The following editorial appeared in the New York Daily News on Wednesday, July 30:

Even the Saudis say they want the White House to open up those 28 secret pages that were mysteriously axed from last week’s congressional report on Sept. 11.

That puts the desert princes, if they’re to be taken at their word, in the same camp as Sen. Chuck Schumer, Sen. Bob Graham and Rep. Nancy Pelosi. Those Democrats contend – not at all unreasonably, their own partisan positions notwithstanding – that no true national interest is served by the continuing suppression of intelligence data suggesting official Saudi complicity in the unforgivable attacks against 3,000 innocents on American soil.

The 28 missing pages have fast become, in the modern political dialogue, uncomfortably analogous to those 18 minutes famously snipped from Richard Nixon’s Watergate tapes a generation ago. The text must be produced – else toxic suspicions will long poison these waters.

Some pundits have speculated that the loud Saudi demand for the release of the buried pages is naught but jiggery-pokery. That the Saudis, while spewing indignant bluster to the world, have furiously lobbied the White House behind the scenes not to release the deleted material.

When it comes to the House of Saud, even remote possibilities must be considered.

What we know from Tuesday’s developments is that President Bush flatly ruled out any release. And that was even before the Saudis formally asked.

This page has been foursquare behind the president in his every word and deed regarding the war on terrorism. His has been a just cause. His has been a noble prosecution. We think little of those who have sought only to carp and natter.

But the Saudis are not our friends. Never have been. Never will be. Their medieval tyranny is not to be protected and coddled. If they were involved in the horrifying attack on this nation, Americans must know.

The 28 pages must be released. For right or for wrong, for better or for worse. If not, many good and decent Americans will conclude – wrongly or rightly – that there is a cover-up. This is not the hour to risk undermining the administration’s credibility.

The choice is yours, Mr. President. Think carefully.

Here be dragons.

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