"Obama administration officials declined to comment...on the classification of these documents."... "Numerous press reports over the years in
Newsweek, the New York Times, CBS News and other media confirm, that the
28 pages in fact clearly portray that the Saudi government had at the
very least an indirect role in supporting the terrorists responsible for
the 9/11 attack." The Saudis are the ones being "kept safe" by their US political class pals.
Dec. 2013 article:
............
12/9/2013, "9/11 Link To Saudi Arabia Is Topic Of 28 Redacted Pages In Government Report; Congressmen Push For Release," IB Times, Jamie Reno
"Since terrorists attacked the United States on Sept. 11, 2001,
victims’ loved ones, injured survivors, and members of the media have
all tried without much success to discover the true nature of the
relationship between the 19 hijackers – 15 of them Saudi nationals – and
the Saudi Arabian government. Many news organizations reported that
some of the terrorists were linked to the Saudi royals and that they
even may have received financial support from them as well as from
several mysterious, moneyed Saudi men living in San Diego.
Saudi Arabia has repeatedly denied any connection, and neither
President George W. Bush nor President Obama has been forthcoming on
this issue.
But earlier this year, Reps. Walter B. Jones, R-N.C., and Stephen
Lynch, D-Mass., were given access to the 28 redacted pages of the Joint
Intelligence Committee Inquiry (JICI) of 9/11 issued in late 2002, which
have been thought to hold some answers about the Saudi connection to
the attack.
..............
"I was absolutely shocked by what I read," Jones told International
Business Times. "What was so surprising was that those whom we thought
we could trust really disappointed me. I cannot go into it any more than
that. I had to sign an oath that what I read had to remain
confidential. But the information I read disappointed me greatly."
The public may soon also get to see these secret documents. Last
week, Jones and Lynch introduced a resolution that urges President Obama
to declassify the 28 pages, which were originally classified by
President George W. Bush. It has never been fully explained why the
pages were blacked out, but President Bush stated in 2003 that releasing
the pages would violate national security.
While neither Jones nor Lynch would say just what is in the document,
some of the information has leaked out over the years. A multitude of
sources tell IBTimes, and numerous press reports over the years in
Newsweek, the New York Times, CBS News and other media confirm, that the
28 pages in fact clearly portray that the Saudi government had at the
very least an indirect role in supporting the terrorists responsible for
the 9/11 attack. In addition, these classified pages clarify somewhat
the links between the hijackers and at least one Saudi government worker
living in San Diego.
Former Sen. Bob Graham, D-Fla., who chaired the Joint Inquiry in 2002
and has been beating the drum for more disclosure about 9/11 since
then, has never understood why the 28 pages were redacted. Graham told
IBTimes that based on his involvement in the investigation and on the
now-classified information in the document that his committee produced,
he is convinced that “the Saudi government without question was
supporting the hijackers who lived in San Diego…. You can't have 19
people living in the United States for, in some cases, almost two years,
taking flight lessons and other preparations, without someone paying
for it. But I think it goes much broader than that. The agencies from
CIA and FBI have suppressed that information so American people don't
have the facts."
Jones insists that releasing the 28 secret pages would not violate national security.
“It does not deal with national security per se; it is more about
relationships,” he said. “The information is critical to our foreign
policy moving forward and should thus be available to the American
people. If the 9/11 hijackers had outside help – particularly from one
or more foreign governments – the press and the public have a right to
know what our government has or has not done to bring justice to the
perpetrators."
It took Jones six weeks and several letters to the [John Boehner controlled] House Intelligence
Committee before the classified pages from the 9/11 report were made
available to him. Jones was so stunned by what he saw that he approached
Rep. Lynch, asking him to look at the 28 pages as well. He knew that
Lynch would be astonished by the contents of the documents and perhaps
would join in a bipartisan effort to declassify the papers.
"He came back to me about a week ago and told me that he, too, was
very shocked by what he read,” Jones said. “I told him we need to join
together and put in a resolution and get more members on both sides of
the aisle involved and demand that the White House release this
information to the public. The American people have a right to know this
information."
A decade ago, 46 senators, led by Sen. Charles Schumer, D-N.Y.,
demanded in a letter to President Bush that he declassify the 28 pages.
The letter read, in part, "It has been widely reported in the press
that the foreign sources referred to in this portion of the Joint
Inquiry analysis reside primarily in Saudi Arabia. As a result, the
decision to classify this information sends the wrong message to the
American people about our nation's antiterror effort and makes it seem
as if there will be no penalty for foreign abettors of the hijackers.
