Victims’ families: Release secret ‘Saudi’ 9/11 report
By Paul Sperry/
New York PostMarch 8, 2014 | 3:32pm
Two congressmen lawmakers concerned about a
government censoring of Saudi Arabia’s alleged role in the 9/11 attacks will hold a press conference this week with families of the victims to step up pressure on the White House to declassify the information.
Three months ago, Reps. Walter Jones (R-NC) and Stephen Lynch (D-Mass.) introduced a resolution urging President Obama to follow through on his campaign promise to 9/11 families to release the censored section of a 2002 congressional report on the attacks.
Their Dec. 2 bill, which has attracted five co-sponsors, was referred to the House Intelligence Committee, where it languishes. Panel chair Mike Rogers (R-Mich.) decides whether it will move on to a vote.
Jones says they hope to attract at least 10 more co-sponsors to compel the committee to take up the measure. To that end, they’ve enlisted the help of the organization 9/11 Families United for Justice Against Terrorism. Some of its members will speak at Wednesday’s event on Capitol Hill. They include Sharon Premoli, who was pulled from the World Trade Center rubble.
Jones, who has not heard from the White House, said, “We realize this is going to be an ongoing effort over the next few months to build the number of members who join the resolution” along with co-sponsors that include Michael Grimm (R-NY).
“They’ve all read the [censored] 28 pages and they have joined and agree with the families that they should be made public,” he added. “The families have a right to the 28 pages and so do the American people.”
President Bush mysteriously classified part of the “Joint Inquiry Into Intelligence Community Activities Before and After the Terrorist Attacks of September 11, 2001.”
The entire section dealing with “specific sources of foreign support” was pulled from the 800-page report Congress released to the public. An estimated 7,200 words summarizing CIA and FBI documents is missing.
Some information already has leaked and it points back to Saudi Arabia, home to 15 of the hijackers. Riyadh denies any role in 9/11, but the CIA in one memo reportedly found
“incontrovertible evidence” that Saudi government officials helped the hijackers both financially and logistically. Intelligence files cited in the report directly implicate the Saudi embassy and its consulate in Los Angeles in the attacks, making 9/11 not just an act of terrorism, but an attack by a foreign state presumed to be an ally.
“If these pages are declassified,” Jones said, “it would be an important revelation to the American people.”
Surprisingly, few members of Congress have read the classified section of arguably the most important investigation in US history. Granted, it’s not easy to do. It took a monthlong letter-writing campaign by Jones and Lynch to convince the intelligence panel to give them access to the material.
“You have to write a letter to chairman Rogers and the ranking member and then they talk and agree to let you go down to the classified room,” Jones explained.
“There’s a guard there and you go to the guard and he sees who you are, looks at your voting card, and then they let you in; and then there’s actually a staffer who knew you were coming down that sits in there and watches you read it, because you cannot make any notes and you can’t take anything out.”
He says 9/11 families have also been urging their senators to read the full report and “beat the drum” for Obama to make it public.
