911 Report: New Yorker Congressman wants declassification of Saudi Involvement

NY: Eliot Engel wants declassification of Saudi Involvement

News.com.au/AFP -July 25, 2003

"President Bush needs to declassify parts of the congressional report that detail Saudi government involvement in the events leading up to the 9-11 terrorist attacks," said Representative Eliot Engel in a statement.

911 Victim: Report is incomplete

CBS News -July 24, 2003

"The report is incomplete at best," said Breitweiser. "15 of the 19 hijackers were Saudi. We have clear and convincing money trails linking the Saudi princes to the terrorists. Why that's not finding its way into the report, I don't know."

White House, CIA Kept Key Portions of Report Classified

Friday, July 25, 2003; Page A01

President Bush was warned in a more specific way than previously known about intelligence suggesting that al Qaeda terrorists were seeking to attack the United States, a report on the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks indicated yesterday. Separately, the report cited one CIA memo that concluded there was "incontrovertible evidence" that Saudi individuals provided financial assistance to al Qaeda operatives in the United States.

These revelations are not the subject of the congressional report's narratives or findings, but are among the nuggets embedded in a story focused largely on the mid-level workings of the CIA, FBI and U.S. military.

Two intriguing -- and politically volatile -- questions surrounding the Sept. 11 plot have been how personally engaged Bush and his predecessor were in counterterrorism before the attacks, and what role some Saudi officials may have played in sustaining the 19 terrorists who commandeered four airplanes and flew three of them into the World Trade Center and Pentagon.

To varying degrees, the answers remain a mystery, despite an unprecedented seven-month effort by a joint House and Senate panel to fully understand how a group of Arab terrorists could have pulled off such a scheme. The CIA refused to permit publication of information potentially implicating Saudi officials on national security grounds, arguing that disclosure could upset relations with a key U.S. ally. Lawmakers complained it was merely to avoid embarrassment

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