Release of this was hardly accidental. The phrase "preliminary planning" is likely to cause some inadvertent evacuation in Damascus, and some sighs of relief in London. What Paris thinks about it I just don't give a rodent's rump.
I do think the "good cop, bad cop" routine is precisely the game here. What you have to remember is that it's the bad cop with whom you're left alone in the room.
I was thinking that this was a deliberate message from the Bush Administration until I read that the entire article is based on an unnamed "intelligence source in Washington."
If Bush wanted to send a message via "the good cop, bad cop" routine, he'd provide a better source than that. He'd tell Wolfowitz to talk some trash
Really weak journalism, at the very least. More likely pure fiction.