WASHINGTON-The U.S. government released 28 pages of a congressional inquiry into the September 11, 2001, terrorist attack, making public a long-shrouded portion of a report that dealt with the possibility Saudi Arabia wasinvolved.
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A 28-page 2002 congressional report on the September 11, 2001 terror attacks, released Friday, indicates some of the hijackers had ties to people in the Saudi government.
On June 17, Saudi Arabia Foreign Minister Adel al-Jubeir called the 28 pages an “internal USA matter, not a Saudi matter” and said when to release them was up to US officials.
The House Intelligence Committee has released 28 previously classified pages of a congressional investigation into the 9/11 attacks that detail the potential involvement of Saudi citizens and government officials.
Under wraps for 13 years, the United States on Friday released once-top secret pages from a congressional report into 9/11 that questioned whether Saudis who were in contact with the hijackers after they arrived in the U.S. knew what they were planning.
“An initial reading of the long-classified 28 pages of the Congressional Joint Inquiry Report Into 9/11 confirms what we have long known – that 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 bulk of which still are being withheld from the American public”.
The report revealed a connection between the 9/11 hijackers and individuals who may have had Saudi government connections.
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 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.
Victims of the attacks, families and insurers that lost billions at ground zero have sued the Saudi government alleging that government financed charities bankrolled the attackers and that Saudi officials in the US and elsewhere assisted the hijackers.
California representative Devin Nunes emphasized that the evidence presented in the pages constitute “unverified leads that were later fully investigated by the intelligence committee”. There just isn’t any definitive proof of Saudi government involvement in the 9/11 attacks – at least, proof that could stand up in court.
One section said Omar al-Bayoumi, said to be a Saudi intelligence officer, met with two hijackers at a public place after they arrived in San Diego. “I know that the release of these pages will not end debate over the issue, but it will quiet rumors over their contents, as is often the case, the reality is less damaging than the uncertainty”. The inquiry, which concluded in 2005, was said to be inconclusive and found no evidence the Saudi government knowingly and willingly supported Al Qaeda terrorists.
Pelosi, the longest serving Member of the House Intelligence Committee, is a former Ranking Democrat on the House Intelligence Committee and was the top House Democrat on the Joint Congressional investigation looking into the 9/11 attack.
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While the Saudis called the allegation “delusional” and pointed to Moussaoui’s own lawyer’s assertion that he was incompetent, it is well-known that Osama bin Laden was the son of a wealthy Saudi Arabian contractor who had close ties to the Saudi royal family. The relationship between the Saudi government and Osama bin Laden turned sour almost a decade earlier, Jones said, when Saudi Arabia turned to the USA armed forces to oust Iraqi troops from Kuwait in 1991. But it also said that people in the CIA’s Near East Division and Counterterrorism Center “speculated that dissident sympathizers within the government may have aided al-Qaida”.
