The federal government will likely soon release at least part of a 28-page secret chapter from a congressional inquiry into 9/11 — and it may shed light on possible Saudi connections to the attackers.
The secret documents — currently kept locked 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, a former senator from Florida who was co-chairman of that bipartisan panel, and others say the documents point suspicion at the Saudis. The disclosure would come at a time of strained U.S. relations with Saudi Arabia, a long-time American ally.
“I hope that decision is to honor the American people and make it available,” Graham told NBC’s “Meet the Press” on Sunday. “The most important unanswered question of 9/11 is, did these 19 people conduct this very sophisticated plot alone, or were they supported?”
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.
The pages were withheld from the 838-page report on the orders of President George W. Bush, who said the release could divulge intelligence sources and methods. Still, protecting U.S.-Saudi diplomatic relations also was believed to have been a factor.
Ben Rhodes said National Intelligence Director James Clapper has been asked to review the papers for possible declassification.
“When that’s done we’d expect that there will be some degree of declassification that provides more information,” Rhodes told reporters in Riyadh last week, where Obama met with King Salman and other Saudi leaders. The White House says the 28 pages did not come up during discussions.
Neither the congressional inquiry nor the subsequent 9/11 Commission found any evidence that the Saudi government or senior Saudi officials knowingly supported those who orchestrated the attacks that killed nearly 3,000 people. But Graham, the relatives of victims and some lawmakers think there is reason to further probe possible Saudi links.
Roemer said many questions remain about the roles of Fahad al Thumairy, an official at the Saudi consulate in Los Angeles who allegedly helped two of the hijackers find housing and transportation after they arrived in Southern California. Al Thumairy was later denied entry into the United States in May 2003 after the State Department alleged that he might be involved in terrorist activity. Roemer also wants to know more about Omar al Bayoumi, who was strongly suspected of being a Saudi spy and was alleged to have been helpful to the hijackers.
“We did not discover … Saudi government involvement at the highest level of the 9/11 attacks,” Roemer said. But he added: “We certainly did not exonerate the Saudis. … Saudi was a fertile ground for fundraising for al-Qaeda. Some of these issues continue to be problems today. That’s why we need to continue to get to the bottom of this.”
An Internet site pushing to get the documents released, 28pages.org, points to another document declassified in July 2015 that outlined ways in which the commission could examine possible Saudi links.
That 47-page document lists several pages of individuals of interest and suggests questions that could be pursued. One name is suspected al-Qaeda operative Ghassan al Sharbi.
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-Qaeda trainer who was apprehended and waterboarded dozens of times by U.S. interrogators.
The document said that after al Sharbi was captured, the FBI discovered some documents buried nearby. One was al Sharbi’s pilot certificate inside an envelope from the Saudi Embassy in Washington, although it’s unclear whether the license had been mailed by the embassy or if the envelope was simply being reused.
A CIA inspector-general report in June 2015 said there had been no reliable information confirming Saudi government “involvement with and financial support for terrorist prior to 9/11.” But it said also that people in the CIA’s Near East Division and Counterterrorism Center “speculated that dissident sympathizers within the government may have aided al-Qaeda.” The rest of the chapter, titled “Issues Related to Saudi Arabia,” is blacked out.
A bill directing the president to release the 28-page chapter was introduced in the Senate, and nearly three dozen Republicans and Democrats in the House are backing a similar resolution.
Reps. Walter Jones, R-N.C., Stephen Lynch, D-Mass., and Thomas Massie, R-Ky., wrote Obama last week saying they don’t think releasing the chapter will harm national security and could provide closure for the victims’ families.
California Rep. Adam Schiff, the top Democrat on the House Intelligence Committee, has read the pages and said this past week that while he wants to see them declassified to end speculation about what they say, releasing them will not quell the debate over the issue.
“As is often the case, the reality is less damaging than the uncertainty,” he said.
The Associated Press contributed to this article.
The most horrible day ever! Instead of “nation building” the U.S. should have unleashed it’s full military force on the evil haters from the middle east 15 years ago. I remember in mid September 2001 Gen. Schwarzkopf was on a tv news program warning us not to get bogged down in Afghanistan, but to have quick forceful military strikes on the haters. Schwarzkopf was a true leader, not a yes man who wears stars on their shoulders like today.
The Establishment never wants “quick” decisive wars that eliminate and end the controversy. That is not profitable. The profitable war is one that drags on for years. It is all about Establishment PROFIT.
Kenneth-
You are CORRECT, sah! Nicely – concisely – stated. Fact.
If anyone is in their right mind and watched the videos of that day, you will see that they wasn’t even passenger plans and in fact, they was military planes. 9-11 was nothing more that a ” Black Flag ” operation set up by the United States Government, just so we could go to war in the Middle East. So what is so precious in the Middle East ? OIL..
Jim-
i believe you meant “false flag,” and i agree. Anyone who’s hip is already aware of the PNAC crowd(Project for a New American Century), and have read their manifesto – which has been and is currently being implemented in the ME.
