Respectfully submitted by Lawrence E. Rafferty (rafflaw) Weekend Contributor
In light of the recently observed 13th anniversary of the events on 9/11/01, I read an article this week that caught my eye. According to reports, there is a 28 page section of the 9/11 Commission report that has never been released publicly and remains secret to this day. Indeed, Congressmen must go through numerous security reviews before they can read the document in a secure room in Washington, D.C.
What kind of secret and clandestine information can be found in such a guarded document? Since it is top-secret, we can only go by the reviews of people who have read the report. What is found in that report may surprise you in light of its level of secrecy.
“On the bottom floor of the United States Capitol’s new underground visitors’ center, there is a secure room where the House Intelligence Committee maintains highly classified files. One of those files is titled “Finding, Discussion and Narrative Regarding Certain Sensitive National Security Matters.” It is twenty-eight pages long. In 2002, the Administration of George W. Bush excised those pages from the report of the Joint Congressional Inquiry into the 9/11 attacks. President Bush said then that publication of that section of the report would damage American intelligence operations, revealing “sources and methods that would make it harder for us to win the war on terror.”
“There’s nothing in it about national security,” Walter Jones, a Republican congressman from North Carolina who has read the missing pages, contends. “It’s about the Bush Administration and its relationship with the Saudis.” Stephen Lynch, a Massachusetts Democrat, told me that the document is “stunning in its clarity,” and that it offers direct evidence of complicity on the part of certain Saudi individuals and entities in Al Qaeda’s attack on America. “Those twenty-eight pages tell a story that has been completely removed from the 9/11 Report,” Lynch maintains. Another congressman who has read the document said that the evidence of Saudi government support for the 9/11 hijacking is “very disturbing,” and that “the real question is whether it was sanctioned at the royal-family level or beneath that, and whether these leads were followed through.” Now, in a rare example of bipartisanship, Jones and Lynch have co-sponsored a resolution requesting that the Obama Administration declassify the pages.” Readersupportednews
In the current political climate, any issue that has some bi-partisan support should be looked at more closely. If the accounts of Rep. Jones and Rep. Lynch are to believed, what would be the possible reasons why these 28 pages have not been fully declassified? In a town like Washington, D.C., it seems like it doesn’t take much to classify information and keep it from public dissemination. However, once something is classified, it often takes years and in many cases, decades to get the information into the American public’s hands. So, in one sense, Washington doesn’t need real reasons before it classifies documents.
As someone who has witnessed a military accident report kept classified for approximately 50 years, this 13 year period of time does not sound so bad. But when we find out that the report may have been classified to prevent embarrassment to the Saudi royal family and our Government, 13 years sounds like 12 years too long. Even the Saudi’s have called for the full release of the secret 28 pages.
“Twenty-eight blanked-out pages are being used by some to malign our country and our people,” Prince Bandar bin Sultan, who was the Saudi Ambassador to the United States at the time of the 9/11 attacks, has declared. “Saudi Arabia has nothing to hide. We can deal with questions in public, but we cannot respond to blank pages.” RSN
According to Philip Zelikow, the Director of the 9/11 Commission Staff, the 28 pages were merely unvetted reports and accusations. “According to Zelikow, what they found does not substantiate the arguments made by the Joint Inquiry and by the 9/11 families in the lawsuit against the Saudis. He characterized the twenty-eight pages as “an agglomeration of preliminary, unvetted reports” concerning Saudi involvement. “They were wild accusations that needed to be checked out,” he said.
Zelikow and his staff were ultimately unable to prove any official Saudi complicity in the attacks. A former staff member of the 9/11 Commission who is intimately familiar with the material in the twenty-eight pages recommends against their declassification, warning that the release of inflammatory and speculative information could “ramp up passions” and damage U.S.-Saudi relations.” RSN
If indeed the information could ramp up passions, according to Mr. Zelikow, is that enough to keep it under top-secret wraps for 13 years? It could be argued that hiding the information from the public actually causes more problems than the ones that Mr. Zelikow is trying to avoid. Secrecy tends to fan the flames of conspiracy theorists. If the Saudi’s are calling for the information that is considered to be harmful to Saudi relations, why should the information still be hidden from public inspection?
Thomas Kean, the former Chairman of the 9/11 Commission has read the report and he does not understand why it is still kept secret. Of course, he also is confused why the interviews of Former President, Bill Clinton and then current President George W. Bush and his Vice President, Dick Cheney are also still kept secret.
“Thomas Kean remembers finally having the opportunity to read those twenty-eight pages after he became chairman of the 9/11 Commission—“so secret that I had to get all of my security clearances and go into the bowels of Congress with someone looking over my shoulder.” He also remembers thinking at the time that most of what he was reading should never have been kept secret. But the focus on the twenty-eight pages obscures the fact that many important documents are still classified—“a ton of stuff,” Kean told me, including, for instance, the 9/11 Commission’s interviews with George W. Bush, Dick Cheney, and Bill Clinton. “I don’t know of a single thing in our report that should not be public after ten years,” Kean said.” RSN
When one remembers the turmoil and destruction and the emotional outpouring that were a result of the actions of the terrorists on 9/11, I can understand why the information was initially classified. However, after a year or two the citizens of this country deserved a full and complete record of what the 9/11 Commission did or did not find. A link to the “full” Commission report can be found here.
While there can be valid reasons for a government to classify information and hide it from its own citizens, that information needs to be disseminated as soon as possible. Thirteen years for information that may just “ramp up passions”, is not a valid time frame. This information and all of the information left out of the 9/11 Commission Report should be declassified as quickly as possible, with no redactions.
Any and all information that concerns one of the most important days in our country’s history should be in the people’s hands. Without it, a skeptical citizenry will make up its own mind and Washington, D.C. may not like their answer.
