The Biden administration on Thursday acknowledged that giving the American people the full story of the 9/11 attacks through the publicati...
The Biden administration on Thursday acknowledged that giving the American people the full story of the 9/11 attacks through the publication of long-secret documents is being delayed by the wants of foreign governments.
The Justice Department said Thursday it will not hit the deadline to release the documents as required by President Joe Biden’s executive order, according to Reuters.
The Justice Department said that it would be releasing documents around the middle of this month.
It said some documents are not expected to be released until mid-April “due to continuing coordination with a number of foreign governments and ongoing interagency review,” it added.
The Justice Department said it will create separate “production sets” of the documents by the middle of next month due to redactions required by the Privacy Act.
Over 700 documents and over 2,700 pages have been released to date, the Justice Department said.
Families of the victims in the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, have been calling for the full release of all documents to better understand what, if any, connections existed between Saudi Arabia and the terrorists who played a role in the attacks that day.
Although 15 of the 19 terrorists involved were from Saudi Arabia, the Saudi government has said it had no connection to the attack, despite multiple allegations to the contrary.
“Previous declassification of materials relating to the September 11 attacks … only have confirmed the 9/11 Commission’s finding that Saudi Arabia had nothing to do with this terrible crime,” the Saudi Embassy in the U.S. said in September after Biden issued an executive order to make more documents public, according to U.S. News and World Report.
“It is lamentable that such false and malicious claims persist,” the Saudi statement said.
Recent White House statements that the Biden administration wants to deal with rising gas prices by warming relations with the Saudis has received a cool reception from the group formed by families of the victims of the 2001 attacks.
Terry Strada, chair of the group 9/11 Families United, said getting to the truth of the Saudis’ role in the attacks is more important than any deals Biden makes for oil, according to Axios.
“We share Americans’ ‘pain at the pump,’ and we recognize there are a number of important issues between our two countries, but any dialogue must include our years-long quest for justice and accountability,” Strada said in a statement.
“No reset of our nation’s relationship with Saudi Arabia can be successful without proper reconciliation for the attacks on September 11, 2001,” Strada said.
Strada said information in the declassified documents released to date “confirms our long-held beliefs regarding Saudi Arabia’s deep involvement in the murders of our loved ones.”
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