In an interview Sunday with Chuck Todd on NBC News' "Meet the Press," former Florida Gov. and Sen. Bob Graham told millions of viewers that President Obama will decide by June whether to declassify the 28 pages in a congressional inquiry on 9/11 that raise questions about Saudi financial support to the hijackers in the United States prior to the terrorist attacks.
Critics charge U.S. officials are trying to hide the double game Saudi Arabia has long played with Washington, as both a close ally and petri dish for the world’s most toxic brand of Islamic fundamentalism.
Graham, who served as co-chair of the 9/11 congressional inquiry, was chairman of the intelligence committee, a familiar face in Congress at that time. He has been pressing for declassification since 2003.
Graham also said Sunday he is urging the president to let the American people see the 80,000 documents stowed away in a federal courtroom in Fort Lauderdale. The documents pertain to an investigation of the relationship between 9/11 attack leader Mohamed Atta and two of his henchmen and "a prominent Saudi family living in Sarasota."
In welcoming Graham, NBC's Todd started by saying the president had received "a somewhat chilly reception early in the week in Saudi Arabia, where he was greeted on the tarmac by a relatively minor member of the royal family. Just the governor of Riyadh, roughly the equivalent of the United States sending a local governor to greet a major foreign leader when they land on U.S. soil. U.S./Saudi relations are strained, to put it mildly ..."
Todd asked Graham what was in the 28 pages that high levels of American officials and Saudi officials fear will change things if they become public.
"To me, the most important unanswered question of 9/11 is, did these 19 people conduct this very sophisticated plot alone, or were they supported?" Graham replied. "I think it's implausible to think that people who couldn't speak English, had never been in the United States before, as a group were not well-educated, could have done that. So, who was the most likely entity to have provided them that support? And I think all the evidence points to Saudi Arabia. We know that Saudi Arabia started Al Qaeda. It was a creation of Saudi Arabia."
The report is 850 pages, and the only thing missing is one chapter -- 28 pages. "There's been no questions raised about the professionalism and quality of the other 820 pages of this report," he said. "And this chapter followed the same standards that they did. Instead of debating what might be there, why don't we let the American people read the 28 pages, and the other thousands of documents that have been withheld that relate to the Saudi involvement in 9/11. And then make up their own mind."
Graham agreed with Todd that there is a consensus in the White House, no matter who is president, to protect Saudi Arabia. "I think it goes back to the fact that 60 years ago, Franklin Roosevelt and the King of Saudi Arabia entered into a special relationship," Graham said. "We provided them with security, they provided us with petroleum. And that has affected the culture and the attitude around this relationship."
But he also said he thinks it now has fundamentally changed because America is less dependent on the Saudis for oil, and because "some of the things that the Saudis are doing are so dramatically adverse to our interests, such as training the next generation of young terrorists in their mosque in schools -- their madrasas.
"The schism between the United States and Saudi Arabia is now very apparent," he said. "And I think this is the time to inject the truth of that relationship in the process of deciding what we should be doing in the future."
When Todd asked him, on a scale of 1 to 10, how he would rate the impact on U.S.-Saudi relations if the pages were to go public, Graham replied, "7.838" -- very negative.
"The President's staff at least has said that they will make a decision by June," said Graham. "And I hope that decision is to honor the American people and make it available."
Rep. Thomas Massie, R-Kent., speaking in 2014 at a press conference regarding the missing pages, lobbied for the release of the documents stating he read them and that they challenged him to reconsider everything he knew about the event.
“As I read it -- we all had our own experience -- I had to stop every couple pages and just sort of absorb and try to rearrange my understanding of history for the past 13 years and years leading up to that. It challenges you to rethink everything,” Massie said.
The administrations of George W. Bush and Barack Obama have both refused to declassify the pages on grounds of national security. But critics, including members of Congress who have read the pages in the tightly guarded, underground room in the Capitol where they are held, say national security has nothing to do with it.
According to published reports, ringleader Atta and other hijackers visited the Sarasota home owned by Esam Ghazzawi, a Saudi adviser to the nephew of King Fahd. FBI agents investigating the connection in 2002 found that visitor logs for the gated community and photos of license tags matched vehicles driven by the hijackers. Just two weeks before the 9/11 attacks, the Saudi luxury home was abandoned. Three cars, including a new Chrysler PT Cruiser, were left in the driveway. Inside, opulent furniture was untouched.
Reach Nancy Smith at nsmith@sunshinestatenews.com or at 228-282-2423. Twitter: @NancyLBSmith
