White House Set To Release Secret Pages From Sept 11 Report
By Tyler Durden
Over the past several weeks, the White House has been very vocal about its opposition to both the Bipartisan Bill that would allow families of Sept 11 victims to sue Saudi Arabia for its involvement in the WTC attack, as well as stonewalling when it comes to releasing the confidential “28 pages” that have been withheld from the Congressional inquiry report into 9/11 and which allegedly provide damning evidence about the the perpetrators of the worst terrorist attack on US soil.
As reported last weekend, none other than Saudi Arabia made its displeasure with any potential revelations quite public when it threatened it would sell up to $750 in US assets held by the kingdom should the White House allow more public scrutiny into Saudi involvement in Sept 11.
Perhaps in response to the spike in public interest following the resurgence to prominence of “Document 17”, Obama appears ready to make concessions. Recall that as we reported last week, according to a 47-page US memo known as document 17, written in 2003 and quietly declassified last year, the FBI learnt that the flight certificate of one of the Sept 11 pilots was in an envelope from the Saudi embassy in Washington.
Saudi Arabian embassy in Washington, AP Photo
And now, as AP reports this morning, the Obama administration will likely soon release at least part of a 28-page secret chapter from a congressional inquiry into 9/11 that may shed light on possible Saudi connections to the attackers.
The documents, kept in a secure room in the basement of the Capitol, contain information from the joint congressional inquiry into “specific sources of foreign support for some of the Sept. 11 hijackers while they were in the United States.”
Bob Graham, who was co-chairman of that bipartisan panel, and others say the documents point suspicion at the Saudis. The former Democratic senator from Florida says an administration official told him that intelligence officials will decide in the next several weeks whether to release at least parts of the documents. The disclosure would come at a time of strained U.S. relations with Saudi Arabia, a long-time American ally.
Tim Roemer, who was a member of both the joint congressional inquiry as well as the 9/11 Commission and has read the secret chapter three times, described the 28 pages as a “preliminary police report.”
“There were clues. There were allegations. There were witness reports. There was evidence about the hijackers, about people they met with — all kinds of different things that the 9/11 Commission was then tasked with reviewing and investigating,” the former Democratic congressman from Indiana said Friday.
Fifteen of the 19 hijackers were citizens of Saudi Arabia.
Naturally the Saudis are less than thrilled: its government says it has been “wrongfully and morbidly accused of complicity” in the attacks, is fighting extremists and working to clamp down on their funding channels. Still, the Saudis have long said that they would welcome declassification of the 28 pages because it would “allow us …read more
Source: White House Set To Release Secret Pages From Sept 11 Report
