What compounds this case is that the United States continues to support Saudi Arabia’s devastating assault on Yemen, where 14 million people are at risk of famine in the coming weeks. In evaluating whether U.S. support for that conflict should continue — and we have argued it should not — it stands to reason that the American people have every right to know the nature of the young ruler who has dragged us into this conflict.

Declassification may well convey other advantages. It could, for example, help staunch a series of recent leaks of apparently sensitive details that have the potential to do real harm to our intelligence collection capabilities. We do not condone such unauthorized disclosures, but they strike us as motivated from frustration with the inaccurate statements from the President and his lieutenants on a matter of profound public interest. Additionally, a public version of the assessment would provide a primary source document for both posterity and the current moment. All but our fellow citizens with the highest security clearances are presently relegated to hearing one story from anonymous leakers who may have agenda and another from senior administration officials who certainly have an agenda. An official document carrying the imprimatur of the Intelligence Community would, at the very least, provide a single set of facts on which opinions and policy positions could then be based.