Add Category
President Barack Obama ... is to decide within 60 days whether to declassify 9/11 documents. Picture: AP.
US President Barack Obama will decide whether to declassify 28 pages of sealed documents — which some suspect show a Saudi connection to the 9/11 attacks — within 60 days, according to a former senator who co-chaired the 2002 joint congressional inquiry into the attacks.
Former Florida Senator Bob Graham told Fox News that the White House had informed him that a decision on whether to declassify the documents would be made in one to two months.
Graham, who has pressed for the documents to be made public, told Fox he was “pleased that after two years this matter is about to come to a decision by the president.â€
The timing of the release could be highly significant, with the president heading to Saudi Arabia to meet leaders in the region next week.
Former Senator Bob Graham ... has said the White House told him a decision on whether to declassify 9/11 documents will be made soon. Picture: AP.Source:AP
Asked about the renewed information requests on Tuesday, White House Press Secretary Josh Earnest said he did not know whether Obama has read the 28 pages but they are the subject of an intelligence community “classification review,†reports Fox.
Earnest said Obama has “confidence†in their ability to “consider those documents for release.†Asked about any potential Saudi ties to 9/11, Earnest cited the 9/11 Commission’s findings that there was no evidence the Saudi government or senior Saudi officials funded al-Qaeda.
Both the George W. Bush and Obama administrations have refused to unseal the documents, claiming it would jeopardise national security.
Critics claim the reluctance is a calculated move to hide Saudi Arabia’s involvement in the attacks that killed almost 3,000 people.