Former 9/11 Commission Member Kerrey: Release the 28 Pages

Former Sen. Bob Kerrey (D-NE), in an op-ed published Saturday in the New York Daily News calls, again, for the release of the now very famous, classified 28 pages of the 2002 Joint Congressional Inquiry report into 9/11, which deals with Saudi support for the 9/11 hijackers. “We do not need another 9/11 Commission,” Kerry writes. That 2004 commission, he notes, on which he was a member, produced a very extensive report, as did the earlier, Congressional intelligence committees, including 28 classified pages that directly addressed the Saudi role in financing the attacks. “Those pages must be declassified now,” Kerrey writes, adding that President Obama has promised as much,

“and many members of Congress who have read the section understand the benefit of shining a bright light on recent history will be far greater than any harm to U.S.-Saudi relations.”

Kerrey makes reference to the testimony of Zacarias Moussaoui, the so-called 20th hijacker, now locked up at a Federal supermax prison in Colorado. Asking whether anything Moussaoui says is believable is the wrong question, Kerrey argues.

“The right question is: ‘Do we have the whole truth and, if not, how can we get it?’ As far as I’m concerned, we do not have the whole truth.”

He refutes the notion promoted by the Saudis and their defenders that the 9/11 Commission concluded that the Saudis had nothing to do with 9/11.

“The Commission made clear that it did not have all the facts and that further investigation was necessary.”

Kerrey concludes by saying that the desire to have a good relationship with the Saudis is no excuse to sweep the charges of their involvement under the rug.

“Al Qaeda has American blood on its hands and it wants more,” he writes. “We deserve to know precisely and completely who funded their terrorist acts. We deserve to know it soon.”

Kerrey’s op-ed followed by one day the prominent coverage in the Boston Globe of the effort of Rep. Steven Lynch (D-MA) in this effort, including with a large photograph of Lynch, next to his colleague Rep. Walter Jones (R-NC), at their Jan. 7 press conference with former Senate Intelligence Chair Bob Graham (D-FL) on the 28 pages. The Globe quotes Lynch saying that material in the 28 pages corroborates some of the assertions made by Moussaoui. “There are people named; there are transactions identified,” Lynch told CNN. “What are they afraid of?” Lynch said with regard to the Obama Administration’s refusal, so far, to release those pages.

“Having those 28 pages disclosed to the public will inform our foreign policy going forward, which would be very helpful at this stage.”

Another endorsement for releasing the 28 pages came from the Denver Post. “A growing number of members of Congress are calling on the White House to declassify the report,” the Post said in a Feb. 6 editorial. “We, too, believe it’s time.”