Summary Obama who is reluctant to release the documents has a mounting pressure at home.
NEW YORK (Web Desk / AFP) - Saudi Arabia’s Deputy Crown Prince and Defence Minister Muhammad Bin Salman during his last United States visit and meeting with President Barack Obama and other higher officials has requested not to declassify a 28-page section of a Congressional report which many believe will point to Saudi involvement in the 2001 plane hijackings, which killed nearly 3,000 people and launched the War on Terror.
Obama who is reluctant to release the documents has a mounting pressure at home to bring the facts in front of the world.
Sources report that US intelligence agencies will shortly release the 28 pages from the 9/11 congressional report which is believed to show a stronger connection to Saudi funding of the attacks.
On the other hand, Saudi authorities have threatened US to further poison the already strained ties between Washington and its longstanding Gulf ally.
Saudi Arabia has reportedly warned it could sell off several hundred billion dollars in American assets if Congress passes the measure.
Former senator Bob Graham, who co-chaired the 9/11 congressional inquiry, told CNN Saturday that he is "outraged but not surprised" by the Saudi warning on assets.
"The Saudis have known what they did in 9/11, and they knew that we knew what they did, at least at the highest levels of the US government," Graham told the network’s Michael Smerconish.
In February Zacarias Moussaoui, dubbed the 20th hijacker, told US lawyers that members of the Saudi royal family donated millions of dollars to Al-Qaeda in the 1990s.
The Saudi Embassy denied Moussaoui’s claims. But his accusations revived debate over whether the Obama administration should release a still-classified 28-page section of the 9/11 Commission Report.
The section, which Graham has sought to get released, is believed to focus on the role of foreign governments in the plot.
Cornyn said he believed Riyadh was over-reacting to the bill, but stressed he would not want the legislation altered because of the economic threat.
"I don’t think we should let foreign countries dictate the domestic policy of the United States," Cornyn said.
But he also sought to suggest the measure was not targeting Saudi Arabia.
"I don’t understand their defensiveness," he said. "It’s not directed at the Saudi government -- unless there’s something in those 28 pages that have been classified that they’re worried about that we don’t know about."
Cornyn said he has not read the classified pages but wants them released.
He hopes the measure could pass by unanimous consent, meaning Senate floor debate would likely be avoided. It would then head to the House of Representatives.
Republican presidential candidate Senator Ted Cruz has sponsored the legislation, and Democratic White House hopefuls Hillary Clinton and Senator Bernie Sanders said they favor the bill.
Reported by Nadeem Manzoor Salahri
