Saudi Arabia

Activist 9/11 Widows: Obama Shielding Saudis from Justice

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Kristen Breitweiser
Kristen Breitweiser

Five activist 9/11 widows have called new attention to the classification of 28 pages from a congressional intelligence inquiry that are said to implicate Saudi Arabia in financing the attacks that killed their husbands.

In a pointed piece for Huffington Post that was written by Kristen Breitweiser and co-signed by Patty Casazza, Monica Gabrielle, Mindy Kleinberg and Lorie Van Auken, the widows accuse the Obama administration of subordinating 9/11 justice to the U.S. government’s maintenance of its cozy relationship with the Saudi royals. The five women all served on the Family Steering Committee for the 9/11 Commission.

Throughout a more than 14-year quest for 9/11 transparency, Breitweiser says, “my government has fought me tooth and nail.” She points to the 28 pages as a prime example of that obstructionism:

“There are 28 pages of the Joint Inquiry of Congress (an investigation into the U.S. government intelligence failures prior to 9/11) that have remained classified and hidden away from the American public by both the Bush and Obama Administrations. These 28 pages allegedly prove that the Saudis had a controlling hand in funding the 9/11 attacks that killed 3,000 innocent people.

Now, it’s more than fair to say that if these 28 pages blamed the Iraqis or the Iranians for financing the 9/11 attacks, they would have been released years ago. Unfortunately, since the 28 pages allegedly implicate the Saudis, they’re likely to remain secret and kept away from the American public forever.

Knowing that evidence of your husband’s murder is being specifically withheld from you by the president — with the sole intent to protect the terrorists and their financial backers — is not something any American should ever have to tolerate.”

Breitweiser, whose husband, Ron, worked on the 94th floor of the World Trade Center’s Tower 2, describes other examples of the U.S. government’s efforts to shield Saudi Arabia from scrutiny of its alleged hand in the 9/11 attacks.

The Department of Justice, for example, counseled the Supreme Court to deny taking a case presented by 9/11 family members arguing that the kingdom shouldn’t enjoy immunity under the Foreign Sovereign Immunities Act. The pattern extends into the legislative branch: the proposed Justice Against Sponsors of Terrorism Act (JASTA), which would smooth the path for claims against state sponsors of terror, was stymied by “a whisper campaign with no fingerprints.”

“And, those whispers sounded something like this: if JASTA passes, the Saudis will bankrupt our economy by withdrawing $800 billion worth of T-bonds, and even worse, if JASTA passes, the Saudis will stop protecting and sharing intelligence information with the U.S. and leave us vulnerable to an ISIS attack.

It would seem that the same group of people who fought against the release of the 28 pages, and our case being heard by the Supreme Court, are at it once again, this time opposing JASTA and labeling it a diplomatic disaster.”

Breitweiser catalogs many reasons for the government’s protection of Saudi Arabia, including weapons deals, reliance on Saudi funding of Syrian insurgents, the kingdom’s provision of drone bases and aggressive Saudi payments to lobbying firms with ties to the current and previous White House administrations.

Obama will visit Saudi Arabia on April 21. Writes Breitweiser: “I only wish I could adequately relay the disgust I have in my heart when I anticipate having to see my president smiling, laughing, and joking with his ‘special Saudi friends’ — the very same people who I believe underwrote the murder of my husband and nearly 3,000 others.”

Read the entire piece here, then help these 9/11 family members by taking action on this issue today.

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Congressman’s Letter to Obama: Release 28 Secret Pages on 9/11 Funding

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Rep. Mike Coffman
Rep. Mike Coffman

Colorado Congressman Mike Coffman, who last month cosponsored a House resolution calling for the declassification of 28 pages on foreign government links to the 9/11 hijackers, has followed up on that move with a letter to President Obama urging him to release the 28-page chapter from the report of a joint congressional intelligence inquiry.

“Having read all 28 pages of the still-classified chapter of the report, I strongly recommend the federal government declassify the report in its entirety and make it available to the American people. There is no reason to keep this information from the public,” wrote Coffman.

In a separate statement, Coffman said, “I don’t know how President Obama can claim that he is running a federal government that prides itself in transparency when, at the same time, he denies the American people the opportunity to better understand the circumstances behind the 9/11 attack on our soil.” A Republican and a veteran of both Iraq wars, Coffman serves on the House Armed Services Committee.

