The untold stroy: For the past 9 months, American envoys have been negotiating with the Martians so that they would not accept the anti-american landers and would facilitate the landing of the US lander. This is more evidence of US's determination to go it alone and have it all its own way.
In any case, in the long run, this will be a setback for USA and will show that Rumsfeld has suffered a great defeat. The facts cannot yet be reported. Intrepid French reporters are tryign to figure out the angle of spin even now.