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- The Obama administration was reviewing whether to declassify the 28 pages concerning 9/11 as tensions with Saudi Arabia deepened. The review came 10 days before President Barack Obama's planned visit to Saudi Arabia, amid growing mistrust between the two allies and questions about Saudi Arabia's commitment to fighting violent Islamic extremism.
- The 28 pages concern a possible Saudi support network for the 9/11 hijackers while they were in the United States. They had remained classified for 13 years in a secure government vault, and only a small number of former government officials and investigators had been allowed to read them. Former officials and families of 9/11 victims were demanding their release.
- One argument for declassification was that the hijackers could not reasonably have operated without assistance inside the United States. Nineteen men, most of whom spoke little English, had never visited the country and lacked substantial formal education, nevertheless managed to execute a complicated operation. Former officials argued that the 28 pages could help explain who assisted them.
- Former Senator Bob Graham led the congressional investigation that produced the classified material. As chairman of the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence, he co-chaired the bipartisan Joint Congressional Inquiry into intelligence failures surrounding 9/11. The inquiry reviewed approximately 500,000 documents, interviewed hundreds of witnesses and produced an 838-page report.
- The Bush administration removed the report's final chapter, leaving it blank in the published version. The chapter was withheld on national security grounds. The redacted material became known as the 28 pages, and Graham had been campaigning for its release since its classification in 2003.
- Graham believes the 28 pages describe a network of individuals who supported the hijackers after they arrived in the United States. He believes the assistance had substantial Saudi connections, involving the Saudi government, wealthy individuals and charities. He argues that the Saudi role was played down to protect a strategically important relationship with a kingdom where political authority, royalty, wealth and religion are closely intertwined.
- Former Congressman Porter Goss also supported publishing the uncensored material. Goss was Graham's Republican co-chairman on the House side of the inquiry and subsequently became CIA director. He believed the 28 pages should have been included in the original public report.
- Graham and Goss personally challenged FBI Director Robert Mueller over the continued classification. During a face-to-face meeting, they pressed for the material to be declassified. The FBI strongly resisted, with the explanation effectively amounting to: the documents needed to remain classified because the FBI said so.
- Goss says he was never given a convincing explanation for the classification. He knew of no reason at the time, and knows of no reason now, why the 28 pages must remain secret.
- The documents were kept in highly restricted government facilities beneath the Capitol. These sensitive compartmented information facilities, known as SCIFs, allow appropriately cleared members of Congress to examine classified material under supervision. Readers cannot take notes and must rely on their memory of what they have seen.
- Former Congressman and US Ambassador to India Tim Roemer had read the 28 pages several times. He first encountered them as a member of the congressional inquiry and later reviewed them as a member of the independent 9/11 Commission, which continued the investigation after Congress.
- Roemer describes the 28 pages as a preliminary investigative document rather than a definitive finding of guilt. He compares them to a working police or grand jury report containing provocative evidence, some verified and some unverified. They raise the possibility that Saudi officials assisted two hijackers who established themselves in Southern California.
- Information from the 28 pages was passed to the 9/11 Commission for further investigation. The commission answered some of the questions raised by the original inquiry but did not resolve all of them. Roemer believes the eventual commission report contains surprising information about Saudi involvement in Los Angeles and San Diego, much of it buried in footnotes and appendices that ordinary readers rarely examine.
- The early movements of two Saudi hijackers in California became a central focus of the investigation. In January 2000, Nawaf al-Hazmi and Khalid al-Mihdhar arrived in Los Angeles after attending an al-Qaeda summit in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia. Despite limited English and little familiarity with Western culture, they managed to obtain accommodation, government identification, English lessons and flight training.
- Witnesses placed the two hijackers at the King Fahd Mosque in Los Angeles alongside Fahad al-Thumairy. Thumairy was a diplomat at the Saudi consulate and was described as holding extremist views. Investigators subsequently considered him deceptive and suspicious. In 2003, US authorities denied him re-entry because of suspected connections to terrorist activity.
- Phone records connected Thumairy to Omar al-Bayoumi, the Saudi man who became the hijackers' principal benefactor. Bayoumi worked at a Saudi aviation contractor outside Los Angeles in what was described as a no-show position, while receiving a salary from the Saudi government. Graham believes Bayoumi was a Saudi agent and points to FBI files that had reportedly identified him as one even before 9/11.
- Bayoumi's first documented encounter with the two hijackers occurred on February 1, 2000, following a visit to the Saudi consulate. He went to the consulate office where Thumairy worked and subsequently had lunch at a Middle Eastern restaurant on Venice Boulevard. He claimed that he happened to meet al-Hazmi and al-Mihdhar there by chance. The investigators questioned the plausibility of this coincidence in a city as large as Los Angeles.
- Bayoumi provided substantial practical and financial assistance after meeting the hijackers. He befriended them, helped them relocate to San Diego, found them accommodation in his own apartment complex, advanced their security deposit and co-signed their lease. He also organised a welcome party and introduced them to other Muslims who helped them obtain government identification, enrol in English classes and access flight schools.
- Investigators acknowledged that there was no evidence proving Bayoumi or Thumairy knew the hijackers intended to carry out terrorist attacks. It remained possible that the two Saudis were simply helping fellow Muslims settle in a new country. Nevertheless, the extent of their assistance and their connections to Saudi institutions raised questions that investigators believed deserved further examination.
- Bayoumi's telephone records revealed four calls to a San Diego mosque imam on the day he welcomed the hijackers to the city. The imam was Anwar al-Awlaki, an American-born cleric who later became a prominent al-Qaeda propagandist and senior operative in Yemen.
