This was supposed to have been the purpose of the 9/11 Commission, whose massive report is now looked to as the primary source on the subject. Yet there is another, far more specific investigative report, the one issued by the intelligence committees of both houses of Congress, entitled “Joint Inquiry into Intelligence Community Activities Before and After the Terrorist Attacks of September 11, 2001.”
If you actually take the time to read the report, all goes along swimmingly (except for occasional redactions) until you get to p. 369, whereupon the text is blacked out for the next twenty-eight pages.
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We don’t have to rely on pure speculation, in spite of the fact that us ordinary peons in flyover country aren’t allowed to read those 28 pages. That’s because a few members of Congress have taken the trouble to apply for permission to read them, including Representatives Walter Jones (R-North Carolina), Tom Massie (R-Kentucky), and Stephen Lynch (D-Massachusetts). According to their own accounts, they came out of that soundproof spy-proof room reeling. Here’s what Jones says:
"I was absolutely shocked by what I read. What was so surprising was that those whom we thought we could trust really disappointed me…It does not deal with national security per se; it is more about relationships. The information is critical to our foreign policy moving forward and should thus be available to the American people. If the 9/11 hijackers had outside help – particularly from one or more foreign governments – the press and the public have a right to know what our government has or has not done to bring justice to the perpetrators."
“One or more foreign governments,” eh? Who in the Middle East – or anywhere else, for that matter – are among “those whom we thought we could trust”? That doesn’t sound like the Saudis to me. Would anyone really be surprised or “disappointed” to learn that they were playing games behind our back?
Rep. Massie’s statement is even more revealing:
"I had to stop every two or three pages and rearrange my perception of history. And it’s that fundamental – those 28 pages… It certainly changes your view of the Middle East."
Would the discovery of Saudi perfidy “change your view of the Middle East” in a “fundamental” way? The Kingdom has been exporting its fanatic brand of Wahabism – fundamentalist Sunni ideology – spreading terrorism and political instability across the region for many years. So this is nothing new: and for those of us old enough to remember the Arab oil embargo of the 1970s, their two-timing nature is taken for granted.
