http://www.news-leader.com/today/071...91-102455.html

Report on 9-11 to be released this month
Final version, being called "highly explosive," tells of U.S. mistakes,
Saudi terrorist funding.

By Frank Davies
Knight Ridder

Washington - A long-awaited final report on the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks will
be released in the next two weeks, containing new information about U.S.
government mistakes and Saudi financing of terrorists.
One former House Intelligence Committee member who has read the report, Rep.
Tim Roemer, D-Ind., described the findings as "highly explosive."

He said it was "compelling and galvanizing and will refocus the public's
attention on Sept. 11." Roemer predicted that "certain mistakes, errors and
gaps in the system will be made clear."

Eleanor Hill, the staff director for the investigative panel created by the
joint House and Senate intelligence committee, said Wednesday that several
lengthy battles with the Bush administration over how much secret data to
declassify have been resolved.

She expects the declassified version of the 800-page report to go to the
Government Printing Office late this week and then be made public about a
week later.

Roemer would not discuss details of the report. He said he expects the
public version to be a compromise between intelligence officials who wanted
to hold back data and congressional leaders and staffers who pressed for
more disclosure. The classified version was completed in December.

A source familiar with the investigation, speaking on condition of
anonymity, said two "sensitive areas" of the public report are especially
likely to make headlines.

One section provides new information on ties between the Saudi royal family,
government officials and terrorists. The FBI may have mishandled an
investigation into how two of the Sept. 11 hijackers received aid from Saudi
groups and individuals.

John Lehman, a member of the separate and independent National Commission on
Terrorist Attacks, said at a hearing Wednesday: "There's little doubt that
much of the funding of terrorist groups - whether intentional or
unintentional - is coming from Saudi sources."

The other section is a narrative of intelligence warnings, some of them
ignored or not shared with other agencies, before the Sept. 11 attacks on
the World Trade Center and the Pentagon.

The report will show that top Bush administration officials were warned in
the summer of 2001 that the al-Qaida terrorist network had plans to hijack
aircraft and launch a "spectacular attack."

Hill would not discuss details of the report, but said it will contain "new
information" developed since the joint House-Senate investigation held nine
public hearings and 13 closed sessions last year.

Since the classified report's completion, a working group of Bush
administration intelligence officials has "scrubbed" the report, objecting
to additional public disclosures.

The two chairmen from Florida who oversaw the investigation, Sen. Bob Graham
and Rep. Porter Goss, have pushed for months for more disclosure.



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"If this were a dictatorship, it'd be a heck of a lot easier, just so
long as I'm the dictator." - GW Bush 12/18/2000.

"To announce that there must be no criticism of the president, or that
we are to stand by the president right or wrong, is not only unpatriotic
and servile, but is morally treasonable to the American public."
---Theodore Roosevelt

"Feels Good!"
---George W. Bush on the Brink of Declaring War on Iraq.