I doubt people will be able to see the documents…the president has a way of making things disappear or not allow thngs to happen….I wonder why? Come on America…..WAKE UP!
We need to get to the truth about the 9/11 terrorist attack. Once the truth is known we need to deal with everyone who was involved in this attack. If a foreign government was involved we need to deal with it.
Your terrorist attacks that day was the terrorist George W. Bush.
Just more cover ups and lies and they wonder why the intelligent people are disgusted with Congress and the whole so called leaderships we have lived with the past 15 plus years. We just keep getting worse and the bringing down of America. I hope once these crooked politicians that are stealing and lying get theirs only find out they what they did will come back to haunt them.
Karma is a bitch. Yea they will do anything to get what they and the people keep voting them in hoping to get their welfare ,tax breaks,illegals,and everything free in America.
9/11 should never have happened and the Clinton’s,Bushes, and Congress with the CIA and FBI could have stopped it but they wanted to have the people all stirred up so they could ways to line their pockets. So now these dumb voters want to put more liars and crooks into these positions so they can make themselves even richer and to hell with the workers and the people who play by the rules.
“Don’t worry your self over some thing, that you have “NO CONTROL” over, now get back to work. lmao
Have the Government release all of their so called secret doc’s.
“American People are STUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUpid”
Hillary in 2016 or Putin either one will be an improvement.
Obama wants to keep the friendship of the Arabs because he has that mansion he bought in Saudia Arabia this past year.
He would have a hard time going there with them with them disliking him if those 28 pages were released and they did in fact help the terrorists
in 2011. Most people believe the Saudi’s financed them.
Go ahead and release them so we can find out the truth, because the Obama Admin has alot of cover up in their Admin that the
Americans people doesn’t know.
Just thinking??? ……. We have given our Country away to be controlled by an Islamic terrorist sympathizer for the last eight years, and now we have a lying murderer or a Communist that want to take his place. On the other side we have a bunch of greedy, delegate selling (or delegate stealing) politicians who have already proven that they don’t want any change. So where does that leave us America? What do you want for your posterity?
A Dictatorship: vote for any Democrat
Or
Continue without change: vote for Lying Ted Cruz
Or
“We the people of the United States, in Order to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defence, promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity……”
VOTE FOR DONALD TRUMP!
ps. in youtube go to “The Clinton Chronicles” to fully understand the type of people that are running our government.
The “head” (president, cabinet and congress) is rotten thru and thru. Very few are decent people.
If Trump doesnt get to become president, our country, The land of the free will soon cease to exist.
From http://www.cairnsnews.org in Australia. How is it that most Australians know that no Saudis flew planes anywhere least of all into the Twin Towers or the Pentagon. We have published an extensive report by renowned test pilot and aviator John Lear who says categorically it was a physical, aeronautical impossibility for untrained or trained pilots to fly such an aircraft into the tower.
Surely Americans won’t believe any of the tainted reports to come from Government?
Robert J Lee-
The fact remains that hundreds of Muslim were in America taking flight-school training, and that this fact was reported multiple times, not only by civilians but also by FBI agents themselves – and this info was ignored. There had to be a reason. i’m speculating that this was to provide a cover story for the PNAC crowd’s false-flag attack on America to grease the skids so that the United States gov’t, under the guise of Cheney’s string-puling of the Shrub, could get Americans involved in TWO illegal wars of naked aggression so that their corporate butt-buddies could reap enormous profits at the cost of the maimed, broken, and murdered bodies of both civilian and military alike, both indigenous and US/allies.
This whole thing is much ado about nothing, just another attempt by Obama to screw up as much as he can –with the media’s help– before he leaves office, hobnobbing with America’s enemies (Cuba, Iran) and spitting on her friends (Israel, Saudi Arabia). The Saudi government isn’t behind the attacks, Iran and Al Qaeda are (remember that $7 billion dollar lawsuit?). The 28 pages won’t reveal anything new, we will realize that ONLY after the damage is done.
What is dangerous is not that the contents may reveal sources and methods. Instead, it’s the idea that the government thinks it can protect us by withholding information from us that prevents us from making fully-informed decisions.
This should have been a part of the report that was originally released; it should never have been withheld from America’s readers.
There are plenty more reports that our government has made that should be released to all. We have long passed the point where the government has retained a right to withhold information from us.
As a side note: Does anyone who doubts this wonder why so-called “conspiracy theories” (not my term, but the CIA’s term created to discredit ideas) last so long in discussions? Can it be because the proof that would debunk them is always withheld?
I’ll never forget the real time interviews of people on the street when the towers were falling (before the the news could be edited). They spoke of charges going off in the buildings, right before it they fell … and they fell just like a controlled demolition. That’s when I knew this disaster had to have inside intel. Most likely, the authentic terrorists were the ones telling the American people to be tough on the terrorism … and then the wars began. A very profitable ending for the government thugs who capitalized on the horror. At least that’s how the picture appears to me.