WASHINGTON, July 29: The Saudi Foreign Minister, Saud al-Faisal, arrived here on Tuesday for an apparently unscheduled meeting with President Bush relating to the classified portion of a congressional inquiry report into the 9/11 terrorist attacks.
Reports here have suggested that 28 unpublished pages of the 858-page report deal with Saudi Arabia and include allegations that the kingdom had supported Al Qaeda before the attacks.
Both Republican and Democrat lawmakers have urged President Bush to declassify the entire report. Some US officials indicated on Monday that the administration was seriously considering the bipartisan request for publishing the classified portion of the report as well.
Reports here suggest that Foreign Minister Saud al-Faisal may seek to persuade Mr Bush not to publish that portion.
The decision to keep the pages secret has created suspicion among US lawmakers that the administration is trying to protect its Saudi allies.
The White House has so far not commented on the classified report, but the Saudi ambassador here, Prince Bandar bin Sultan, said in a statement last week that “28 blanked-out pages are being used by some to malign our country and our people.”
“Saudi Arabia has nothing to hide,” he said after the declassified version of the report was released on Thursday. “We can deal with questions in public, but we cannot respond to blank pages.”
Three of the four leaders of the joint congressional investigation into the attacks have said they believed that much of the material on foreign financing was safe to publish but that the administration insisted on keeping it secret.