Protecting the Saudi regime by eliminating any public penalty for the
support given to terrorists from within its borders would be a
mistake.... We respectfully urge you to declassify the 28-page section
that deals with foreign sources of support for the 9/11 hijackers."
All of the senators who signed that letter but one, Sen. Sam Brownback (R-Kansas), were Democrats.
Lynch, who won the Democratic primary for his congressional seat on
that fateful day of Sept. 11, 2001, told IBTimes that he and Jones are
in the process of writing a “Dear Colleague” letter calling on all House
members to read the 28 pages and join their effort.
"Once a member reads the 28 pages, I think whether they are Democrat
or Republican they will reach the same conclusion that Walter and I
reached, which is that Americans have the right to know this
information," Lynch said. “These documents speak for themselves. We have
a situation where an extensive investigation was conducted, but then
the Bush [administration] decided for whatever purposes to excise 28
pages from the report. I'm not passing judgment. That was a different
time. Maybe there were legitimate reasons to keep this classified. But
that time has long passed.”
Most of the allegations of links between the Saudi government and the
9/11 hijackers revolve around two enigmatic Saudi men who lived in San
Diego: Omar al-Bayoumi and Osama Basnan, both of whom have long since
left the United States.
In early 2000, al-Bayoumi, who had previously worked for the Saudi
government in civil aviation (a part of the Saudi defense
department), invited two of the hijackers, Khalid Almihdhar and Nawaf
Alhazmi, to San Diego from Los Angeles. He told authorities he met the
two men by chance when he sat next to them at a restaurant.
Newsweek reported in 2002 that al-Bayoumi’s invitation was extended
on the same day that he visited the Saudi Consulate in Los Angeles for a
private meeting.
Al-Bayoumi arranged for the two future hijackers to live in an
apartment and paid $1,500 to cover their first two months of rent.
Al-Bayoumi was briefly interviewed in Britain but was never brought back
to the United States for questioning.
As for Basnan, Newsweek reported that he received monthly checks for
several years totaling as much as $73,000 from the Saudi ambassador to
the United States, Prince Bandar, and his wife, Princess Haifa Faisal.
Although the checks were sent to pay for thyroid surgery for Basnan’s
wife, Majeda Dweikat, Dweikat signed many of the checks over to
al-Bayoumi’s wife, Manal Bajadr. This money allegedly made its way into
the hands of hijackers, according to the 9/11 report.
Despite all this, Basnan was ultimately allowed to return to Saudi Arabia, and Dweikat was deported to Jordan.
Sources and numerous press reports also suggest that the 28 pages
include more information about Abdussattar Shaikh, an FBI asset in San
Diego who Newsweek reported was friends with al-Bayoumi and invited two
of the San Diego-based hijackers to live in his house.
Shaikh was not allowed by the FBI or the Bush administration to testify before the 9/11 Commission or the JICI.
Graham notes that there was a significant 9/11 investigation in
Sarasota, Fla., which also suggests a connection between the hijackers
and the Saudi government that most Americans don’t know about. The investigation, which occurred in 2002, focused on Saudi
millionaire Abdulaziz al-Hijji and his wife, Anoud, whose upscale home
was owned by Anoud al-Hijji’s father, Esam Ghazzawi, an adviser to
Prince Fahd bin Salman bin Abdulaziz al-Saud, the nephew of Saudi King
Fahd.
The al-Hijji family reportedly moved out of their Sarasota house and
left the country abruptly in the weeks before 9/11, leaving behind three
luxury cars and personal belongings including clothing, furniture and
fresh food. They also left the swimming-pool water circulating.
Numerous news reports in Florida have
said that the gated community’s visitor logs and photos of license tags
showed that vehicles driven by several of the future 9/11 hijackers had
visited the al-Hijji home.
Graham said that like the 28 pages in the 9/11 inquiry, the Sarasota
case is being “covered up” by U.S. intelligence. Graham has been
fighting to get the FBI to release the details of this investigation
with Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) requests and litigation. But so
far the bureau has stalled and stonewalled, he said.
Lynch said he didn’t know how the Obama administration would respond
to the congressional resolution urging declassification, if it passes
the House and Senate.
“But if we raise the issue, and get enough members to read it, we
think we can get the current administration to revisit this issue. I am
very optimistic,” he said. “I’ve talked to some of my Democratic members
already, and there has been receptivity there. They have agreed to look
at it.”
Obama administration officials declined to comment on the congressional resolution or on the classification of these documents."...
=================
Comment: Wow, some "members" might be persuaded to merely read the 28 redacted pages? We commoners are so grateful.
...............
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