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06/09/2004: Is this a surprise?
It appears that the State Department may have understated the number of reported terror attacks in its annual report on terrorism; needless to say, there are allegations (hardly unbelievable under the circumstances) that the Bush bAdministration may have had a role in fudging the numbers for political reasons.
When the most recent "Patterns of Global Terrorism" report was issued April 29, senior Bush administration officials immediately hailed it as objective proof that they were winning the war on terrorism. The report is considered the authoritative yardstick of the prevalence of terrorist activity around the world.After all, it's difficult to scare us into voting for Dubya if there's proof that his war on terror is only making things worse.
"Indeed, you will find in these pages clear evidence that we are prevailing in the fight" against global terrorism, Deputy Secretary of State Richard L. Armitage said during a celebratory rollout of the report.
But on Tuesday, State Department officials said they underreported the number of terrorist attacks in the tally for 2003, and added that they expected to release an updated version soon.
Several U.S. officials and terrorism experts familiar with that revision effort said the new report will show that the number of significant terrorist incidents increased last year, perhaps to its highest level in 20 years.
Len on 06.09.04 @ 01:41 PM CST
Replies: 2 comments
on Friday, June 11th, 2004 at 7:53 AM CST, Lurch said
Has anyone else noted that it seems to be an ongoing theme that anytime this cabal issues ANY numbers about ANY thing, the numbers are always "revised" or "updated" some time later?
on Friday, June 11th, 2004 at 7:43 PM CST, Len Cleavelin said
I can't put my fingers on the columns right now, but I think Paul Krugman's mentioned it with respect to employment and other economic numbers several times. And I think a number of lefty bloggers have noted it. But your implication is right; it's something that the SCLM should be making a bigger issue of.