President Joe Biden’s administration is facing backlash for considering plea deals for Guantanamo Bay detainees accused of orchestrating the 9/11 attacks that claimed 2,977 American lives.
These proposed deals would involve the suspects, including Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, the “principal architect” of the attack as per the 9/11 Commission Report, pleading guilty in exchange for avoiding the death penalty, according to CBS News on Aug. 17.
Last week, 2,000 family members of 9/11 victims wrote a letter to the Biden administration, urging it to abandon negotiations with these men, contending it amounts to negotiating with terrorists, as reported by the U.K.’s Daily Mail.
Dennis McGinley, who lost his brother in the World Trade Center attacks, lambasted the administration’s approach, stating, “Here we are on the eve of the 22nd anniversary of 9/11, and we are getting kicked in the gut by our own government once again.”
Families of the victims are pressing for a trial, seeking closure and answers about the intricacies of the plot.
Adding another layer of complexity, many 9/11 families have also accused Saudi Arabia of being complicit in the attacks.
They have formally requested that the Biden administration and U.S. Attorney General Merrick Garland hold the Arab nation accountable.
Brett Eagleson, whose father died in the World Trade Center, labeled the administration’s plea deal consideration a “sickening betrayal.”
He told the Daily Mail, “To the 9/11 victims, we’ve been fighting for 22 years for peace, closure and accountability. We need to hear what KSM and these other detainees have to say.”
Troy Rosasco, an attorney for the 9/11 victims’ families, also criticized the Biden administration for trivializing the gravity of the attacks. “The Pentagon is embarrassed that it’s taken them 20 years to try to prosecute terrorists,” Rosasco said. “U.S. policy should always be — and I thought it was — that we don’t negotiate with terrorists.”
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In 2021, President Biden issued an executive order mandating the Department of Justice, the CIA, and the FBI to declassify and release information from the federal investigation into the 9/11 attacks.
However, the 9/11 families claim the administration has failed to fully comply, releasing only sanitized summaries.
Eagleson accused the Biden administration of a cover-up, stating, “They are terrified of what KSM and these other detainees will say about not only the Saudi role in 9/11, but about what the United States intelligence agencies knew. And they don’t want information to see the light of day.”
The controversy comes as Biden contemplates meeting with Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman at the upcoming Group of 20 summit in India, as per Axios’ Barak Ravid.
Eagleson alleges that the administration’s reluctance to release all documents relates to protecting Saudi Arabia from embarrassment and shielding U.S. intelligence failures. “They buy billions of dollars of U.S.-manufactured weapons, they stabilize global oil markets. So there’s not a lot of people, or there’s not a lot of big willingness, to try to push them around much,” he said.
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