WASHINGTON, July 22 (RIA Novosti) – Former chairman and vice chairman of the independent 9/11 Commission called on Tuesday for the release of 28 pages of the Joint Intelligence Committee Inquiry (JICI) of the terrorist attack that were classified by the previous US presidential administration and could possibly prove the involvement of Saudi Arabia.
“I want those documents declassified,” said Lee Hamilton, former vice chairman of the 9/11 Commission.
“I am embarrassed that they’re not declassified. We emphasized throughout [our investigation] transparency. I assumed incorrectly that our records would be public, all of them. Then when I learned that a number of the documents were classified and even redacted, I was surprised and disappointed,” he added.
The National Commission on Terrorist Attacks Upon the United States, or the 9/11 Commission, was launched in 2002 by then US President George Bush to prepare an account on the circumstances of the al-Qaeda terrorist attack on September 11, 2001. The Commission released its report on July 22, 2004 and closed a month later.
A relative of a 9/11 victim, Matthew Solito, whose son was on the 105th floor of Tower One on the day four planes flew into the World Trade Center Twin Towers in New York killing at least 3,000 people, asked the Commission members to support the declassification of the pages. He referred to the efforts by former Senator Bob Graham, and current Congress members Walter Jones and Stephen Lynch in issuing legislation to force the executive branch to make the report pages public.
Congressmen Lynch and Jones could not disclose the contents of the redacted pages. Numerous sources, including former Senator Graham, who was on the JICI, confirmed, however, that the pages showed Saudi Arabia had been involved in the attacks and provided material support for at least two of the hijackers living in San Diego just prior to the attacks.
Chairman of the 9/11 Commission, Thomas Kean, concurred with Hamilton and supported the declassification.
“There is no reason to classify it anymore,” said Kean. “I’d say 60-70 percent of the stuff we saw that was classified, in my opinion, should have been available to the American people.”
Abraham Scott, a member of another 9/11 victim's family, said the report could help him find out, who was behind the death of his relative.
“I think it focuses on key people in the Saudi Arabian government. I want to know, myself, who they were,” Scott said in an interview with RIA Novosti, adding that the release of those pages would force the US government and citizens to “have a different outlook on the Saudi Arabian government, which we considered, up until recently, to be a close ally.”
