Saudi Arabia has long been treated by the United States as one of the strategic linchpins of American policy in the Middle East and Gulf region, along with Israel, Egypt, and Jordan. Its value lay not only in its key location but also in its vast oil reserves and the enormous wealth flowing from those resources.
But in recent weeks Saudi Arabia has come under increasingly negative scrutiny with the boiling over of more than a decade’s worth of strong suspicions regarding a Saudi role in the 9/11 attacks (suspicions fueled by but not limited to the fact that most of the 9/11 hijackers were Saudis).
Specifically, pressure is mounting on the Obama administration to release a heretofore classified 28-page portion of the report of a congressional investigation into 9/11 believed to contain information of a serious Saudi connection. In addition, the Senate has just (unanimously) passed legislation allowing families of 9/11 victims to sue Saudi Arabia for any role the country may have had in the attack.
In the wake of 9/11, Congress established a joint Senate-House committee to investigate the attack. The committee released a report six months later. That report, which made passing reference to some evidence of Saudi officials and citizens living in the U.S. having played a role, was soon made public. However, the contents of 28 pages labeled “classified” were withheld.
And there the matter of Saudi involvement stood until November 2002, when legislation was enacted establishing the National Commission on Terrorist Attacks Upon the United States, also known as the 9/11 Commission. Its mandate was “to prepare a full and complete account of the circumstances surrounding the September 11 attacks.”
In its final report the 9/11 Commission said it “found no evidence that the Saudi government as an institution or senior Saudi officials individually funded” the perpetrators and that the 28 pages “were based almost entirely on raw, unvetted material that came to the FBI” and was deemed mostly inconclusive by the commission.
Recently, however, a series of memos written by 9/11 Commission staffers was disclosed which point to a number of possible connections between the hijackers and Saudis living here. Hence the current push to have the 28 pages declassified.
As for the legislation passed by the Senate, if it becomes law it would carve out an exception to a 1976 law that largely immunizes foreign nations from being sued in U.S. courts. Not only would there be the possibility of compensation for victims and financial punishment, but owing to the dynamics of the American judicial system, lawsuits could also be counted on to provide the fullest airing of the circumstances of 9/11 in terms of any Saudi involvement.
The Obama administration opposes the release of the 28 pages and authorizing suits against Saudi Arabia. It claims the need to maintain positive relations with that country overrides any public interest, including securing justice for the victims of 9/11. It also says the U.S. might in turn lose its immunity to suits overseas and that the Saudis might withdraw all their money from American banks and sell off all their holdings here to shield them from any adverse judgments.
We are not unmindful of the special needs of diplomacy and the indisputably positive role secrecy can play in foreign relations. But if the Saudi government or its agents were complicit in 9/11 it would be obscene to keep this information from the American public. And, given the recent revelations of their machinations in securing domestic support for the nuclear agreement with Iran, President Obama and his team should be the last ones to cite the principled need for secrecy.