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Bush administration eliminating 19-year-old international terrorism report
By Jonathan S. Landay
Knight Ridder Newspapers
WASHINGTON - The State Department decided to stop publishing an annual report on international terrorism after the government's top terrorism center concluded that there were more terrorist attacks in 2004 than in any year since 1985, the first year the publication covered.
Several U.S. officials defended the abrupt decision, saying the methodology the National Counterterrorism Center used to generate statistics for the report may have been faulty, such as the inclusion of incidents that may not have been terrorism.
Last year, the number of incidents in 2003 was undercounted, forcing a revision of the report, "Patterns of Global Terrorism."
But other current and former officials charged that Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice's office ordered "Patterns of Global Terrorism" eliminated several weeks ago because the 2004 statistics raised disturbing questions about the Bush's administration's frequent claims of progress in the war against terrorism.
"Instead of dealing with the facts and dealing with them in an intelligent fashion, they try to hide their facts from the American public," charged Larry C. Johnson, a former CIA analyst and State Department terrorism expert who first disclosed the decision to eliminate the report in The Counterterrorism Blog, an online journal.
Rep. Henry Waxman, D-Calif., who was among the leading critics of last year's mix-up, reacted angrily to the decision.
"This is the definitive report on the incidence of terrorism around the world. It should be unthinkable that there would be an effort to withhold it - or any of the key data - from the public. The Bush administration should stop playing politics with this critical report."
A senior State Department official, speaking on condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the issue, confirmed that the publication was being eliminated, but said the allegation that it was being done for political reasons was "categorically untrue."
According to Johnson and U.S. intelligence officials familiar with the issue, statistics that the National Counterterrorism Center provided to the State Department reported 625 "significant" terrorist attacks in 2004.
That compared with 175 such incidents in 2003, the highest number in two decades.
The statistics didn't include attacks on American troops in Iraq, which President Bush as recently as Tuesday called "a central front in the war on terror."
The intelligence officials requested anonymity because the information is classified and because, they said, they feared White House retribution. Johnson declined to say how he obtained the figures.
Another U.S. official, who also requested anonymity, said analysts from the counterterrorism center were especially careful in amassing and reviewing the data because of the political turmoil created by last year's errors.
Last June, the administration was forced to issue a revised version of the report for 2003 that showed a higher number of significant terrorist attacks and more than twice the number of fatalities than had been presented in the original report two months earlier.
The snafu was embarrassing for the White House, which had used the original version to bolster President Bush's election-campaign claim that the war in Iraq had advanced the fight against terrorism.
U.S. officials blamed last year's mix-up on bureaucratic mistakes involving the Terrorist Threat Integration Center, the forerunner of the National Counterterrorism Center.
Created last year on the recommendation of the independent commission that investigated the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, the center is the government's primary organization for analyzing and integrating all U.S. government intelligence on terrorism.
The State Department published "Patterns of Global Terrorism" under a law that requires it to submit to the House of Representatives and the Senate Foreign Relations Committee a country-by-country terrorism assessment by April 30 each year.
A declassified version of the report has been made public since 1986 in the form of a glossy booklet, even though there was no legal requirement to produce one.
The senior State Department official said a report on global terrorism would be sent this year to lawmakers and made available to the public in place of "Patterns of Global Terrorism," but that it wouldn't contain statistical data.
He said that decision was taken because the State Department believed that the National Counterterrorism Center "is now the authoritative government agency for the analysis of global terrorism. We believe that the NCTC should compile and publish the relevant data on that subject."
He didn't answer questions about whether the data would be made available to the public, saying, "We will be consulting (with Congress) ... on who should publish and in what form."
Another U.S. official said Rice's office was leery of the methodology the National Counterterrorism Center used to generate the data for 2004, believing that analysts anxious to avoid a repetition of last year's undercount included incidents that may not have been terrorist attacks.
But the U.S. intelligence officials said Rice's office decided to eliminate "Patterns of Global Terrorism" when the counterterrorism center declined to use alternative methodology that would have reported fewer significant attacks.
The officials said they interpreted Rice's action as an attempt to avoid releasing statistics that would contradict the administration's claims that it's winning the war against terrorism.
so lets hear it right wingers.. why would the administration go to such lengths to silence such a report?
TO much egg on their face? Or maybe terrorism doesnt matter that much anymore?
What i find funny is that the report doesnt count Iraqi insurgent attacks, but bush continues to say that those attacks are acts of terrorism and should be treated as such..
So what the **** is it?
Come on guys lets hear the lame *** ***** excuses.. I can not think of a legitimate reason to stop producing such a report.. Other then the fact that it makes the current administration look like a bunch of ****ing retards..
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Unregistered
Yeah, I too would love to hear what they have to say.
Supposedly the attacks have increased 5 fold since last time they did a report. Also this is NOT including Iraq.
Do you honestly believe that terrorist attacks have increased 5 fold if you subtract Iraq and Afghanistan? Even if it were true, don't you think you'd be doing your buddy Bin Laden a favor in pointing it out? I mean really, what side of the war on terror are you on?
