The U.S. Congress on Friday released the previously classified 28 pages of the 9/11 Commission Report on potential Saudi government ties to the 2001 terrorist attack. The pages were posted (pdf) on the House Intelligence Committee’s website. Hopefully, GPO will add these 28 pages to the original 9/11 report that they host on FDsys (officially titled “Joint inquiry into intelligence community activities before and after the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001 : report of the U.S. Senate Select Committee on Intelligence and U.S. House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence together with additional views.”)
It details contacts between Saudi officials and some of the Sept. 11 hijackers, checks from Saudi royals to operatives in contact with the hijackers and the discovery of a telephone number in a Qaeda militant’s phone book that was traced to a corporation managing an Aspen, Colo., home of Prince Bandar bin Sultan, then the Saudi ambassador to Washington.
The document, 28 pages of a congressional inquiry into the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks, is also an unflattering portrayal of the kingdom’s efforts to thwart American attempts to combat Al Qaeda in the years before the attacks.
But it is also a frustrating time capsule, completed in late 2002 and kept secret for nearly 14 years out of concern that it might fray diplomatic relations between the United States and Saudi Arabia. Subsequent investigations into the terror attacks pursued the leads described in the document and found that many had no basis in fact. But the mythology surrounding the document grew with each year it remained classified.
via In 9/11 Document, View of a Saudi Effort to Thwart U.S. Action on Al Qaeda – The New York Times.
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