Posted on Apr 17, 2016
Secret 28 Pages of 9/11 Report Under New Scrutiny
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POTUS has an unresolved issue to address: Did the Saudis play some role in supporting the hijackers responsible for the attacks on September 11th? The answer to this question may be in the 28 unreleased pages of the 9/11 report which remain classified. The 28 pages are said to "focus on the role of foreign governments in the plot," containing information on the money and connections used and name specific sources of foreign support for the operation.
Former Senator Bob Graham said, "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."
POTUS has a trip planned for visiting Saudi Arabia this coming Tuesday, the beginning of a bilateral talk between POTUS and the Saudi King Salman. Saudi Arabia remains upset over the U.S. Nuclear agreement deal with Iran in addition to their objection to the 9/11 bill, which has now come before Congress for approval. The bill would give 9/11 victims and family to sue foreign states and financial partners of terrorism. Which would make the assets of Saudi Arabia and others at risk for being awarded as compensation to 9/11 victims and their families.
With 15 of the 19 identified in taking part in the 9/11 attacks being Saudi Nationals there have been questions about Saudi's participation.
In response to the proposed bill Saudi Arabia is warning it will sell off billions in American assets (American debt is owns) if the U.S. Congress passes a bipartisan bill that would allow victims of 9/11 and other terrorist attacks to sue foreign governments.
This bill is viewed by some to be a precedent the U.S. should not take part in because it is a double edged sword and will open the U.S. up to also being sued in foreign courts for the same. Secretary of State John Kerry said the legislation could "expose the United States of America to lawsuits and take away our sovereign immunity and create a terrible precedent."
Saudi officials asked the U.S. to release the redacted 28-page section in 2003, saying this would give them the opportunity to defend themselves against claims of involvement. "The Bush administration refused, saying the material would jeopardize their ability to gather intelligence on suspected terrorists. The Obama administration has carried on that policy."
"Families of both victims and survivors in the 9/11 attacks filed a lawsuit against the Saudi government, but the suit was thrown out last year when a federal judge ruled that the kingdom had sovereign immunity in the case."
Former Senator Bob Graham said, "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."
POTUS has a trip planned for visiting Saudi Arabia this coming Tuesday, the beginning of a bilateral talk between POTUS and the Saudi King Salman. Saudi Arabia remains upset over the U.S. Nuclear agreement deal with Iran in addition to their objection to the 9/11 bill, which has now come before Congress for approval. The bill would give 9/11 victims and family to sue foreign states and financial partners of terrorism. Which would make the assets of Saudi Arabia and others at risk for being awarded as compensation to 9/11 victims and their families.
With 15 of the 19 identified in taking part in the 9/11 attacks being Saudi Nationals there have been questions about Saudi's participation.
In response to the proposed bill Saudi Arabia is warning it will sell off billions in American assets (American debt is owns) if the U.S. Congress passes a bipartisan bill that would allow victims of 9/11 and other terrorist attacks to sue foreign governments.
This bill is viewed by some to be a precedent the U.S. should not take part in because it is a double edged sword and will open the U.S. up to also being sued in foreign courts for the same. Secretary of State John Kerry said the legislation could "expose the United States of America to lawsuits and take away our sovereign immunity and create a terrible precedent."
Saudi officials asked the U.S. to release the redacted 28-page section in 2003, saying this would give them the opportunity to defend themselves against claims of involvement. "The Bush administration refused, saying the material would jeopardize their ability to gather intelligence on suspected terrorists. The Obama administration has carried on that policy."
"Families of both victims and survivors in the 9/11 attacks filed a lawsuit against the Saudi government, but the suit was thrown out last year when a federal judge ruled that the kingdom had sovereign immunity in the case."
Secret 28 Pages of 9/11 Report Under New Scrutiny
Posted from nbcnews.com
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Middle East
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Alan K.
http://www.cnbc.com/2016/04/16/saudi-arabia-warns-of-economic-fallout-if-congress-passes-911-bill.html...............Here you go, Probably had nothing to do with them anyways..NOT
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Alan K.
Alan K. - Saudi Arabia warns of economic fallout if Congress passes 9/11 bill
Mark Mazzetti
Saturday, 16 Apr 2016 | 3:50 AM ETThe New York Times
500
COMMENTSJoin the Discussion
King Salman bin Abd alAziz of Saudi Arabia
Getty Images
King Salman bin Abd alAziz of Saudi Arabia
WASHINGTON — Saudi Arabia has told the Obama administration and members of Congress that it will sell off hundreds of billions of dollars' worth of American assets held by the kingdom if Congress passes a bill that would allow the Saudi government to be held responsible in American courts for any role in the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks.