Speaking on condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the issue...
Former cia agent Johnson declined to say how he obtained the figures...
Another U.S. official, who also requested anonymity..."
Wait a minute... you guys jump on this and attack my Columbia University report? Wow.
At least Columbia would be smart enough to include figures on the ground in Iraq. I mean the 2nd most wanted terrorist ever is supposedly running the show and admits to doing so. Doesn't this count? I think there's a reason AP, Reuters and other bigger sources haven't picked-up this article. I searched yahoo news on this article and barely get a page of results. The figures may be correct but the allegations are too open ended with all these ghost-type sources.
I don't know if this means anything really. I'm not just saying that either. I mean they're covering attacks in part of the world we haven't even set foot and other parts that haven't seen our occupation since the mid 20th.
I think that the War on terrorism ideal was way too broad from the start. Bush shouldn't have covered such a wide area at once. Whatever. But i'd be willing to bet that al Qadea poses less of a threat now than ever before. You also have to question what groups are still capable of attacking the US that were counted in that report. Then you have to go one step further and ask yourself how far the US goes as a global police force.
It's just too diverse to tackle anything this report suggests. One may think it's a step in the wrong direction and one may think we need to take a step back before making a huge step forward. The figures certainly don’t look good now but who really knows...
Do you honestly believe that terrorist attacks have increased 5 fold if you subtract Iraq and Afghanistan? Even if it were true, don't you think you'd be doing your buddy Bin Laden a favor in pointing it out? I mean really, what side of the war on terror are you on?
Neither side since this isn't a real war. Go look up the definition of what a war is then make a comment. Im against stopping something that has been going on 19 years long to cover for your *** that your actions have only made things worse.
Is what they shut down. "Patterns of Global Terrorism is a Congressionally-mandated report from the U.S. Department of State intended to provide a full and complete record for those countries and groups involved in international terrorism. This publication is updated annually by the Office of the Coordinator for Counterterrorism. MIPT has digitized and made available here the entire collection from 1985 to the present."
Why would the president shut this down now? Makes no sense especially when this is the first time we are going to "war" vs terrorism. Shouldn't this information be avaliable for studies of where best to go and other things. He is basically saving his *** from critisim.
And if you included Iraq in the mix you would have a **** load more terrorist attacks than EVER before. And I believe what is happening in Iraq is not qualified, in the terms they use for terrorism, as terrorist attacks. (Not that I agree with that.) So that is why it wasn't included in the report.
19 years and now suddenly they pull the plug because it doesn't look good for them? You shouldn't be saying what ever you should be saying, what the hell? They shouldn't be hiding this information period. And its pathetic that they are and even worse that you are taking such a attitude to something like this.
All I’m saying is that one media outlet has published this story with about 4 exclusive sources and secret interviews. Wow. This is actually a big story so why isn't anyone reporting on this? Usually AP and Reuters will pick-up on a story of this scale once they've confirmed.
Seems all they did was change the name of the report to "Country Reports on Terrorism 2004" as opposed to "Patterns of Global Terrorism report." Is this the grand conspiracy nobody else is reporting on besides Knight Ridder News (who?)? If you go to the State Dept Website the report is right there with the same findings that are required under the same laws. And btw this report has been there since the 27th when it was released. It specifically states the figures and that while there were no attacks within the United States, many other nations were struck by terrorists (etc).
As for jumping to conclusions I’ll admit that the information obviously doesn’t favor the Bush admin’s current actions. But trying to break-down this information this soon is the same as declaring OIF a success. Like I said before, you can consider this a major blow or think we need to take a step back before making a huge step forward.
EDIT: Here's the site http://www.state.gov/s/ct/rls/c14813.htm Go ahead and search for stories on the "Country Reports on Terrorism 2004" on Yahoo news search. There's 10+ pages of solid results as opposed to 6 no-name sources under the previous search for the article Dre posted. Go ahead and try it!
All the information is there like before. Sure the name change may be suspect but that doesn't excuse ignorance to a report that's been there since the day of its intended release. Seems all Knight Ridder news did was take this event and turn it into a political tabloid with "secret sources."
Of course acts of terrorism are at their highest in history? That's how the enemy fights and we are at war. Terrorists are far weaker now then they were 10 years ago though. Since their planning has finally materialized they are slowly loosing their financially and logistical ability to fight the war but also their resolve. Sure there will always be hard core Islamic holy fighters that will always try to kill Americans but I guanantee you the people who are fighting us today would be trying to find a way to get us regardless of where we were fighting. The moral of the story is that there are far less half committed terrorists fighting us now. The ones that are in now are decided on their choice to fight Americans. I think Fallujah and the mountains of Afganistan convinced all of them that fighting against us is a decision that will likely cost them their lives. It's just a matter of time.
I def. do not think we shoud suppress these reports though. It's not like Bush can run again and it's not his fault that terrorists decided to attack us. It would have happened regardless of who was in office.
maybe you missed the two links i posted of those handy google news searches.. think there was something like a few thousand sites reproting this very story...
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