Was Saudi Arabia involved in 9/11 attacks ?

Was Saudi Arabia involved in 9/11 attacks ?

This post is also available in: heעברית (Hebrew)

15307176_mThat was expected. About fourteen years after the 9/11 attacks, there remains a disagreement among former and current U.S. intelligence officials on whether Saudi Arabia or individuals connected to the Saudi Royal family helped finance the attacks or had knowledge of the attacks before  it occurred.

In February, Zacarias Moussaoui, a convicted former member of al-Qaeda, claimed that he had high-level contact with officials of the Saudi government in the prelude to 9/11.

According to HomeLand Security NewsWire , lawmakers and relatives of those killed in the attacks now want twenty-eight pages of investigation by congressional intelligence committees into the 9/11 attacks declassified, on the grounds that those pages may clear up confusion about Saudi involvement. “If we stop funding of terrorism and hold those people accountable, wouldn’t it make a dent in the financing of terrorism today?” asked William Doyle, whose son, Joseph, was killed in the World Trade Center.

According to the New York Times, Doyle said that President Barack Obama personally assured him during a 2011 meeting with surviving family members that the twenty-eight pages would be declassified. “He said: ‘Bill, I know about the pages. I promise I am going to get them released,’” Doyle recounted.

“I think it is the right thing to do,” said Representative Stephen F. Lynch (D-Massachusetts), an author of a bipartisan resolution encouraging Obama to declassify the section. “Let’s put it out there.”

Former Florida Senator Bob Graham (D-Florida), who co-chaired Congress’s Joint Inquiry into the 9/11 attacks, has called for the release of the report’s Part 4, titled “Finding, Discussion and Narrative Regarding Certain National Security Matters,” which focused on Saudi Arabia. President George W. Bush ordered it classified when the rest of the report was released in December 2002. “The 28 pages primarily relate to who financed 9/11, and they point a very strong finger at Saudi Arabia as being the principal financier,” Graham said earlier this year.

the commission followed up on the Saudi allegations, but reached a different conclusion. “Saudi Arabia has long been considered the primary source of Al Qaeda funding, but we have found no evidence that the Saudi government as an institution or senior Saudi officials individually funded the organization,” the commission said in its July 2004 report. It did note, however, the “likelihood that charities with significant Saudi government sponsorship diverted funds to Al Qaeda.”