The Obama administration has lobbied Congress to block the bill's passage, according to administration officials and congressional aides from both parties, and the Saudi threats have been the subject of intense discussions in recent weeks between lawmakers and officials from the State Department and the Pentagon. The officials have warned senators of diplomatic and economic fallout from the legislation.
Adel al-Jubeir, the Saudi foreign minister, delivered the kingdom's message personally last month during a trip to Washington, telling lawmakers that Saudi Arabia would be forced to sell up to $750 billion in treasury securities and other assets in the United States before they could be in danger of being frozen by American courts.
Several outside economists are skeptical that the Saudis will follow through, saying that such a sell-off would be difficult to execute and would end up crippling the kingdom's economy. But the threat is another sign of the escalating tensions between Saudi Arabia and the United States.
The administration, which argues that the legislation would put Americans at legal risk overseas, has been lobbying so intently against the bill that some lawmakers and families of Sept. 11 victims are infuriated. In their view, the Obama administration has consistently sided with the kingdom and has thwarted their efforts to learn what they believe to be the truth about the role some Saudi officials played in the terrorist plot.
"It's stunning to think that our government would back the Saudis over its own citizens," said Mindy Kleinberg, whose husband died in the World Trade Center on Sept. 11 and who is part of a group of victims' family members pushing for the legislation.
Saudi Shiite Muslims mourn on the tenth day of the mourning period of Muharram, which marks the day of Ashura.
Fitch downgrades Saudi Arabia
President Obama will arrive in Riyadh on Wednesday for meetings with King Salman and other Saudi officials. It is unclear whether the dispute over the Sept. 11 legislation will be on the agenda for the talks.
A spokesman for the Saudi Embassy did not respond to a message seeking comment.
More from The New York Times:
Saudi Arabia Moves to Curb Its Feared Religious Police
Saudis Moving to Reduce Dependence on Oil Money
The Big Four in Saudi Arabia's Government
Saudi officials have long denied that the kingdom had any role in the Sept. 11 plot, and the 9/11 Commission found "no evidence that the Saudi government as an institution or senior Saudi officials individually funded the organization." But critics have noted that the commission's narrow wording left open the possibility that less senior officials or parts of the Saudi government could have played a role. Suspicions have lingered, partly because of the conclusions of a 2002 congressional inquiry into the attacks that cited some evidence that Saudi officials living in the United States at the time had a hand in the plot.
Those conclusions, contained in 28 pages of the report, still have not been released publicly.
The dispute comes as bipartisan criticism is growing in Congress about Washington's alliance with Saudi Arabia, for decades a crucial American ally in the Middle East and half of a partnership that once received little scrutiny from lawmakers. Last week, two senators introduced a resolution that would put restrictions on American arms sales to Saudi Arabia, which have expanded during the Obama administration.
Families of the Sept. 11 victims have used the courts to try to hold members of the Saudi royal family, Saudi banks and charities liable because of what the plaintiffs charged was Saudi financial support for terrorism. These efforts have largely been stymied, in part because of a 1976 law that gives foreign nations some immunity from lawsuits in American courts.
The Senate bill is intended to make clear that the immunity given to foreign nations under the law should not apply in cases where nations are found culpable for terrorist attacks that kill Americans on United States soil. If the bill were to pass both houses of Congress and be signed by the president, it could clear a path for the role of the Saudi government to be examined in the Sept. 11 lawsuits.
Obama administration officials counter that weakening the sovereign immunity provisions would put the American government, along with its citizens and corporations, in legal risk abroad because other nations might retaliate with their own legislation. Secretary of State John Kerry told a Senate panel in February that the bill, in its current form, would "expose the United States of America to lawsuits and take away our sovereign immunity and create a terrible precedent."
Oil refinery
Saudi Arabia faces tough choices on oil dependency
The bill's sponsors have said that the legislation is purposely drawn very narrowly — involving only attacks on American soil — to reduce the prospect that other nations might try to fight back.
In a closed-door briefing on Capitol Hill on March 4, Anne W. Patterson, an assistant secretary of state, and Andrew Exum, a top Pentagon official on Middle East policy, told staff members of the Senate Armed Services Committee that American troops and civilians could be in legal jeopardy if other nations decide to retaliate and strip Americans of immunity abroad. They also discussed the Saudi threats specifically, laying out the impacts if Saudi Arabia made good on its economic threats.
John Kirby, a State Department spokesman, said in a statement that the administration stands by the victims of terrorism, "especially those who suffered and sacrificed so much on 9/11."
