspected Saudi intelligence operative allegedly met with two of the terrorists in California and is believed to have provided “substantial assistance” to them.
While the United States and Saudis are longtime allies, relations have been roiled by the Obama administration’s participation in a nuclear deal with Iran and by Senate legislation passed in May that would let American victims and their families sue other countries over alleged involvement in the 2001 attacks.
White House Press Secretary Josh Earnest seemed to echo the sentiment. His state was home to many people killed when planes hit the World Trade Center in neighboring NY. “Congress has to stand up for the interests of the thousands of innocent Americans who lost loved ones on 9/11”, one group said in a statement.
“It will confirm what we have been saying for quite some time”, Earnest told reporter during a daily White House briefing.
Advertisement
Washington-Part of a Congressional report that had been kept under wraps for more than a decade, and was declassified on Friday, confirmed that the United States has no proof over the involvement of Saudi officials in the 9/11 attacks.
