The Black Vault - Graham eyes procedural move to unlock Saudi details in 9/11 report

WASHINGTON (CNN) -- Sen. Bob Graham, D-Florida, is asking the Senate Intelligence Committee to make public a classified section of the congressional September 11 report that deals with Saudi Arabia's alleged ties to the September 11 hijackers.

Graham, a Democratic presidential candidate who, as former Intelligence Committee chairman, helped produce the report, has telephoned the current committee chairman, Pat Roberts, R-Kansas, and vice-chairman Jay Rockefeller, D-West Virginia, to suggest that they use an existing but untested process by which the Senate can publicly disclose classified material despite the objections of the White House.

Tuesday the White House cited national security reasons for wanting to keep secret the 27 redacted pages in the 28-page section on foreign nations' ties to the September 11, 2001, terror attacks.

In a Tuesday news release, Graham said that the White House refusal "is a continuation of the pattern of the last seven months -- a pattern of delay and excessive use of national security standards to deny the people the knowledge of their vulnerability."

The process, which according to committee staff has never been used, works like this:

• If a member of the intelligence committee asks the committee to hold a vote on publicizing classified material, the committee must do so within five days.

• If a majority of the committee then votes to make the material public, the president has five days to say whether he will declassify the material.

• If the president refuses, the committee may refer the matter to the full Senate for a closed vote.

• If a majority of the Senate votes to make the information public, the committee may go ahead and do so.

Graham is no longer a member of the committee, and at this point no sitting member has come forward to request a vote under the procedure.

However most members of the committee, including chairman Roberts, have said they would like some, if not all, of the 28-page section to be made public. Late Tuesday, committee member Olympia Snowe, R-Maine, said she believes the entire section should be declassified. She stopped short of calling for a committee vote as Graham proposes.

In a written statement, Snowe said, "the 28-page classified section of the joint inquiry should be declassified after taking the necessary actions to protect sources and intelligence gathering methods." She added, "the American people deserve to know this information that relates to the unprecedented September 11th terrorist attacks on our nation."

A call for a vote to declassify may come from intelligence committee member Sen. Dick Durbin, D-Illinois, a vocal critic of administration secrecy.

His spokesman told CNN Durbin may initiate the procedure if he believes a majority of the committee will vote for making the material public.

At least one Republican would need to vote for the measure for it to pass.

http://www.cnn.com/2003/ALLPOLITICS/07/30/graham.intel.report/index.html