For years, the so-called “28 pages” — a section of the 2002 Joint Congressional Inquiry into 9/11 that had been classified — were treated as a sealed answer to the question of Saudi government involvement in the September 11 attacks. When they were finally released in July 2016, followed by additional FBI documents declassified between 2021 and 2022 under executive order, the public could finally read what had been redacted. The contents are more documented and less conclusive than either the conspiracy or the dismissal versions had suggested.
What the pages actually say
The 28 pages, formally titled “Part Four” of the Joint Inquiry’s report, describe contacts between several of the 9/11 hijackers — particularly Nawaf al-Hazmi and Khalid al-Mihdhar in San Diego — and individuals connected to the Saudi government, most prominently Omar al-Bayoumi. Bayoumi, who provided housing assistance and other support to the two hijackers, was assessed by the FBI to have been a Saudi intelligence asset. The pages do not establish that the Saudi government as an institution directed or knew of the 9/11 plot. They describe a pattern of contacts and financial connections that the inquiry stated warranted further investigation. The 9/11 Commission’s later report concluded it found no evidence the Saudi government as a whole or senior officials individually had funded al-Qaeda — a phrasing widely noted as carefully drawn.
The 2021–2022 FBI releases
President Biden’s September 2021 executive order directed declassification review of FBI investigative files relating to Operation Encore, the bureau’s long-running probe into Saudi connections to 9/11. The released documents — heavily redacted but more substantive than the 28 pages alone — included a 2017 FBI summary describing investigative findings on Bayoumi’s activities, including videos he made of Washington-area landmarks and his contacts with hijackers. Plaintiff attorneys in the long-running civil suit by 9/11 families against the Saudi government, In re Terrorist Attacks on September 11, 2001, treated the documents as significant evidence. The Saudi government has consistently denied institutional involvement. The U.S. government has not made a formal accusation against the Kingdom regarding 9/11.
What remains unclear
Several core questions are still partially redacted or contested. The full extent of Saudi intelligence service knowledge, the chain of authority above Bayoumi, and the specific role of certain individuals named in litigation remain matters of ongoing legal and investigative dispute. The civil case in the Southern District of New York has produced depositions and document discovery but has not reached a final adjudication on liability. The 9/11 Review Commission and various academic analysts — including scholars at the Combating Terrorism Center at West Point — have published cautious assessments noting that documented contacts do not equal documented orders, and that intelligence services often operate at a distance from formal government policy.
Bottom line
Declassification answered some questions and left others open. What the 28 pages and the 2021–2022 releases established is a documented pattern of Saudi-linked support to specific hijackers, sufficient to sustain civil litigation and serious historical scrutiny. What they did not establish is the institutional 9/11 plot some had expected. The truth, as usual with intelligence matters, sits between the two narratives.
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