Call me a cynic, but the whole tone of the NYT piece on minerals in Afghanistan reminded me of the pre-war reporting about WMD In Iraq. Marc Ambinder does a good job of fleshing out the theory that the piece was essentially a DoD press release:
The way in which the story was presented — with on-the-record quotations from the Commander in Chief of CENTCOM, no less — and the weird promotion of a Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense to Undersecretary of Defense suggest a broad and deliberate information operation designed to influence public opinion on the course of the war.