28 Pages

The New Republic has interviewed an official who has read the 28 pages that the Bush administration is withholding from the recent congressional report on September 11. According to the official, the still-classified section of the report documents connections between the 9-11 terrorist attack and "the very top levels of the Saudi royal family. ... This week, Saudi Foreign Minister Saud Al Faisal flew to Washington for a hastily convened meeting with President Bush. Faisal publicly demanded that the 28 pages be declassified, but he had to have known in advance, and welcomed the fact, that his request would be denied - ostensibly friendly nations don't normally send their foreign ministers to meetings halfway around the world to be surprised." The New Republic's informant said, "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 added: "If the 28 pages were to be made public, I have no question that the entire relationship with Saudi Arabia would change overnight."