9/11 Commissioner: Saudi Royals Knew About 9/11 Attacks Beforehand

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Former 9/11 Commissioner claims that Saudi royal family knew about 9/11 attacks before they occurred

A former 9/11 Commissioner has said that the Saudi Royal family had intelligence about the 9/11 terror attacks in advance, possibly implicating them in the attacks. 

Rep. Dana Rohrabacher asked members of the panel at a House Foreign Relations subcommittee hearing to raise their hands in response to the following question:

“How many of you there believe that the royal family of Saudi Arabia did not know and was unaware that there was a terrorist plot being implemented that would result in an historic terrorist attack in the United States, in the lead up to 9/11?”

Two raised their hands, but Tim Roemer, a 9/11 Commission member and a former congressman, did not.

Theintercept.com reports:

“Congressman, that is just too difficult a question for someone to raise their hand or put their hand down,” Roemer explained. He then suggested Rohrabacher read 28 classified pages of the 9/11-Commission report that describe overseas support for the 9/11 attackers.

The exchange begins at the 1 hour, 20 minute, and 51 second mark here:

Those 28 pages remain classified despite calls for their release from several former members of the 9/11 Commission — a bipartisan blue-ribbon panel that from 2002 to 2004 investigated the 9/11 attacks and the intelligence failures that allowed them to succeed.

Sen. Bob Graham, co-chairman of the congressional inquiry into the attacks, has suggested that the pages contain “substantial” evidence of Saudi involvement — both by the government and private citizens. “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,” Graham said on 60 Minutes last month.

Graham and his Republican co-chair, former Sen. Porter Goss, have joined9/11 victims’ family members, activists, and congressional leadership to call for the release of the 28 pages. The chapter was initially classified by the George W. Bush White House, fearful of upsetting a U.S. ally. Despite twice promising to release the pages, President Obama has withheld them.

In response to public pressure in the wake of his fourth visit to Saudi Arabia last month, Obama asked James Clapper, his director of national intelligence, to review the possible declassification of the pages. Obama told CBS’s Charlie Rose last month, “My understanding is that he’s about to complete that process.”

Roemer has previously described the 28 pages as a “preliminary police report,” so it is likely that they lack definitive conclusions about the knowledge of the Saudi royal family. But he clearly wasn’t ready to rule it out.

Rohrabacher left no doubt about his views, saying, “The Saudi royal family [has] been right up to their eyeballs in supporting radical Islamic terror in the Middle East.”

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