Never Forget 9/11

The lead author of the Senate’s [2003] report on 9/11 says it’s time to reveal what’s in the 28 pages that were redacted from it, which he says will embarrass the Saudis.

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A story that might otherwise have slipped away in a morass of conspiracy theories gained new life Wednesday when former Sen. Bob Graham [retired 2005] headlined a press conference on Capitol Hill to press for the release of 28 pages redacted from a Senate report on the 9/11 attacks. And according to Graham, the lead author of the report, the pages “point a very strong finger at Saudi Arabia as the principal financier” of the 9/11 hijackers.

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The pages are being kept under wraps out of concern their disclosure would hurt U.S. national security.

  Daily Beast

Let me correct that line: The pages are being kept under wraps out of concern their disclosure would hurt U.S. national security relations with Saudi Arabia.

Graham argues the opposite is true, and that the real “threat to national security is non-disclosure.”

Graham said the redacted pages characterize the support network that allowed the 9/11 attacks to occur [and] said that keeping the pages classified is part of “a general pattern of coverup” that for 12 years has kept the American people in the dark. It is “highly improbable” the 19 hijackers acted alone, he said, yet the U.S. government’s position is “to protect the government most responsible for that network of support.”

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“[The Saudis] have continued, maybe accelerated their support for the most extreme form of Islam,” he said, arguing that both al Qaeda and ISIS are “a creation of Saudi Arabia.”

Standing with Graham were Republican Rep. Walter Jones and Democratic Rep. Stephen Lynch, co-sponsors of House Resolution 428, which says declassification of the 28 pages is necessary to provide the American public with the full truth surrounding the 9/11 attacks.

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Jones and Lynch wrote a letter to Obama in April urging him to take action, and have been told by the White House that a response is in the works.

But don't expect it before November 2016. And, it could well be: "sorry, no can do."

Any member with a security clearance is able to read the redacted chapter in a closed room, albeit under supervision and with no note taking and no staff. It’s a cumbersome process, and most members haven’t bothered.

Gee, wouldn't want to put you guys out at all.

The relatively few who have read the pages come away with varying levels of shock and surprise.

If you're trying to make me think these people are that naive, you've got to work harder.

[A bill c]o-sponsored by Democratic New York Sen. Chuck Schumer and Republican Texas Sen. John Cornyn [...] would strip diplomatic immunity from nation states in cases of terrorism, and open the door to financial compensation for the 9/11 families from the Saudi government.

It's not going to happen.

In Sarasota, Florida, a federal judge is reviewing 80,000 pages of documents that relate to a prominent Saudi family and its extensive contacts with three of the hijackers when they attended flight school in Sarasota.

The family abruptly left the U.S. for Saudi Arabia a few days before the attacks, leaving dinner on the table and a brand new car in the driveway “as though they’d been tipped something was going to happen, and they’d better not be in the country,” said Graham. One member of the family is described as a high-level adviser to the Saudi royal family.

Eighty thousand pages the judge is reviewing. And a few Congress asshats can't be bothered to read one chapter, 28 pages of an 800-page report.

“Finding, Discussion and Narrative Regarding Certain Sensitive National Security Matters,” the redacted portion, begins midway through the report, on page 395.

Well, now. That was Graham and his fellow report makers' mistake, wasn't it? With a title like that, wasn't it obvious to them that it would be redacted? I think it was. I think they titled it like that to give the government a greased path to redact it.

What I can't say is whether Graham went along willingly. Maybe he didn't. And maybe he did, but later had a change of heart, or a green light to start calling for release. But, he was the lead author.

[At Thanksgiving 2011, as the retired Senator Graham and his wife] stepped off an airplane at Dulles International Airport [going to visit a daughter], two FBI agents approached and asked [the couple] to accompany them to a nearby agency office.

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[Graham] had received an email from a White House aide on Sept. 15 saying the FBI would be in touch with him to answer questions he had raised in an attempt to get the White House to force release of the FBI's investigation into the situation in Sarasota on 9/11.

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So [according to Graham] his immediate reaction to being stopped by federal agents was to hope they would finally respond to his questions.

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[Instead, he says he was told] that the FBI had done a thorough job investigating all of the events in Sarasota and concluded there was no communication between the Saudi family that fled and the 9/11 hijackers who flew airplanes into the World Trade Center.

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Graham had reason to be suspicious. He was chairman of the U.S. Senate Intelligence Committee when the 9/11 attacks occurred and co-chair of a joint congressional commission that investigated the attacks. From the very beginning, the commission and Congress requested all FBI reports on their investigation.

Graham said not one single report involving the Sarasota family was given to the commission until he began to ask questions 10 years later.

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[At that Thanksgiving meeting,] Graham says he told [Sean M. Joyce, the deputy director of the FBI] that he had seen two reports indicating that the ties between the family and the hijackers needed more investigation. He said Joyce told him that the reports were based on information that had been taken out of context by an agent and insisted Graham would understand if he saw the "full context."

Graham, traveling from Miami on his own nickel, returned to Washington for the meeting only to be told by Joyce that the FBI would provide no further information. "

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He may be 78 years old, but Graham remains sharp as a tack and full of outrage toward the FBI and two presidents who have ignored the obvious while protecting relations with Saudi Arabia and its oil.

  TampaBay.com

Could well be.  I don't know how hard Graham tried to get anything done while still in the Senate.  He may be yet another name to put on the long list of people who have spoken out only after they retired and had collected all the money they were going to collect on the job.  Graham did, at least, offer a seeming plea to have the redacted portions of the report released in a letter to then-president George W. Bush immediately after the report was filed.

Doing so "will permit the Saudi government to deal with any questions which may be raised in the currently censored pages, and allow the American people to make their own judgment about who are our true friends and allies in the war on terrorism," Graham, D-Fla., said in a letter to Mr. Bush. Graham, who co-chaired the inquiry, is a Democratic presidential candidate.

  CBS

A Democratic presidential candidate needing to make a splash amongst a field of Democrats with better chances than he.

And, I don't know that Graham was in on the coverup, but here's the context of his letter request:

Bush said he could not comply with a request by the Saudi foreign minister for a chance to clear the Arab kingdom's name because publication of the report could hurt U.S. intelligence operations.

The Saudis were blustering about being linked in suspicion to the 9/11 terrorists.  W gives them cover for not having the information released by claiming national security.  You can imagine the private meeting.

W Bush to Bandar Bush (that is what he was commonly called, for good reason):  You demand release of the incriminating information, and I'll come on tough. 'See.  I don't care who it is.  I'm watching out for America.'  And that way, we're both covered.

Wait a minute. Let me correct that.

Cheney to W and Bandar: George, you say...

Saudi Ambassador Prince Bandar bin Sultan issued a statement saying that "28 blanked-out pages are being used by some to malign our country and our people."

"Saudi Arabia has nothing to hide. We can deal with questions in public, but we cannot respond to blank pages," he said.

Citing those comments, Graham said Bandar "has joined in asking that the pages be declassified."

So, at the time, Graham could either have been truly wanting the redacted information released, or he could have just been part of the Saudi cover, and now that the Saudis are becoming more and more of a millstone around America's neck, he's decided he can work at it sincerely.  Or, he's been given the green light to go ahead.

I remain on the fence, leaning more toward the latter.  But then, I'm completely jaded where Congress people are concerned.