Inquiry into 9/11, Saudi ties blocked
By FRANK DAVIES
fdavies@herald.com
WASHINGTON - Two of the Sept. 11, 2001, hijackers had a support network in the United States that included agents of the Saudi government, and the Bush administration and FBI blocked a congressional investigation into that relationship, Sen. Bob Graham wrote in a book to be released Tuesday.
The discovery of the financial backing of the two hijackers ''would draw a direct line between the terrorists and the government of Saudi Arabia, and trigger an attempted coverup by the Bush administration,'' the Florida Democrat wrote.
miami.com
Sen. Richard Shelby of Alabama, who helped spearhead last year's probe into the Sept. 11, 2001 attacks, said the administration wrongly blanked out 27 pages dealing with suspected foreign support of those responsible for the attacks.
"I think they're classified for the wrong reason," Shelby said on NBC's Meet the Press program. "My judgment is 95 percent of that information should be declassified, become uncensored, so the American people would know."
Shelby said the section was classified because it "might be embarrassing to some international relations."
Shelby had said last week that he felt too much of the report was classified, but had not been as critical of the censorship as Democrats who said the Bush administration had "an obsession with secrecy."
Although congressional members have refused to name the suspected country, uncensored portions of the report appeared to point at Saudi Arabia.
Reuters |
