CIA Director Says No Evidence Of Saudi Role In 9/11

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CIA Director John Brennan said there is no evidence that the Saudi government or senior Saudi officials supported the Sept. 11 attacks. On the contrary, he said, Riyadh had been a strong US partner in fighting terrorism.

Brennan said what concerns him more is “Iran’s support for terrorist activities and terrorist groups, especially the Quds force and their activities inside Iraq, Syria, and other countries throughout the region.

In a weekend interview with Al-Arabiya news channel, Brennan addressed the still-secret 28 pages of a congressional inquiry into the 2001 attacks, in which 15 of the 19 hijackers were Saudi citizens.

President Barack Obama has promised to publicly release all or part of the 28 pages of the report, which could happen as early as this month. The rest of the report was released in December 2002.

Bob Graham, who was co-chairman of that bipartisan congressional panel, and others say the 28 pages point suspicion at the Saudis.

Graham said it’s important for the public to know that all of the still-classified allegations were thoroughly investigated.

Brennan had said earlier that the 28 pages contained preliminary information about possible Saudi links to the attackers that had not been corroborated or vetted at the time. He said that the 9/11 Commission, which did a follow-on investigation into the attacks, ultimately found nothing that pointed to Saudi complicity.

“Subsequently the Sept. 11 commission looked very thoroughly at these allegations of Saudi involvement, Saudi government involvement and their finding, their conclusion was that there was no evidence to indicate that the Saudi government as an institution or Saudi senior officials individually had supported the Sep. 11 attacks,” Brennan told Al-Arabiya.

He said “it is good” that this 28-page report will “come out.”

“Indeed, subsequently the assessments that have been done have shown it was very unfortunate that these attacks took place but this was the work of Al-Qaeda, (Al-Qaeda leader Ayman) Al-Zawahri, and others of that ilk,” said Brennan.

Brennan said he supports the release of the still classified part of the congressional inquiry.

The Saudi government says it has been “wrongfully and morbidly accused of complicity” in the attacks, is fighting extremists and working to clamp down on their funding channels. Still, Saudi officials have long said that they would welcome declassification of the 28 pages because it would “allow us to respond to any allegations in a clear and credible manner.”

The pages were withheld from the 838-page report on the orders of President George W. Bush, who said the release could divulge intelligence sources and methods. Still, protecting US-Saudi diplomatic relations also was believed to have been a factor.

Iran’s terror role

In the same interview, Brennan said that “over the last 15 years, the Saudis have become among our best counterterrorism partners.”
He described both Custodian of the Two Holy Mosques King Salman and Deputy Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, second deputy premier and minister of defense, as “strong partners in this fight against terrorism.”

On the other hand, Brennan said the CIA has “zero” contacts with Tehran.

“I continue to be very concerned about Iran’s support for terrorist activities and terrorist groups, especially the Quds force and their activities inside Iraq, Syria, and other countries throughout the region,” he said.

“Iran still has a long way to go before I’m going to be convinced that they are interested in countering and destroying terrorism,” Brennan added.

Saudi Arabia has long expressed its concern over Iran’s involvement in both Syria and Iraq. Iran has been a key supporter of Syrian dictator Bashar al-Assad, whose refusal to quit has led to a disastrous civil war in his country.

Arab News

Arab News is Saudi Arabia's first English-language newspaper. It was founded in 1975 by Hisham and Mohammed Ali Hafiz. Today, it is one of 29 publications produced by Saudi Research & Publishing Company (SRPC), a subsidiary of Saudi Research & Marketing Group (SRMG).

One thought on “CIA Director Says No Evidence Of Saudi Role In 9/11

  • June 14, 2016 at 6:40 am
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    This is one dirty propaganda article. Apparently, yes, the Saudi government was involved in 9/11 – hence the majority of the highjacks were Saudis. Whether that went so overtly through the government or more covertly through its accomplices in either the monarchic family or their business relations – it makes no difference. The fact is the Saudi government was involved and knew that the attack was coming. But then of course, so did the CIA, the FBI and the US government.

    Nor is the Saudi government a good partner in the fight against terrorism – it finances terrorism, recruits the terrorists, arms them, trains them – via CIA! – on its soil. And no, the fault is not with Iran. Iran together with the Syrian Arab army, Russia and Hezbollah made the largest and most genuine effort at eliminating ISIS and related terrorism by al Nusra and related groups including Aurar al Sham and Jaish al Islam. It is of course also clear that the US still wants to topple Assad and turn Syria into a failed state. That will then guarantee a continuing flood of refugees to the EU to destabilize the same as well. Surely, the current attack in Florida on a gay club – presumably by ISIS sponsored attacker! who was in the cross hairs of the FBI – makes it clear that the US is preparing to convince the US public that a war on Syria and Russia and Iran is called for. And that is of course what the Saudis want. It won’t happen. ISIS in Syria including all the related groups will be gone before the end of Obama’s term and he won’t likely want to start a war on Syria and Russia now. The CIA wants that – hence their attempts to prevent the Russians from bombarding al Nusra and associated ilk – oh the CIA trained “rebels” going down the drain fast! And with it Saudi Arabia’s desire to topple Assad.

    Ironically, inside the US, the FBI appears to be an enabler of gruesome shootings rather than to prevent them. With all the surveillance by the NSA and FBI – and someone they know can just walk into a club and shoot 50 people! But who still believes that the US has a legitimate government? After the extensive voting fraud to make sure Hillary the murderer would guaranteed win the election, it is clear that the US ceased to be a democracy and that it turns into the western Saudi Arabia: a plutocratic, despotic monarchy. Time to move out of America. The problem is that there is only Russia, Iran and China left to go to. They are the only independent countries left in the world. And that means WW3 is not a question if, but only when.

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