Edwin M. Truman, a fellow at the Peterson Institute for International Economics, said he thought the Saudis were most likely making an "empty threat." Selling hundreds of billions of dollars in American assets would not only be technically difficult to pull off, he said, but would also very likely cause global market turmoil for which the Saudis would be blamed.
Moreover, he said, it could destabilize the American dollar — the currency to which the Saudi riyal is pegged.
"The only way they could punish us is by punishing themselves," Mr. Truman said.
The bill is an anomaly in a Congress fractured by bitter partisanship, especially during an election year. It is sponsored by Senator John Cornyn, Republican of Texas, and Senator Chuck Schumer, Democrat of New York. It has the support of an unlikely coalition of liberal and conservative senators, including Al Franken, Democrat of Minnesota, and Ted Cruz, Republican of Texas. It passed through the Judiciary Committee in January without dissent.
"As our nation confronts new and expanding terror networks that are targeting our citizens, stopping the funding source for terrorists becomes even more important," Mr. Cornyn said last month.
The alliance with Saudi Arabia has frayed in recent years as the White House has tried to thaw ties with Iran — Saudi Arabia's bitter enemy— in the midst of recriminations between American and Saudi officials about the role that both countries should play in the stability of the Middle East.
But the administration has supported Saudi Arabia on other fronts, including providing the country with targeting intelligence and logistical support for its war in Yemen. The Saudi military is flying jets and dropping bombs it bought from the United States — part of the billions of dollars in arms deals that have been negotiated with Saudi Arabia and other Persian Gulf nations during the Obama administration.
The war has been a humanitarian disaster and fueled a resurgence of Al Qaeda in Yemen, leading to the resolution in Congress to put new restrictions on arms deals to the kingdom. Senator Christopher S. Murphy, Democrat of Connecticut, one of the resolution's sponsors and a member of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, said that Congress has been "feckless" in conducting oversight of arms sales, especially those destined for Saudi Arabia.
"My first desire is for our relationship with Saudi Arabia to come with a greater degree of conditionality than it currently does," he said.
Mark Mazzetti
Saturday, 16 Apr 2016 | 3:50 AM ETThe New York Times
500
COMMENTSJoin the Discussion
King Salman bin Abd alAziz of Saudi Arabia
Getty Images
King Salman bin Abd alAziz of Saudi Arabia
WASHINGTON — Saudi Arabia has told the Obama administration and members of Congress that it will sell off hundreds of billions of dollars' worth of American assets held by the kingdom if Congress passes a bill that would allow the Saudi government to be held responsible in American courts for any role in the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks.
The Obama administration has lobbied Congress to block the bill's passage, according to administration officials and congressional aides from both parties, and the Saudi threats have been the subject of intense discussions in recent weeks between lawmakers and officials from the State Department and the Pentagon. The officials have warned senators of diplomatic and economic fallout from the legislation.
Adel al-Jubeir, the Saudi foreign minister, delivered the kingdom's message personally last month during a trip to Washington, telling lawmakers that Saudi Arabia would be forced to sell up to $750 billion in treasury securities and other assets in the United States before they could be in danger of being frozen by American courts.
Several outside economists are skeptical that the Saudis will follow through, saying that such a sell-off would be difficult to execute and would end up crippling the kingdom's economy. But the threat is another sign of the escalating tensions between Saudi Arabia and the United States.
The administration, which argues that the legislation would put Americans at legal risk overseas, has been lobbying so intently against the bill that some lawmakers and families of Sept. 11 victims are infuriated. In their view, the Obama administration has consistently sided with the kingdom and has thwarted their efforts to learn what they believe to be the truth about the role some Saudi officials played in the terrorist plot.
"It's stunning to think that our government would back the Saudis over its own citizens," said Mindy Kleinberg, whose husband died in the World Trade Center on Sept. 11 and who is part of a group of victims' family members pushing for the legislation.
Saudi Shiite Muslims mourn on the tenth day of the mourning period of Muharram, which marks the day of Ashura.
Fitch downgrades Saudi Arabia
President Obama will arrive in Riyadh on Wednesday for meetings with King Salman and other Saudi officials. It is unclear whether the dispute over the Sept. 11 legislation will be on the agenda for the talks.
A spokesman for the Saudi Embassy did not respond to a message seeking comment.
