Maybe they're doing a head-fake on Al-Jazeera
If things are as they appear, Al-Jazeera has got to be going nuts trying to figure out how Powell got the transcript so quickly. Do they have a mole in their organization? Is their office bugged? Was there an ELINT intercept somewhere along the way? Was the tape a fake? Or, was Al-Jazeera just not ready to release what they had without anything spooky involved? We may never know, but it was kind of funny. I'd like to think they had a serious WTF moment.
Back in WWII, the MAGIC and Enigma decoders got so good at it that they sometimes had the message decoded before the enemy. Maybe we're still that good. I'd like to think so.