- Anwar al-Awlaki's subsequent movements added another connection to the investigation. After becoming a spiritual adviser to the hijackers in San Diego, he left for Falls Church, Virginia, in January 2001. Several months later, al-Hazmi, al-Mihdhar and three other hijackers joined him there. Al-Awlaki eventually became one of al-Qaeda's most prominent figures before being killed in a CIA drone strike.
- The accumulated connections between Bayoumi, Thumairy, al-Awlaki and the hijackers strengthened calls for further investigation. The interviewees argued that the pattern of meetings, telephone calls, assistance and institutional connections was sufficiently troubling to justify releasing the 28 pages, even if the material did not establish a complete conspiracy.
- Attorneys Jim Kreindler and Sean Carter represent families of 9/11 victims in a lawsuit against Saudi Arabia. The families allege that Saudi institutions provided financial assistance to al-Qaeda while knowing that the organisation was conducting a war against the United States.
- The families' legal investigation has been hindered by a lack of government transparency and cooperation. Their attorneys argue that the US government owes the victims' families openness about what happened and have complained that they have not received the cooperation necessary to develop their case fully.
- The US government supported Saudi Arabia's claim of sovereign immunity in the litigation. This position held that the kingdom could not be sued in American courts because of its sovereign status, creating an additional obstacle for the families seeking accountability.
- The 9/11 Commission report identified Saudi Arabia as a longstanding major source of al-Qaeda funding. It described wealthy Saudi citizens and charities as important sources of money, with significant government sponsorship. However, the report also stated that investigators had found no evidence that the Saudi government as an institution, or senior Saudi officials individually, funded al-Qaeda.
- Attorney Sean Carter argues that the commission's wording was carefully constructed and has been misunderstood. The statement refers specifically to the Saudi government as an institution and senior officials individually. Carter argues that it leaves open the possibility that less senior government officials or other individuals within government structures provided assistance.
- The families' lawsuit focuses on possible assistance from lower-level Saudi officials and elements of government sympathetic to Osama bin Laden. Carter argues that these individuals may have helped al-Qaeda carry out the attacks and maintain its operational network, even if the senior Saudi leadership did not formally authorise the attacks.
- Saudi Arabia has used the commission's finding to argue that it was exonerated from responsibility for 9/11. The programme challenges that interpretation, emphasising that the commission's statement was not a blanket declaration that no Saudi individuals or institutions had assisted al-Qaeda.
- Former Senator Bob Kerrey, a member of the ten-person 9/11 Commission, supports declassification and the victims' lawsuit. Having read the 28 pages, he filed an affidavit supporting the families' legal case. He argues that people who provide money to terrorists cannot simply deny responsibility for what those organisations subsequently do.
- Kerrey acknowledges that the 9/11 Commission did not uncover every detail of the conspiracy. He explains that the commission lacked sufficient time and resources to investigate every lead and did not pursue the entire Saudi line of inquiry. He therefore rejects the suggestion that all the questions raised by the original congressional investigation were resolved.
- Kerrey considers the circumstances surrounding the hijackers' activities in San Diego too significant to dismiss as coincidence. When asked whether the various connections could all be explained away, he responded that he did not believe in coincidences.
- Former Secretary of the Navy John Lehman says a solid majority of former 9/11 commissioners favour releasing the 28 pages. He argues that the commissioners were experienced national security officials familiar with classified intelligence and compartmentalised information. In their judgment, these particular pages do not contain material that genuinely needs to remain secret.
- Lehman believes some senior Saudi officials knew that assistance was being provided to al-Qaeda. However, he does not believe the assistance necessarily represented official Saudi government policy. He also stresses that the absence of a formal government policy would not absolve Saudi Arabia of responsibility for assistance provided by people within its institutions.
- Fifteen of the nineteen 9/11 hijackers were Saudi nationals. Lehman highlights that they had attended Saudi schools and were exposed to an intolerant interpretation of Islam from an early age. The programme connects this discussion to the influence of Wahhabism within Saudi society.
- Wahhabism is presented as an ultra-conservative and puritanical interpretation of Islam deeply embedded in Saudi institutions. The programme describes Saudi Arabia as having no meaningful separation between religious and political authority, allowing religious institutions and clerics considerable influence over society.
- Saudi religious institutions possess substantial financial resources and international influence. Clerics entrusted with the kingdom's holiest Islamic sites have access to billions of dollars used to spread their religious interpretation internationally through mosques and religious schools.
- The international spread of Saudi religious influence raises concerns about the promotion of extremist ideology. The programme argues that some mosques and religious schools established through Saudi-funded religious outreach have become recruiting environments for violent extremists. Wahhabism is described as one of Saudi Arabia's most significant exports after oil.
- Lehman does not describe the 28 pages as a definitive smoking gun. He believes their value is that they provide a concentrated illustration of the circumstances, relationships and assistance that helped explain how individuals became involved in international jihadist movements.
- The programme argues that releasing the documents could improve public understanding without necessarily producing a dramatic new revelation. Their importance lies in making previously hidden investigative material accessible and allowing the American public to understand the possible connections between Saudi individuals, institutions and the 9/11 hijackers.
- Saudi Arabia had also publicly expressed support for declassifying the material, according to the programme. This weakened the argument that continued secrecy was necessary to protect the bilateral relationship.
- The central policy question was whether protecting the relationship with Saudi Arabia justified withholding information from the American public and victims' families. Declassification could expose uncomfortable historical connections and complicate diplomatic relations, but the interviewees argued that transparency was necessary for accountability and a more honest counterterrorism partnership.
- The programme concludes that the United States needs a relationship with Saudi Arabia in which both countries genuinely cooperate against terrorism. That cooperation has not always existed. Understanding and publicly examining the unresolved questions surrounding Saudi assistance to the 9/11 hijackers was presented as an important step towards addressing that problem.