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Good article Larry, and what Mike said.
rafflaw:
Thanks for this story. I suspect that these pages were classified to protect Saudi sensitivities and the long relationship between the Bush family and the Saudi royal family. And do not expect a single Saudi soldier to take part in any military action against ISIS.
Does there remain even a small section of government that can still tell the truth, or is every word and jot and number from Leviathan’s lips a blatant lie?
Including our own as well, Annie!
We need to know that the Saudis aren’t our worst, most conniving underhanded enemies in the ME before joining in any coalition with them. Actually, I don’t think there in one ME country we can place our trust in.
Yes we absolutely deserve the truth about 9/11. This govt. has lied about it/with it so many times. There is plenty of evidence worth examining. Instead, the govt. cynically pumps up the American people for war with cries of 9/11.
Well, then, why aren’t we at war with Saudi Arabia? A nation which has about 25% of the world’s oil reserves, one of the most repressive regimes in the world towards its own people, especially women, a nations who has done about 1 beheading a day since Aug. 4, 2014, who engages in torture, a nation which used nerve gas to repress an attempt at freedom by the people of Bahrain–that nation is our ally. What’s up with that?
Cheney and Addington were in the WH basement talking about taking people to Gitmo, hiding them there so they could be tortured w/impunity. That was 1 p.m. on 9/11. Doesn’t that seem odd? Thus began USGinc.’s wholesale descent into madness of torture and mass surveillance and unending war.
We definitely need to look back and we definitely need transparency. The shameful behavior of this govt., working as a lackey for the powerful, must be exposed.
Perhaps the report would be most damaging to the Royal Bush Family.
If the Obama administration really wanted to become the transparent government as promised, he/them/it would declassify these 28 pages. Let the chips fall, even if discrediting all-things-Clinton/Bush was a by-product. A productive foreign policy would be to put all countries in the middle east right where they should of been in the first place…at the end of a ten foot pole, instead of in bed with us. The sad part? We’re still in bed with the same people that hurt us, nothing has changed, even 13 years later.
“Everything You Know Is Wrong” – FT
It’s interesting that people are willing to believe a narrative that makes no sense, is inconsistent with facts, and seems to support political motives. Not only the official conspiracy theory explaining 9/11, but most explanations of history, religion, and even many explanations of what we thought was science but was later proved wrong.
The “artificial” market price of Middle Eastern oil is the real issue here. If priced correctly to include oil security, oil wars, pollution, veteran care, etc. – clean energy is far cheaper than foreign oil if the prices weren’t artificially distorted.
If we go to war against ISIS, none of those costs will be included in the price at the gas pump (even as a temporary war tax), but American consumers still pay for it hidden in other costs.
Continuing to allow a non-relevant, low information document to be classified is a smokescreen and makes one to wonder what the Commission is really hiding.
Continuing to withhold the 28 page report is probably a diversion to releasing the Cheney, Bush and Clinton secret interviews, or something more troubling.
This practice is ‘business is usual’ in Motown.
Look, the games that are played at the level discussed are substantial, complicated and well beyond the understanding of the general populace of the world. The type; of games we are talking about go back more than a few centuries. Those in control of one group have always had to maintain the borders in the relationship with the other groups with whom his group does not want direct conflict. Looking this way or that way changes from group to group. With religion, oil, human rights, regional conflict, etc. all in play, black and white and simplistic understanding application of rules is not possible. The judgment is removed, to a certain extent, with publication of the mechanics to the general public. As indicated, the Saudis say “Have at it”, so they seem prepared to deal with it, but the American public is more diverse in its appreciation of this all.
“In the current political climate, any issue that has some bi-partisan support should be looked at more closely.”
If we have one ounce of intellectual honesty then we shouldn’t make excuses to only investigate controversial issues once we have bipartisan support. Follow the facts wherever they lead and then when they run into a dead end, keep looking. Do whatever is necessary to get all the facts and only then draw reasonable conclusions. When it comes to the actions of government, they should NEVER be considered innocent until proven guilty.
Edward, support for ISIS is another of the adventures I see as the result of a 3-way partnership.
“According to Zelikow, what they found does not substantiate the arguments made by the Joint Inquiry and by the 9/11 families in the lawsuit against the Saudis. He characterized the twenty-eight pages as “an agglomeration of preliminary, unvetted reports” concerning Saudi involvement. “They were wild accusations that needed to be checked out,” he said.
If the accusations had enough credibility to be in the report, why weren’t they checked out? Surely the story that the “pilots” were Saudi would give reason to look at the Saudi government.
Personally, I think the Saudi and Israeli and US governments have a special alliance with the events of 9/11/01 being only one of their adventures.
It’s even worse. The suppressed 28-page chapter was from the report of the Congressional Joint Inquiry (the Senate and House Intel Committees), not the 9/11 Commission, which succeeded the Joint Inquiry and was intended to build upon its work. Zelikow. the staff director of the 9/11 Commission, would not even allow the investigators who had written the 28 pages, to have access to it! He never allowed a serious investigation of the Saudi role in 9/11, instead trying to pin 9/11 on Saddam Hussein and Iraq, in line with the Chenyacs and neo-cons in the White House. As Bob Graham and others have stressed: the Saudis are the biggest backers of ISIL and the Wahabite jihadists today, and we would not be in the mess we’re in today, but for the Bush Administration and now the Obama Administration, suppressing the truth about the crucial Saudi role in financing and supporting terrorism worldwide. See
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/politics/islamic-state-us-failure-to-look-into-saudi-role-in-911-has-helped-isis-9731563.html
rafflaw – we do not need a secret report to know that something was hinky with the Saudis. They still are hinky.
old news
The Saudis are not our friends, you know; they are allies of convenience.