President Obama reportedly assured 9/11 family members—in 2009 and again in 2011—that he would declassify the 28 pages. Meanwhile, an ongoing intelligence community review of the 28 pages for potential declassification has already taken far longer than the entire, wide-ranging congressional inquiry that produced the 28 pages as part of an 838-page report.

Coffman: Pages Cover Links to “a Foreign Government”

Coffman’s letter to the president describes the 28 pages as detailing “the results of an investigation into whether or not a foreign government was complicit in the al Qaeda directed terrorist attacks on the United States.” Former Senator Bob Graham, who co-chaired the inquiry that produced the 28 pages, has said the 28 pages implicate Saudi Arabia as “the principal financier” of the 9/11 attacks.

Though not decisive, Coffman’s description of the pages as investigating links to a singular “foreign government” may counter recurring speculation that the pages raise suspicions about a country or countries other than Saudi Arabia.

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Trump: “Secret Papers” May Link 9/11 to Saudi Arabia

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911 WTC aerial2Defending his attention-grabbing assertions that the U.S. invasion of Iraq was an enormous mistake facilitated by the George W. Bush administration’s misleading of the American people, Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump this week indirectly referred to 28 classified pages said to link the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia to the 9/11 attacks.

“It wasn’t the Iraqis that knocked down the World Trade Center. We went after Iraq, we decimated the country, Iran’s taking over…but it wasn’t the Iraqis, you will find out who really knocked down the World Trade Center, because they have papers in there that are very secret, you may find it’s the Saudis, okay? But you will find out,” Trump said at a Wednesday campaign event in Bluffton, South Carolina.

Trump’s implied promise to declassify 28 pages from a 2002 joint congressional intelligence inquiry into 9/11 sets him apart from the remaining Republican and Democratic presidential aspirants, filling a gap created when Rand Paul suspended his campaign. Last summer, Paul introduced Senate Bill 1471, which, if passed, would direct the president to release the 28 pages, and he pledged to release them himself if elected to the White House. Green Party candidate Jill Stein has also called for their release. (Then-Senator Hillary Clinton co-signed a 2003 letter to President Bush demanding the release of the 28 pages, but has been silent on the topic since.)

Vague Reference Dampens Impact

Trump’s comments brought renewed attention to the 28 pages. However, the impact would have certainly been greater had he specifically referred to “28 pages” rather than cryptically referencing “secret papers”—which he did time and again on the campaign trail, in an interview with Fox News and during CNN’s Thursday night town hall.

Given the dearth of mainstream media coverage of Trump’s Saudi Arabia reference, it’s clear his vague allusion to “secret papers” left journalists baffled. For example, though Mediaite’s Tommy Christopher was among the first to report it, his brief piece struck a snarky tone, made no reference to the 28 pages, and concluded with a dismissive statement that “no evidence has ever been presented that the government of Saudi Arabia was behind the attacks of 9/11.” Following his lead, most of those sharing the Mediaite story on social media ridiculed the notion that there are “secret papers” implicating the Saudis.

However, Graham, who co-chaired the intelligence inquiry that produced the 28 pages, said “they point a very strong finger at Saudi Arabia as being the principal financier of 9/11.” Two of the 9/11 hijackers received financial, lodging and other assistance from a Saudi citizen who lived in San Diego and who is widely thought to have been an operative for the kingdom. There are also serious questions—and a FOIA lawsuit—swirling around a wealthy Saudi family that had ties to Mohammed Atta and which fled Sarasota two weeks before 9/11.

Jeb on the 28 Pages: From Shrugs to Sarcasm

When asked about the 28 pages last summer, Jeb Bush said he’d never heard of them. This month, asked if he would like to see the 28 pages his brother classified, Bush sarcastically replied, “Yeah, I’d like to see ’em. You got ’em?”

Among the many who would like to “see ’em”: 9/11 family members and survivors whose lawsuit against the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia has been imperiled by what former Senator Bob Graham calls a “pervasive pattern of covering up the role of Saudi Arabia in 9/11, by all of the agencies of the federal government, which have access to information that might illuminate Saudi Arabia’s role in 9/11.”

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Judge Drops Saudi Arabia from 9/11 Suit For Lack of Evidence

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Screen shot 2015-10-01 at 9.23.33 AMOn Tuesday, U.S. District Court Judge George Daniels dismissed claims against Saudi Arabia by 9/11 family members, survivors and insurers who allege that the kingdom provided financial and other support to the September 11 hijackers. An appeal of the decision is likely.

