Lucky' right, there's no news in the story, except that the story is a psyop itself.
Most of DoD's current psyop policy is summarized in the Defense Science Board report, "The Creation and Dissemination of All Forms of Information in Support of Psychological Operations (PSYOP) in Time of Military Conflict," May 2000: http://www.cryptome.org/dsb-psyop.htm This report itself should also be seen as a psyop. DoD's vast public relations office, really well funded, perhaps the most luxurious in the USG, pumps out huge volumes of true, partly true and false information. It coddles and flatters the news media, provide perks for journalists, editors and publishers from all around the globe. What it does best, though, is orchestrate selected news leaks to prestigious media, sometimes directly, sometimes through the defense industry, sometimes through academic contractors; through legal and financial outlets, the intel community and its contractors, Congessional members, staff and DoD congressional liaisons; through defense and foreign policy NGOs; through VOAs, and through arrangements with book (novelists like Tom Clancy in particular), movies, tv, radio, Internet and other media outlets. The public gush put out on the DoD Web site does not reveal much, but does serve as a diverting cloak in making you think they're a bunch of dolts. Much of psyops is aimed at misleading consumers -- why else place the no-news item being discussed as the leading story in the New York Times. A quick glance at the article will show the usual components of a multi-faceted, orchestrated leak, of which there have been hundreds in the US, UK and allied countries since the murderous Afghan aggression began. The DSB psyop study candidly states that the best way to leak one-sided policy is to seduce prominent journalists, usually anti-military, with astonishing revelations from the deepest of sources. A gaggle of these stars were enlisted early in the war to do the DoD dance; minor players got nothing. Now that Bush is on a tear to keep the war machine busy we should see a lot more astonishing revelations pushed by star performers to sustain the richly-rewarding panic.
