What We Know About Saudi Arabia’s Role in 9/11

Simon Henderson

The Saudi government still says it had no connection to the hijackers. Newly released classified information proves otherwise.

Sometimes, reality is so absurd that it outstrips anything conspiracy theorists could come up with. More than 13 years after the congressional investigation published its report into the events surrounding the 9/11 attacks, the much-discussed "28 pages" on Saudi involvement in the terrorist assault, which had been held back as too sensitive to publish, have been released. As it turns out, there are 29 pages, not 28, numbered 415 through 443 in the congressional inquiry into the 9/11 attacks.

And deletions on the pages - sometimes words, often whole lines - add up to the equivalent of a total of three pages. So we still are not being given the full story.
It is instantly apparent that the widely held belief for why the pages were not initially released - to prevent embarrassing the Saudi royal family - is true.

The pages are devastating:

Page 415: "While in the United States, some of the September 11 hijackers were in contact with, and received support and assistance from, individuals who may be connected to the Saudi Government... [A]t least two of those individuals were alleged by some to be Saudi intelligence officers."

Page 417: One of the individuals identified in the pages as a financial supporter of two of the 9/11 hijackers, Osama Bassnan, later received a "significant amount of cash" from "a member of the Saudi Royal Family" during a 2002 trip to Houston.

The U.S. News & World Report article quoted a Saudi official as saying: "Where's the evidence? Nobody offers proof." That official was current Foreign Minister Adel al-Jubeir, who has no doubt spent recent days lobbying members of Congress and doing advance damage control - my bet is he has probably been using the same lines.

But with the release of the 29 pages, and their detailed description of the financial connections between the 9/11 hijackers and Saudi officials, Jubeir's argument has become increasingly difficult to make. The inquiry, after all, quotes a redacted source alleging "incontrovertible evidence that there is support for these terrorists within the Saudi Government."

Upon the pages' release, Washington-based public relations firm Qorvis, which has a lucrative contract with the kingdom, released its own analysis that began with a quote from an interview CIA Director John Brennan gave to Al-Arabiya on June 11.

It reads in part: "[T]here was no evidence to indicate that the Saudi government as an institution, or senior Saudi officials individually, had supported the 9/11 attacks."

That could very well be right. But it still allows for the possibility, indeed the probability, that the actions of senior Saudi officials resulted in those terrorist outrages. I have never suggested that the Saudi government or members of the royal family directly supported or financed the 9/11 attacks.

But official Saudi money ended up in the pockets of the attackers, without a doubt. I once asked a British official: "How do we know?" He replied that we know what account the money came out of and where it ended up.

On Friday, Jubeir held a news conference at the Saudi Embassy in Washington where he declared, "The matter is now finished." Asked whether the report exonerated the kingdom, he replied: "Absolutely." I think not.

Source: FP, Edited by website team