US officials hiding Saudi, Israeli roles in 9/11: former US official

CIA Director John Brennan and other American officials are trying to hide Israeli and Saudi tracks in the September 11, 2001, terror attacks, says a former US official.

J. Michael Springmann, a former US diplomat in Saudi Arabia, made the remarks on Sunday over Brennan’s claims that Saudi Arabia will be absolved of any responsibility for the 9/11 attacks based on 28 classified pages of a congressional report into the incident.

Springmann told Press TV that the spymaster was “absolutely mistaken,” as many key US politicians along with American intelligence agencies have acknowledged Saudi Arabia’s role in the attacks.

The Saudis were indeed involved “either through money or through assistance or through participation by high-level government or well-connected rich individuals,” he added.

Controversy surrounding Saudi Arabia’s role in the 9/11 attacks surged in May, when the US Senate passed a bill that allowed the families of 9/11 victims to sue the Riyadh regime for the damage caused by the tragic event.

The New York Post claimed in a report last month that Saudi Arabia’s involvement was deliberately covered up at the highest levels of the American government.

The extent of the cover-up goes beyond hiding 28 pages of a congressional report on 9/11 which was released in 2002, the report noted.

Pointing to investigations by case agents interviewed at the Joint Terrorism Task Forces (JTTF) in Washington and San Diego, along with police detectives who investigated the incident, the Post said, “Virtually every road led back to the Saudi Embassy in Washington, as well as the Saudi Consulate in Los Angeles.”

Springmann said according to the CIA, Congress could end the debates by simply releasing the hidden portion of the report.

“So they can declassify, they don’t have to wait for the executive branch, John Brennan or [US President] Barry Obama,” the analyst noted, adding that so far Obama has made promises in that regard but is not likely to deliver.

The Office of the US Director of National Intelligence is currently reviewing the pages to decide whether they can be declassified.

“What they are afraid of,” Springmann argued, “is essentially Saudis’ attempts to sell-off US securities and its blackmail as it did with the United Nations and its blacklist of Saudi Arabia for terrorism in Yemen.”

Riyadh has threatened that it might sell up to $750 billion in US securities and other assets if it is connected to the deadly attacks that killed some 3,000 people.

The United Nations blacklisted Saudi Arabia after concluding in a report released last week that it was responsible for 60 percent of the 785 deaths of children in Yemen last year, but quickly scratched it from the list after facing threats by the kingdom to stop funding UN programs.

Springmann noted that although Saudi tracks in the attacks were visible, Israel’s role in the attack should not be ignored as well.

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