Ahead of President Obama’s trip to Saudi Arabia next week, the White House sidestepped questions Tuesday about whether the president supports declassifying 28 pages omitted from a joint commission’s report on the 9/11 terrorist attacks that reportedly implicate the Saudis.
White House press secretary Josh Earnest said Mr. Obama “certainly has confidence” that Director of National Intelligence James R. Clapper will consider the documents for release as part of an ongoing declassification review. But he wouldn’t say whether the president has read the secret pages, or whether Mr. Obama believes they should be made public.
The president’s spokesman said Mr. Obama is hopeful that the question will be resolved before he leaves office.
The 28 pages are believed to detail links between Saudi Arabian officials and the 9/11 hijackers — 15 of 19 of whom were Saudi citizens. A CIA watchdog report last year found no evidence that the Saudi government “knowingly and willingly” supported al Qaeda’s attack.
But many lawmakers who have read the 28 pages say they point to heavy Saudi involvement in the 9/11 attacks. Members of Congress are permitted to read the documents, alone, but aren’t allowed to copy them.
“I think it is implausible to believe that 19 people, most of whom didn’t speak English, most of whom had never been in the United States before, many of whom didn’t have a high school education — could’ve carried out such a complicated task without some support from within the United States,” Sen. Bob Graham, Florida Democrat, told 60 Minutes on Sunday.
Reps. Walter Jones, North Carolina Republican, and Rep. Stephen Lynch, Massachusetts Democrat, are trying to have the documents declassified.
The president’s visit to Saudi Arabia on April 21 will be focused on U.S. cooperation with the kingdom and other Gulf states in the fight against the Islamic State in Syria and Iraq. Implementation of the administration’s nuclear deal with Iran, which has angered the Saudis, is also likely to be on the agenda.
• Dave Boyer can be reached at dboyer@washingtontimes.com.
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