He has joined several other commission members in calling on the Obama administration to promptly declassify the secret 28 pages of a congressional report that detail foreign support for the 9/11 al-Qaeda attackers.
Advertisement
“There was an terrible lot of participation by Saudi individuals in supporting the hijackers, and some of those people worked in their government”, Lehman told the Guardian.
In his 2004 book “Intelligence Matters: The CIA, the FBI, Saudi Arabia, and the Failure of America’s War on Terror”, and in the more than a decade since publishing it, Sen. Its central finding that there was “no evidence that the Saudi government as an institution or senior Saudi officials individually” was hailed by the Saudi government as effectively clearing Saudi officials of any tie to 9/11. [Photo by Richard Drew/AP Images] Lehman was critical of the commission’s chairman, Republican and former governor of New Jersey Tom Kean, and its vice-chairman, Democrat and Indiana’s congressman Lee Hamilton, who have time and again cautioned the Obama administration against revealing the full congressional report on the Saudis and the 9/11 attacks, this including a classified section – “the 28 pages”.
“They may not have been indicted, but they were certainly implicated”, Lehman stated.
Lehman also said the commission had knowledge of at least five other Saudi government officials who were strongly believed to be part of the support network for the terrorists. “Our report should never have been read as an exoneration of Saudi Arabia”. This is why it’s essential for the Obama administration to declassify and release the 28 pages, even if they might contain “raw and unvetted” data from Federal Bureau of Investigation files.
They further claimed that only one former Saudi consulate in Los Angeles was “implicated in the 9/11 plot investigation”.
The push to declassify documents proving Saudi involvement in the most deadly terrorist act conducted on American soil, alongside the threat of litigation by family members, sparked a serious diplomatic row between Washington and Riyadh.
The 9/11 Commission was formed by President Bush and members of Congress in response to the 2002 Congressional report. More than 70 percent of Saudi Arabia’s income comes from oil revenue, and the nation’s stocks are highly correlated with energy prices.
He said up to six Saudi officials had supported al-Qaeda prior to the attacks.
But despite this apparent disagreement with the commission’s leadership, Lehman released a statement Thursday morning saying, “There is no split between the members of the 9/11 Commission on issues relating to the involvement of Saudi citizens”.
Saudi Arabia has threatened to sell off $750 billion in US assets if Congress passes a law that allows victims of 9/11 to file lawsuits against the kingdom, in a scheme likened to “blackmail”.
The White House is now reviewing the 28 pages for possible release, and Obama isexpected to announce a decision about declassification by June.
Saudi Foreign Minister Adel al-Jubeir responded to the United States that if the measures advanced, the Kingdom would sell off its holding of over $500 billion in US Treasury bonds, which, according to some, would result in an immediate stock market and currency meltdown.
Of the 19 September 11 attackers, 15 were citizens of Saudi Arabia.
Advertisement
Then, two weeks before the attack, the family suddenly disappeared without much of a trace.