Meanwhile, as the case stalls for a lack of evidence, 28 secret pages said to describe specific indications of foreign government support of the 9/11 hijackers remain unavailable to victims and their attorneys. An intelligence community review of the pages for possible declassification continues to languish, having already taken more than twice as long as the entire 9/11 inquiry that produced the pages.

Sean Carter, one of the attorneys for the plaintiffs, told Reuters, “Evidence central to these claims continues to be treated as classified. The government’s decision to continue to classify that material certainly factored into this outcome.”

Foreign Governments Protected from Most Suits

American law presents a high hurdle for anyone suing a foreign government. “Generally, foreign governments and their instrumentalities can’t be sued in the United States,” Villanova University law professor Tuan Samahon explained to 28Pages.org. “They enjoy immunity by federal statute. There are exceptions to that immunity and the 9/11 plaintiffs were suing under one of those exceptions.”

Tuan Samahon
Tuan Samahon

The decision should not be perceived as an exoneration of Saudi Arabia. “It was a jurisdictional dismissal,” says Samahon. That is, the decision reflected the judge’s opinion that the plaintiffs did not present enough evidence to persuade the court that an exception to the U.S. Foreign Sovereign Immunities Act (FSIA) applied to the case.

For the case to proceed, the plaintiffs needed to persuade Judge Daniels that individuals acting within the scope of their employment by Saudi Arabia committed “tortious conduct” inside the United States by helping the 9/11 hijackers advance their terror plot.

In his 21-page opinion, Daniels concluded that the plaintiffs failed to make that case. He said allegations about, for example, extensive assistance provided by suspected Saudi operative Omar al-Bayoumi to hijackers Nawaf al-Hazmi and Khalid al-Midhar, relied on speculative conclusions rather than compelling proof that al-Bayoumi was directed by the Saudi government to furnish that assistance to facilitate terrorist activity.

President Obama is said to have twice promised 9/11 family members that he would release the 28 pages. His failure to fulfill that promise in timely fashion may well have prevented an otherwise viable case from clearing the FSIA hurdle. “Having the 28 pages would have gone a long way to do that,” says Villanova’s Samahon.

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“Full Measure with Sharyl Attkisson” Goes Deep on 28 Pages

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A new investigative news program, “Full Measure with Sharyll Attkisson,” has taken a detailed look at the still-simmering controversy over the classification of 28 pages from a 2002 9/11 report that are said to indicate that the hijackers received financial and logistical support from Saudi Arabia.

The report includes interviews with House Resolution 14 champion Stephen Lynch, former congressman Pete Hoekstra and 9/11 widow and activist Terry Strada.

Hoekstra, who chaired the House intelligence committee and supports the release of the pages, said the continued concealment of the 28 pages can largely be attributed to the White House’s desire to avoid having to cope with the resulting fall-out: “It’s a complication they’d rather not deal with. They’re just saying, ‘We’ve got enough problems…we’ve got to deal with ISIS, we’ve got to deal with Iran, we’ve got to deal with al Qaeda…'”

However, former senator Bob Graham has said the shielding of Saudi Arabia from the consequences of its funding of extremism has only encouraged the kingdom’s continuation of that behavior—and thus paved the way for the ascent of ISIS into the disruptive force it is today.

Rep. Stephen Lynch
Rep. Stephen Lynch

Congressman Lynch described the level of detail found in the classified chapter of a 2002 congressional intelligence inquiry.

“It gave names of individuals and entities that I believe were complicit in the attacks on September 11. They were facilitators of those attacks. They are clearly identified…how people were financed, where they were housed, where the money was coming from, the conduits that were used and the connections between some of these individuals,” Lynch told Attkisson.

Asked why thought the pages are still secret, Lynch said, “I believe it’s to allow those individuals to escape accountability.”

Terry Strada is seeking that accountability. Her group, 9/11 Families & Survivors United for Justice Against Terrorism earlier this week sent letters to President Obama and James Clapper, Director of National Intelligence pressing for the material to be released.

The White House, sometime in the summer of 2014, tasked Clapper to lead an intelligence community review of the 28 pages for potential declassification. As 28Pages.org recently noted, the review has already taken twice as long as the entire joint inquiry that produced the 28 pages as part of a much larger report.

Noting the milestone, the group told Clapper, “It has been over a year since the request was made and we are both perplexed and troubled for the delay. Years before the formal request, in 2009 and again at the 10th anniversary in 2011, President Obama assured 9/11 family members steps would be taken to release the pages.”  Read the group’s letter to Obama and letter to Clapper. 

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