Remember a couple years ago - maybe longer - Pres Bush advised us that we would be hearing deliberate "misinformation"? This might be one of those times. And who better to leak this to than one of the alphabets.
It occurs to me that if al Libi actually didi manage to destroy the notebooks, this kind of announcement would be the next best thing, as it would likely prod some bad guys currently living on the down low into taking unwise observable activity.
Hope you all are right. That (disinfo) may be the case.
The only reason I brought it up was cuz the Bush admin gave out some info during the election campaign related to a false (as always) charge that the kerry camp was sludging around, about some 'militant' and then all across the globe other Gov agencies got left flat footfooted by all the leaks and had to move in prematurely on the people they were watching. Wish I remembered the story better, but I recall reading in detail about it back then and was quite irate about the whole thing.
For some reason I think Condi was involved and maybe it was in New York.
They probably released this to see who starts 'moving.'