In the next few weeks the release of 28 pages in the 9/11 Commission Report will likely implicate members of the Saudi Arabian government in the events of that day. If the information is declassified, and it does indeed reveal a Saudi role in the September 11attacks, it will end a 15-year cover-up instigated by the Bush administration, and extended by the Obama administration. It will also embroil the United States in a huge diplomatic row with one of its closest allies, one repercussion of which will be a possible wholesale sell-down of the Saudi government's portfolio of U.S. treasury bonds, worth an estimated three-quarters-of-a-trillion dollars. "I believe that there is material in the 28 pages and the volume of other documents that would indicate that there was a connection at the highest levels between the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia and the 19 hijackers. I believe that the plot would not have occurred but for the support and protection that the hijackers were receiving primarily from Saudi Arabia," former Senator Bob Graham told Michael Smerconish in his "Smerconish" program on CNN on Saturday. Graham co-chaired a joint congressional investigation into the 9/11 attacks.
The W takin' his friend fer a walk inna Rose garden
U,S. presidential candidate Donald Trump has canvassed the declassification of the 28-pages in the commission's report, promising to do so if elected president. Barack Obama has also on two occasions promised he would unseal contents of the report, but has yet to do so. In January last year the White House said the matter was under review. Reports on the weekend indicated there are plans afoot to prepare the nation for a change of narrative and the release of the documents. It should be said that on page 172 of the authorised edition of the report's summary, which was released in book form, it says in part, "Our investigation has uncovered no credible evidence that any person in the United States gave the hijackers substantial financial assistance. Similarly, we have seen no evidence that any foreign government - or foreign government official - supplied any funding."
So if the Saudi government was not simply providing money, what possible role could it have played? Only the declassification of the redacted pages will reveal that. What is known is that 15 of the nineteen hijackers that staged the attacks were Saudi nationals. The founder of al-Qaeda, bin Laden, was also a Saudi national as were a large number of his followers. It is however also known that bin Laden was disowned by the Saudis and had his passport cancelled long before 9/11. His assets in the country were frozen and his citizenship revoked in 1994. Complicating matters is the release of a report by the CIA into failings that the agency was responsible for in the lead-up to the September 11 attacks. Although concluded after the 9/11 commission in June 2005, sections of the report remained classified until mid-last year. The investigation, according to the report, "encountered no evidence" that the government of Saudi Arabia "knowingly and willingly supported" al-Qaeda terrorists.
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