Possible September 11 Ties to Saudi Arabia Detailed in Newly Declassified Documents

The hijackers who pulled off the September 11th attacks may have had help from people connected to the government of Saudi Arabia, according to documents declassified Friday.

"While in the United States, some of the September 11th hijackers were in contact with, and received support or assistance from, individuals who may be connected to the Saudi Government," begins the pages of the report of the Joint Inquiry into Intelligence Community Activities Before and After the Terrorist Attacks of September 11, 2001.

"There is information, primarily from FBI sources that at least two of these individuals were alleged by some to be Saudi intelligence officers."

This information is contained in 28 pages that have remained classified for more than 10 years.

The administrations of both Presidents Bush and Obama have argued against their release, stating they are merely a collection of leads and rumors and their release could harm relations with Saudi Arabia.

In a statement, the Office of the Director of National Intelligence, which coordinated the release, echoed that fact.

"The decision to authorize the release of this information is not an endorsement of, or concurrence in, its accuracy or reliability," according to the office.

That office also released a previously classified summary of investigative steps taken to look into some of the allegations in the 28 pages.

That report concluded that "the Saudi Government and many of its agencies have been infiltrated and exploited by individuals associated with or sympathetic to al-Qaida."

Despite the objections of the current and previous administration, families of victims of the attacks and members of Congress have fought to have the pages released citing, among other things, that of the 19 hijackers, 15 were Saudi citizens.

The report released in 2004 concluded that there was "no evidence that the Saudi government as an institution or senior officials within the Saudi government funded al-Qaeda."

The way the conclusion was worded — combined with the fact that 28 pages were classified — led to an almost-cottage industry of speculation that the Saudis at a lower level might have been involved.

Senator Ron Wyden, a member of the Senate Intelligence Committee who also served on the Joint Inquiry into the attacks, applauded the release of the 28 pages.

"There is no excuse for keeping these 28 pages secret for more than a decade, so this release is welcome and long overdue,” Wyden said. "It helps illuminate additional details about a major event in our country’s history.

"The FBI believes that they investigated all of these leads in the years after 9/11. But the best way to make that case to the public is to do it as transparently as possible."

The 28 pages come across as a laundry list of possible connections to lower-level Saudi officials.

Most notable are mentions of Shaykh al-Thumairy who was "an accredited diplomat at the Saudi consulate in Los Angeles and one of the imams at the King Fahad Mosque in Culver City." The report states that two of the hijackers may have been in contact with him.

There is a reference to the phone book seized from senior al-Qaeda official Abu Zubaida which contained the unlisted number in Colorado for the man who helped manage the affairs for the Saudi Ambassador the United States.

The pages also refer to an incident in 1999 aboard an America West flight that the FBI's Phoenix office, in hindsight, thought might have been "a dry run to test airline security."

The report, in the end, did not draw any definitive conclusions about what the connections meant, if anything.

"On one hand, it is possible that these kind of connections could suggest... incontrovertible evidence that there is support for these terrorists within the Saudi government," the report said.

"On the other hand, it is also possible that further investigation of these allegations could reveal legitimate, and innocent, explanations for these associations."

The report also said that while "both the FBI and the CIA have informed the Committee that they are treating the Saudi issue seriously...both the FBI and the CIA still only have a limited understanding of the Saudi Government's ties to terrorist elements."