[bcoffey]

"I'm thinking the DoD does NOT want these sites confirmed until later"

I've been thinking along those lines as well. Suppose we announce that WMD have been found, say, in the western Iraqi desert. Don't you think every terrorist group in the world would be out there looking for them, too? (We don't have enough troops and/or drones to watch the whole place at once.)

[If6was9]

My sense is more that we are sanitizing finds. Let's face it: WMD finds will end up pointing to formerly or future 'friendly countries' and it would be impossible to repair relations in the event they were providers.

"Well, yes the French wanted to keep us out of Iraq, and it turns out they provided components that Saddam used to build his weapons... But we can still work with them in on multilateral issues?!"

Whatever people want to think about going it alone, we will have some relationship with the Weasels, and GWB may have to sacrifice disclosure as a tool for political negotiation.