More from The New York Times:
Saudi Arabia Moves to Curb Its Feared Religious Police
Saudis Moving to Reduce Dependence on Oil Money
The Big Four in Saudi Arabia's Government
Saudi officials have long denied that the kingdom had any role in the Sept. 11 plot, and the 9/11 Commission found "no evidence that the Saudi government as an institution or senior Saudi officials individually funded the organization." But critics have noted that the commission's narrow wording left open the possibility that less senior officials or parts of the Saudi government could have played a role. Suspicions have lingered, partly because of the conclusions of a 2002 congressional inquiry into the attacks that cited some evidence that Saudi officials living in the United States at the time had a hand in the plot.
Those conclusions, contained in 28 pages of the report, still have not been released publicly.
The dispute comes as bipartisan criticism is growing in Congress about Washington's alliance with Saudi Arabia, for decades a crucial American ally in the Middle East and half of a partnership that once received little scrutiny from lawmakers. Last week, two senators introduced a resolution that would put restrictions on American arms sales to Saudi Arabia, which have expanded during the Obama administration.
Families of the Sept. 11 victims have used the courts to try to hold members of the Saudi royal family, Saudi banks and charities liable because of what the plaintiffs charged was Saudi financial support for terrorism. These efforts have largely been stymied, in part because of a 1976 law that gives foreign nations some immunity from lawsuits in American courts.
The Senate bill is intended to make clear that the immunity given to foreign nations under the law should not apply in cases where nations are found culpable for terrorist attacks that kill Americans on United States soil. If the bill were to pass both houses of Congress and be signed by the president, it could clear a path for the role of the Saudi government to be examined in the Sept. 11 lawsuits.
Obama administration officials counter that weakening the sovereign immunity provisions would put the American government, along with its citizens and corporations, in legal risk abroad because other nations might retaliate with their own legislation. Secretary of State John Kerry told a Senate panel in February that the bill, in its current form, would "expose the United States of America to lawsuits and take away our sovereign immunity and create a terrible precedent."
Oil refinery
Saudi Arabia faces tough choices on oil dependency
The bill's sponsors have said that the legislation is purposely drawn very narrowly — involving only attacks on American soil — to reduce the prospect that other nations might try to fight back.
In a closed-door briefing on Capitol Hill on March 4, Anne W. Patterson, an assistant secretary of state, and Andrew Exum, a top Pentagon official on Middle East policy, told staff members of the Senate Armed Services Committee that American troops and civilians could be in legal jeopardy if other nations decide to retaliate and strip Americans of immunity abroad. They also discussed the Saudi threats specifically, laying out the impacts if Saudi Arabia made good on its economic threats.
John Kirby, a State Department spokesman, said in a statement that the administration stands by the victims of terrorism, "especially those who suffered and sacrificed so much on 9/11."
Edwin M. Truman, a fellow at the Peterson Institute for International Economics, said he thought the Saudis were most likely making an "empty threat." Selling hundreds of billions of dollars in American assets would not only be technically difficult to pull off, he said, but would also very likely cause global market turmoil for which the Saudis would be blamed.
Moreover, he said, it could destabilize the American dollar — the currency to which the Saudi riyal is pegged.
"The only way they could punish us is by punishing themselves," Mr. Truman said.
The bill is an anomaly in a Congress fractured by bitter partisanship, especially during an election year. It is sponsored by Senator John Cornyn, Republican of Texas, and Senator Chuck Schumer, Democrat of New York. It has the support of an unlikely coalition of liberal and conservative senators, including Al Franken, Democrat of Minnesota, and Ted Cruz, Republican of Texas. It passed through the Judiciary Committee in January without dissent.
"As our nation confronts new and expanding terror networks that are targeting our citizens, stopping the funding source for terrorists becomes even more important," Mr. Cornyn said last month.
The alliance with Saudi Arabia has frayed in recent years as the White House has tried to thaw ties with Iran — Saudi Arabia's bitter enemy— in the midst of recriminations between American and Saudi officials about the role that both countries should play in the stability of the Middle East.
But the administration has supported Saudi Arabia on other fronts, including providing the country with targeting intelligence and logistical support for its war in Yemen. The Saudi military is flying jets and dropping bombs it bought from the United States — part of the billions of dollars in arms deals that have been negotiated with Saudi Arabia and other Persian Gulf nations during the Obama administration.
The war has been a humanitarian disaster and fueled a resurgence of Al Qaeda in Yemen, leading to the resolution in Congress to put new restrictions on arms deals to the kingdom. Senator Christopher S. Murphy, Democrat of Connecticut, one of the resolution's sponsors and a member of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, said that Congress has been "feckless" in conducting oversight of arms sales, especially those destined for Saudi Arabia.
"My first desire is for our relationship with Saudi Arabia to come with a greater degree of conditionality than it currently does," he said.
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