They didn‘t need any such cover for the Iraq war.

They may not have needed it, but it happened nonetheless.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nayirah_testimony

There are recent parallels, but this time by Biden who was fed false information. Though this time, the white house retracted that statement immediately instead of waiting for things to blow over[1].

I suppose the difference was that this time, the US government had nothing planned to capitalize on the lie.

[1] https://nypost.com/2023/10/11/biden-ive-seen-pictures-of-ter...

From another side: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Al-Ahli_Arab_Hospital_explosio...

I don't quite see how that is relevant, as it is something that really happened, albeit with disputed cause.

The two examples above are fabricated and, going back to the point of the comment chain, were caused by false evidence (testimonies).

I disagree. Nayirah testimony may have been exaggerated, but it didn't mean that Iraqi army didn't commit wide range of atrocities in Kuwait.

That sounds similar to Lantos' statement

>"given the countless cases of verified Iraqi [here: Israeli, the author] human rights violations", it was "unnecessary and counterproductive to invent atrocities."

In that sense I do see the connection between that made-up event and the bombed hospital, in that it doesn't really matter if this specific case happened, there's enough true ones to go around.

That is to only say that I now get your point, not that I agree to what I would call muddying the waters.

Why would they need to publicly announce a new program to continue doing that?

To get more public buy in and quiet dissent. The current climate is somewhat hostile to even supporting war much less directly engaging in it.

Is there a difference

Yes. After Obama failed to renew the Smith-Mundt Act, now they can feed propaganda intended for a foreign audience, directly to your smartphone.