USSF Drop another Ball?

I found this while I was wading through Big soccer.com -

"Four nations firm up match dates Thursday, 6 July 2006

UEFA EURO 2008 hosts Switzerland and Austria have confirmed the fixtures for their four-nation friendly tournament in September.
Warm-up plans
The Swiss will get the ball rolling at St. Jakob-Park in Basle on 2 September against Venezuela at the same time as the Austrians meet Costa Rica at the Stade de Genève. The second games on 6 September will see the European teams swap venues and opponents. Kick-off times have yet to be confirmed for a tournament that will be followed by a similar exercise in Austria next year, with both being seen as useful preparation for the main event in 2008."

So, I am sure that there are some pretty good reasons, but did the USSF even try and offer a USMNT up for this event? I can think of several reasons, such as a lack of a coach for one. But as this tournament must have been scheduled before Bruce was "let go" and made a Red Bull, I would have thought that this is the type of tournament that Bruce would have wanted us to be in.

The two matches take place on FIFA scheduled match dates, so the Euro players will be released. MLS should have to release its players (I know, MLS operates in a different dimension from the FIFA calendar) so this wouldn't/shouldn't have been that much of a problem. They would have been able to play against two European sides, in Europe, one that made the round of 16 in the last World Cup. Would have been a good time to call up Freddy, Cooper, Howard, DeMerit, Bradley, Deuce, Landy, Beasley, EJ and the others.

Are we really going to wait for January to get Jurgen? 6 months off without scheduling anything? How does that help our development? We are starting to lose the guys who we could count on to be able to just show up for matches, which means we will have to bring ia lotot of guys who will need to adapt to the international environment and the USMNT atmosphere.

Here is the link to the article on UEFA's website -
http://www.uefa.com/competitions/EURO/news/Kind=1/newsId=434724.html

The article does mention that this same type of tournament will be held again next year, hopefully the USSF offers to send a team that time. This type of setup is way too good to pass up.