John Lehman: 9/11 Commission Did Not Exonerate Saudis

Former Navy Secretary John Lehman.

Former Secretary of the Navy John Lehman, who also served on the 9/11 Commission, is calling for the release of the censored 28 pages of the Congressional Joint Inquiry, joining former U.S. Senator Bob Kerrey (also a 9/11 Commissioner) and former Senator Bob Graham, who co-chaired the Joint Inquiry. All three have just submitted affidavits in support of the 9/11 families in their lawsuit against the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, pending in Federal Court in New York — which the Saudis are trying again to have dismissed.

Lehman is adamant that the 9/11 Commission did not exonerate Saudi Arabia from culpability for the 9/11 attacks, or of financing Al Qaeda in the years leading up to the 9/11 attacks — as claimed repeatedly by Saudi officials and their backers. Lehman says that he was, and still remains, deeply troubled by the evidence the 9/11 Commission developed concerning the support given to two future hijackers in San Diego by Saudi citizen Omar al-Bayoumi, and also by an official of the Islamic Affairs Department of the Saudi consulate in Los Angeles. He notes that the Saudi Ministry of Islamic Affairs is run by Wahabi imams, who have fueled the rise of jihadism and whose teaching provides the ideological basis of Al-Qaeda, ISIL, etc. All of this warrants further examination, Lehman asserts, adding that he read the 28 pages while a member of the 9/11 Commission and that there is nothing in them harmful to national security.

“To the contrary,” Lehman states,

Therefore, says Lehman, he fully supports the 9/11 families in their efforts to obtain full disclosure of the records of both the Congressional Inquiry and the 9/11 Commission.

In his book The Commission, author Philip Shenon quoted Lehman on his inability to get any information out of the White House about the Saudis.

“They were refusing to declassify anything having to do with Saudi Arabia,” Lehman said. “Anything having to do with the Saudis… it had this very special sensitivity.”

Bob Graham’s affidavit filed Monday includes his statements made to the same court in 2012, that he is convinced that there is a “direct line” between some of the 9/11 terrorists and the government of Saudi Arabia, and that he believes that al-Bayoumi was operating under the direction of the Saudi government and the Ministry of Islamic Affairs, and was in fact an agent of the Saudi government. Graham says this evidence has never been fully explored and pursued.

Graham adds the Sarasota, Florida, story to his previous statements, pointing out that three of the 9/11 hijackers were linked to the al-Hijji family, who abruptly fled from the U.S. shortly before the Sept. 11 attacks. Also new, are Graham’s charges about the role of Saudi “charities” in providing financial support to Al-Qaeda. The 9/11 attacks could not have been planned and executed without a support infrastructure, he says, adding:

“I applaud the 9/11 Plaintiffs for their efforts to use the civil justice system to enlighten the American public concerning those important issues.”

The Bob Kerrey affidavit, the same as he submitted to the court in 2012, states emphatically that the claims by the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia and the Saudi High Commission for Relief of Bosnia & Herzegovina, that the 9/11 Commission exonerated them, are “fundamentally inaccurate and misleading.” Those claims by the Saudis are one of the principal grounds on which they are attempting, once again, to get the 9/11 families’ case against them, thrown out of court.