Rep. Walter Jones (R-NC) introduced a resolution this week in the House of Representatives urging President Barack Obama to declassify 28 pages of a joint House and Senate Intelligence Committee report that includes information concerning foreign governments’ involvement in terrorist attacks in the US. The George W. Bush administration redacted the pages from the December 2002 report of the Joint Inquiry into Intelligence Community Activities Before and After the Terrorist Attacks of September 2001.

The text of the resolution Jones, an RPI Advisory Board member, introduced along with cosponsor Rep. Stephen Lynch follows:

H. Res. 428

RESOLUTION

Urging the president to release information regarding the September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks upon the United States.

Whereas President George W. Bush classified 28 pages of the Joint Inquiry into Intelligence Activities Before and After the Terrorist Attacks of September 2001;

Whereas the contents of the redacted pages are necessary for a full public understanding of the events and circumstances surrounding the September 11, 2001, attacks upon the United States;

Whereas the Executive Branch’s decision to maintain the classified status of these pages prevents the people of the United States from having access to information about the involvement of certain foreign governments in the terrorist attacks of September 2001; and

Whereas the people of the United States and the families of the victims of the September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks deserve full and public disclosure of the results of the Joint Inquiry: Now, therefore, be it

Resolved, That it is the sense of the House of Representatives that–

(1) the President should declassify the 28-page section of the Joint Inquiry into Intelligence Community Activities Before and After the Terrorist Attacks of September 2001; and

(2) the families of the victims and the people of the United States deserve answers about the events and circumstances surrounding the September 11, 2001, attacks upon the United States.

For background information regarding the subject of Jones’s resolution, read below, from the Congressional Record, the October 28, 2003 US Senate debate on an amendment that offered a similar resolution. In the debate, Sens. Byron Dorgan and Bob Graham, who was the chairman of the Senate committee jointly responsible for the report, provide arguments for a “yes” vote. Immediately following their speeches, debate is shut down and a vote prevented based on an objection made by Sen. Mitch McConnell.

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