U.S. May Query Saudi Who Knew Hijackers

Associated Press ^ | Jul 30, 2003 | Barry Schweid

[New Horizon]

WASHINGTON (AP) -- Saudi Arabia's foreign minister says FBI and CIA agents in his country may question an employee of the Saudi civil aviation authority who befriended two of the Saudis involved in the 9-11 hijackings.

That concession made, Foreign Minister Saud al-Faisal expressed disappointment that President Bush would not declassify parts of a congressional report on the 9-11 hijackings. He said the refusal deprives the Arab kingdom of a chance to clear its name.

Fifteen of the 19 hijackers were from Saudi Arabia, but the Saudi government has asserted it had no involvement in the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks.

"Everybody is having a field day and casting aspersions about Saudi Arabia," Saud complained Tuesday after meeting with Bush and his senior advisers at the White House. "My concern is that the good name of Saudi Arabia is not tarnished." Still, he said, he understood Bush's reasoning.

"I got a hearing and we had a good meeting with the president," Faud said Wednesday in an interview on ABC's "Good Morning America."

"He had his case, too," he said of Bush. "He worries about lives that he says would be compromised if he releases the information because it would give details of ongoing investigations. We believe him that he has reasons for that. But so do we."

Bush had said earlier at the White House "there's an ongoing investigation into the 9-11 attacks and we don't want to compromise that investigation."

"If people are being investigated it doesn't make sense for us to let them know who they are," the president said.

Also, he said, "we have an ongoing war against al-Qaida and terrorists, and the declassification of that part of a 900-page document would reveal sources and methods that will make it harder for us to win the war on terror."

Saud said Condoleezza Rice, Bush's national security adviser, requested access to civil aviation employee Omar Bayoumi.

Saud vowed that his government would vigorously pursue terrorists and their financial supporters. Saud said his government was in touch with Iranian intelligence officials on detained al-Qaida suspects and had requested any Saudis among them be turned over to the kingdom.

Saud also indicated the controversy over the report had not dampened his government's support for Bush's attempts at Mideast peacemaking. He said he was encouraged with the way the president was proceeding.

The U.S.-backed road map would establish a Palestinian state in 2005 as part of an accord between Israel and the Palestinian Authority.

Saud said anyone who accuses his country of helping Sept. 11 terrorists "must have a morbid imagination."

Several senators persisted in calling for declassification of the withheld sections.

Sen. Richard Shelby, R-Ala., a former chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee, told CNN that "90, 95 percent of it would not compromise, in my judgment, anything in national security."

Sen. Bob Graham, D-Fla., called on the committee to ignore Bush's objections and push for declassification of the part of the report that has fueled allegations against Saudi Arabia.

Graham, a Democratic presidential candidate and the co-chairman of the congressional inquiry into the 9-11 attacks, said that if a majority of the committee approved the request to declassify the 28 pages, Bush would then have five days to tell the committee why he wants to keep the segment secret.

The committee could then overrule Bush and send a resolution to the full Senate for a vote, Graham said.

He said he had asked the chairman, Sen. Pat Roberts, R-Kan., and the panel's top Democrat, Sen. Jay Rockefeller of West Virginia, to start the process.

"The White House has again today decided it is more important to deny the people of America the opportunity to know what happened before and after 9-11 in terms of involvement of foreign governments than it is to open the record for all to see," Graham told reporters.

Sen. Charles Schumer, D-N.Y., said in a statement the interrogation of Bayoumi must take place in the United States and without any Saudi officials present.

"The administration's stubborn refusal to declassify documents is business as usual - coddling and covering up for the Saudis," Schumer said.

Portions of the 28 pages could be made public, with sensitive material withheld, Schumer said. "The American people have a right to know what countries supported the terrorists."