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A handful of 9/11 widows have started an online petition in hopes of gathering the public's support to force the White House to declassify documents related to a July 10, 2001, meeting between Condoleezza Rice and former CIA director George Tenet in which the two discussed a pending attack on US soil by al-Qaeda. Details of the meeting were first disclosed a month ago in the book State of Denial by Washington Post assistant managing editor and author Bob Woodward.

In a letter posted on petitononline.com, Patty Casazza, Monica Gabrielle, Mindy Kleinberg, and Lorie Van Auken said that details of the meeting have been confirmed by the State Department and the White House warrants declassification of documents related to the meeting. The widows take issue with Woodward's exclusive access to officials' knowledgeable about the Rice/Tenet meeting and the possibility that he may have been privy to classified documents and transcripts in order to craft a narrative for his book.

"If Bob Woodward can have access to this information, why can't we, as American citizens and victims' family members?" Van Auken wrote in an email to Truthout, adding that the families of the thousands of people who perished on 9/11 are entitled to know what Bush administration officials knew prior to the 9/11 attacks and when they knew it. "Given that much of the July 10, 2001, meeting has already been made public ... it is unacceptable to continue to keep these documents and transcripts hidden from the American public's view."

The widows, in their online petition addressed to the media and members of Congress, renewed their call for the declassification of the redacted 28 pages of the Joint Inquiry Into the Terrorist Attacks of September 11, 2001, and the CIA Inspector General's Report, "CIA Accountability With Respect to the 9/11 Attacks."