According to Drudge, CBS News was planning to use the missing explosives story as an election eve surprise attack on George Bush.

News of missing explosives in Iraq — first reported in April 2003 — was being resurrected for a 60 MINUTES election eve broadcast designed to knock the Bush administration into a crisis mode.

Jeff Fager, executive producer of the Sunday edition of 60 MINUTES, said in a statement that “our plan was to run the story on October 31.”

Elizabeth Jensen at the LOS ANGELES TIMES details on Tuesday how CBS NEWS and 60 MINUTES lost the story [which repackaged previously reported information on a large cache of explosives missing in Iraq, first published and broadcast in 2003].

The story instead debuted in the NYT. The paper slugged the story about missing explosives from April 2003 as “exclusive.”

An NBCNEWS crew embedded with troops moved in to secure the Al-Qaqaa weapons facility on April 10, 2003, one day after the liberation of Iraq. According to NBCNEWS, the explosives were already missing when the American troops arrived.

It is not clear who exactly shopped an election eve repackaging of the missing explosives story.

The LA TIMES claims: The source on the story first went to 60 MINUTES but also expressed interest in working with the NY TIMES… “The tip was received last Wednesday.”

CBSNEWS’ plan to unleash the story just 24 hours before election day had one senior Bush official outraged.

“Darn, I wanted to see the forged documents to show how this was somehow covered up,” the Bush source, who asked not to be named, mocked, recalling last months CBS airing of fraudulent Bush national guard letters.