Re: State Dept. Concedes Errors in Terror Data <---- look at the spammers email addie: paranoici <--- the freak

On Wed, 30 Jun 2004 04:34:13 +0200 (CEST), Anonymous
<nobody@paranoici.org> wrote:

>State Dept. Concedes Errors in Terror Data
>
>
>By R. Jeffrey Smith
>Washington Post Staff Writer
>Thursday, June 10, 2004; Page A17
>
>Two months ago, the Bush administration released its annual report
>card on counterterrorism and gave itself an A. The number of terrorist
>attacks around the globe, according to the State Department report
>called "Patterns of Global Terrorism," was at the lowest ebb in the
>past 34 years.
>
>Ambassador at Large for Counterterrorism J. Cofer Black, citing the
>existence of only 190 acts of terrorism in 2003, called it "good news"
>attributable in part to unprecedented U.S. collaboration with foreign
>partners. He predicted the trend would continue in 2004. Deputy
>Secretary of State Richard L. Armitage cited the data as "clear
>evidence that we are prevailing in the fight."
>
>Not long afterward, however, the report was pilloried by academics, a
>lawmaker and others. They said its math defied the reality of a steady
>growth in the number and significance of terrorist attacks in 2003, as
>well as the worst type of attacks spreading from just a few countries
>to at least 10.
>
>The Congressional Research Service cited the complaints in a June 1
>report urging a review of the report's "structure and content." Rep.
>Henry A. Waxman (Calif.), senior Democrat on the House Government
>Reform Committee, said in a May 17 letter to Secretary of State Colin
>L. Powell that "it is deplorable that the . . . report would claim
>that terrorism attacks are decreasing when in fact significant
>terrorist activity is at a 20-year high."
>
>Yesterday, after reviewing the matter more carefully, the department
>formally conceded it made a few mistakes.
>
>"At our request, the Terrorist Threat and Integration Center is
>reviewing and revising the statistics for 2003," spokesman Adam Ereli
>said. "We anticipate that a correction to the 'Patterns of Global
>Terrorism' will be publicly issued as soon as possible."
>
>Officials declined to detail the errors to be corrected by the center.
>It was created last year from elements of the CIA, the Department of
>Homeland Security, the FBI and the Defense Department, with the goal
>of becoming the authoritative administration voice on terrorism.
>
>But one senior official, speaking on the condition that he not be
>cited by name, said the corrections could fill eight pages, including
>a revised chronology of events, "a list of some things that should
>have been put in or left out," and various explanatory notes. Word of
>the State Department's decision was first reported yesterday by the
>Los Angeles Times.
>
>Larry C. Johnson, a former CIA analyst and former deputy director of
>State's counterterrorism office, is among those who have urged a
>wide-ranging correction. He said that even using the report's own
>data, as presented in its statistical tables, the total number of
>terrorist incidents in 2003 rose, not fell, compared with 2002.
>
>The number of deaths in the tables was 390, not 307 as department
>officials asserted in public comments; the number of wounded was
>1,895, not 1,593, Johnson said. He said the number of significant
>incidents -- involving victims who were killed, injured or kidnapped
>-- rose from 60 percent of incidents in 2002 to 89 percent in 2003.
>
>He also noted, as did Waxman and scholars at Princeton and Stanford
>universities, that the report omitted acts of terrorism after Nov. 11,
>2003. The department attributed this to a cutoff date for printing the
>report in time for its release on April 29. At a result, a Nov. 15
>suicide bombing in Istanbul that killed 61 people and injured more
>than 300 was omitted.
>
>Johnson said the report also omitted from the list of significant acts
>of terrorism, for unknown reasons, the 13 terrorist attacks in Russia
>attributed to Chechens in 2003, which he said caused the deaths of 244
>people. Although most significant attacks occurred in just two
>countries in 2002 -- Israel and India -- they occurred in 10 in 2003,
>Johnson said: Afghanistan, India, Indonesia, Iraq, Israel, Morocco,
>the Philippines, Saudi Arabia, Russia and Turkey.
>
>"When you read the report, TTIC did not add [the data] properly. Even
>a third-grader could have found this," Johnson said. "The body counts
>in 2002 and 2003 were at the highest levels in history."
>
>© 2004 The Washington Post Company