Its just not that easy. There's no way in hell we knew Monday morning what happened to that stuff. They had to try to track down the units, responsible officers, etc., and those guys wouldn't always be that easy to find. Some of them may be busy doing other things, like going after bad guys in Iraq, Afghanistan, or elsewhere.
Responsible journalists would have presented the story to the military for comment and given them a chance to respond before printing it on the front page of their newspaper.