The Bush administration has, of course, good reason for not wanting to ruffle the Saudis by declassifying the 28 pages. Saudi Arabia sits atop 25 percent of the world's proven oil reserves and, through its dominant position in OPEC, essentially controls the global energy market. In addition to stabilizing world oil prices--most recently during the run-up to the war with Iraq--the Saudis also directly subsidize American consumers by offering oil at lower prices to the United States. In a 2002 article for Foreign Affairs, petroleum experts Edward Morse and James Richard estimated the subsidy at $620 million a year. It's probably much larger now, given recent trends in oil prices and the volume of oil imports. A serious conflict with the Saudis could not only disrupt an already turbulent Middle East, but could halt the economic recovery here and perhaps even precipitate a global downturn.

The Bush administration has insisted, again and again, that the war on terror is its first priority. In testimony to the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, Deputy Secretary of Defense Paul Wolfowitz argued, "The battle to secure the peace in Iraq is now the central battle in the global war on terror." Wolfowitz says this presumably because he still believes that Saddam Hussein's regime had close ties with Al Qaeda. But it's looking more and more like the principal theater in the war on terror lies elsewhere. The official who read the 28 pages tells The New Republic, "If the people in the administration trying to link Iraq to Al Qaeda had one-one-thousandth of the stuff that the 28 pages has linking a foreign government to Al Qaeda, they would have been in good shape." He adds: "If the 28 pages were to be made public, I have no question that the entire relationship with Saudi Arabia would change overnight."