Release of 28 Pages on 9/11 Becomes the Strategic Linchpin Against Terror

PRESS RELEASE

Release of 28 Pages on 9/11 Becomes the Strategic Linchpin Against Terror

June 14, 2106 (EIRNS)—At a press conference held on Jan. 7, 2015 in Washington, D.C., former U.S. Senator Bob Graham declared that the continued classification of the 28 pages of the Congressional Inquiry into 9/11 which deals with the financing of the attack was a “threat to national security.” He argued that the secrecy has emboldened the financiers of those attacks to continue their bloody work—as has been borne out in recent attacks in France, Belgium, and the United States.

It has now become clear that the release of those pages is a necessary step in the strategic fights against deadly terrorism.

While support for the Congressional Resolution which Reps. Walter Jones, Steven Lynch, and Thomas Massie introduced that day, which urged President Obama to declassify the pages, has grown, the clearly pro-Saudi Administration is still stalling. The Congressmen on June 13 took steps to escalate.

H.Res.779 calls for enforcing the Constitution’s separation-of-powers principle, and the Congressional prerogative of disclosure under the speech or debate clause, by directing the Chairman and ranking member of the Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence, to publish in the Congressional Record the 28 pages redacted from the 2002 Congressional Joint Inquiry into the 9/11 attacks. The Congressional Record is the official record of the proceedings and debates in the U.S. Congress.

The resolution cites former Sen. Bob Graham’s description of the 28 pages as a “smoking gun,” implicating Saudi Arabia in the attacks and also the precedent of the U.S. Supreme Court’s ruling in the case of then-Sen. Mike Gravel’s reading of the Pentagon Papers into the Congressional Record in 1971. The resolution also cites President George Washington’s Farewell Address warning against paying “habitual” homage toward any foreign nation.

H.Res. 779 further states that the disclosure of the 28 pages “might prompt Congress to alter the foreign policy of the United States toward Saudi Arabia,” and that “the American people demand justice and deserve to know the full story regarding the Sept. 11, 2001 terrorist attacks.”

The resolution notes that the chair and ranking member of that committee, Reps. Devin Nunes (R-Calif.) and Adam Schiff (D-Wash.) are both on record for release of the 28 pages. Over 69 Members have signed on to Jones’s previous resolution, and more than 100 Members have read the pages.