“I do not think a nation like America will remain strong if the nation does not demand the truth.” – Rep. Walter Jones
Along with families who lost loved ones on Sept. 11, 2001, Representatives Walter Jones .(R-NC), Stephen F. Lynch (D-MA) and Thomas Massie (R-KY) urged the president to declassify 28 pages from the 9/11 congressional investigation report, providing more information to the general public.
“Based on my reading of the documents, I am confident that making these 28 pages public would not damage our national security. I challenge all of my colleagues in Congress to read the 28 pages on behalf of their constituents and to cosponsor this bill. Understanding what enabled this tragedy to occur is fundamental to drafting a strategy for avoiding another tragic event,” said Massie.
The bill sponsors, Lynch and Jones, said they have recently reviewed those pages, which were kept almost entirely secret when the House and Senate Intelligence Committees released their final report in December 2002. Without disclosing specifics, the report said investigators found “information suggesting specific sources of foreign support for some of the September 11 hijackers while they were in the United States.”
“These aren’t pages that were simply redacted,” explained Lynch. “These 28 pages were actually removed before the work was presented to the general public.” Lynch said that these pages would allow survivors to have better understanding of what happened on Sept. 11, 2001 when nearly 3,000 people were killed. Besides looking back in hindsight, Lynch said these pages provide a foreign policy understanding that has “an instructive value going forward,” he explained.
