Why the down play...could be NOT to give terrorist any publicity at all?
Well, of course, one of the knee jerk reactions of any governmental bureaucracy is to cover things up because ordinary people can't be trusted not to panic. But then they should at least stop and think, would it be better to release or conceal this information to achieve the political purposes of our administration?
When clinton was in office, he had the additional reason that it would have been a real bother to have to deal with fantical Arabs. He had other things he was more interested in, like intervening in Haiti and Bosnia to support politically correct groups, and the last thing he wanted to do was get into a war with Islam--especially since he decided that he wanted to fight on the other side, to please his European Socialist friends.
But now the situation is different. Bush does have an interest in fighting the Muslim threat, or at least he did earlier. The press is mostly bent on denying that there is any real threat to our country, except for Arab resentment and European anger that Bush is stirring up by staying in Iraq.
How can you fight a war against Muslim enemies if you hide the fact that it is going on?