“I don’t recall another putative major incident where it took so long to determine if it actually occurred or nothing happened at all.”
This looks to me like a replay of the Israeli strike on the Syrian reactor. The Israelis said nothing after the attack and neither did the US or Russians. The Syrians have never admitted that it happened to this day.
Here is a great recent update from one of the principals in the Bush Admin:
“Bombing the Syrian Reactor: The Untold Story” by Elliott Abrams
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/2990636/posts
Yes, I read Abrams’ account of all the things that transpired and was fascinated by it.
But as I recall there was all sorts of information from different sources coming in about the Syrian reactor strike. Not all was accurate, but it was clear something big happened and it didn’t all rely on a single source initially (an individual).