How To Create News

If told with enough hyperventilation, no news, or old news, becomes big news. Especially if the guy doing the huffing and puffing is Bob Woodward.

The other Woodward "revelation" is that the president asked Donald Rumsfeld on Nov. 21, 2001, to develop a plan for war against Iraq. The inference, I suppose, is that President Bush planned to attack Iraq shortly after 9/11. But, of course, he didn't order Iraq attacked immediately after 9/11. The war wasn't launched until March 2003.
In any event, on April 28, 2002, the New York Times reported that "in developing a potential approach for toppling . . . Saddam Hussein . , . [the Bush administration] is concentrating its attention on a major air campaign and ground invasion, with initial estimates contemplating the use of 70,000 to 250,000 troops." On July 20, 2002, the AP reported that Mr. Rumsfeld "ordered an internal investigation into who leaked [to the New York Times] a highly classified document on possible military actions to topple" Saddam. So, we all knew the Pentagon was developing a contingency plan. Why does it matter whether the plan was ordered on Nov. 21, 2001, Dec. 21, 2001, Jan. 21, 2002, and so forth?