As I understand it, the report was originally going to air on October 24. It was to be a joint effort between “60 Minutes” and the New York Times. But “60 Minutes” had a basic problem: they couldn’t get enough footage–of anything–to fill out an entire segment. They were going to push it back to October 31, but as the Wapo article cited by Sam Stone makes clear, the story was starting to break on the internet anyways, so the Times went ahead with their version of the story.
And in any case, what is so suspicious about this timing? The story wasn’t even broken by the Times, it was broken by something called The Nelson Report. (I haven’t heard of this publication before.)
The story was obviously prompted by the October 10 letter from the Iraqi Provisional Government to the IAEA, notifying them that they couldn’t account for the 350 tons of explosives at Al Qa Qaa. But this was after the Defense Department ordered them not to tell the IAEA. And this was long after they knew the place had been looted; David Kay says in the LA Times that “he saw the facility in May 2003, ‘and it was heavily looted at that time. Sometime between April and May, most of the stuff was carried off. The site was in total disarray, just like a lot of the Iraqi sites.’”
In other words, the Bushies had know about this since at least May, 2003, and were leaning on the Iraqis to not let this story get out. And as the Nelson Report makes clear, the State Department even had press guidance prepared in case the news got out.
If the Bushies want to whine about the timing, yes, it obviously hurts them. But they only have their inability to quash a story until after the election to blame. Lord knows what else we’re going to find out in the next six months (if Kerry wins) or never (if GWB wins).