Terror attacks up, Rice considered hiding the data

April 28, 2007

In 2004, the State Department’s report on global terrorism showed a decline in international attacks, a result which was hailed by administration officials as proof of the efficacy of the president’s strategy. Soon after, we learned that the State Department cooked the books and undercounted — by half — the number of people killed in terrorist attacks.

In 2005, the State Department decided it didn’t want to publish the report on global terrorism anymore.

The good news is, due to an outcry, the document is back. The bad news is, well, all of the news is bad.

A State Department report on terrorism due out next week will show a nearly 30 percent increase in terrorist attacks worldwide in 2006 to more than 14,000, almost all of the boost due to growing violence in Iraq and Afghanistan, U.S. officials said Friday….

Based on data compiled by the U.S. intelligence community’s National Counterterrorism Center, the report says there were 14,338 terrorist attacks last year, up 29 percent from 11,111 attacks in 2005. Forty-five percent of the attacks were in Iraq.

Worldwide, there were about 5,800 terrorist attacks that resulted in at least one fatality, also up from 2005.

The figures for Iraq and elsewhere are limited to attacks on noncombatants and don’t include strikes against U.S. troops.

If, in 2004, an initial report showing a decline in attacks was proof that Bush’s strategy was working, doesn’t an increase in attacks a few years later necessarily show that Bush’s strategy is failing?

As for the politics, Condoleezza Rice reportedly considering hiding the bad news.

Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and her top aides earlier this week had considered postponing or downplaying the release of this year’s edition of the terrorism report, officials in several agencies and on Capitol Hill said.

Ultimately, they decided to issue the report on or near the congressionally mandated deadline of Monday, the officials said.

Yes, how wonderfully gracious of them. Rice “decided” to follow the law after considering a plan not to. I guess we’re supposed to be grateful?

As Kevin Drum put it, “They considered postponing a congressionally mandated report because it might be inconvenient for the president’s war policy? Is there some kind of ‘political sensitivities’ exemption in the law?”

Maybe it was in one of the signing statements.

Of course, the deadline for producing the document was Monday, but Rice instead chose late on a Friday afternoon, beating the deadline by a few days. I can’t imagine why, can you?

I’m sure we’ll here that the attacks in Iraq and Afghanistan don’t really count. As in, “Duh! Everyone knows people get attacked in wars.”

  • Don’t worry, just say “the democrats are weak on national security” and it’ll all go away!

  • “Maybe it was in one of the signing statements.”

    If the damned Democrats stopped funding fthe war NOW (there’s enough in the pipeline to get everbody home) could Commander Codpiece just make up a “signing statement” (say, on an appropriations bill to keep Air Force One running) to continue his “war” ad infinitium?

  • Some distant, happy day – if the United States gets through these dark years – the time of the Bush Administration will be remembered as a mass hysteria, like the Dreyfus Affair. Historians will speculate on whether Americans were possesed, and to those who lived it, it will be as though they awoke from a dream that would not let them lie quiet, but tormented their sleep to each uneasy dawn.

  • If, in 2004, an initial report showing a decline in attacks was proof that Bush’s strategy was working, doesn’t an increase in attacks a few years later necessarily show that Bush’s strategy is failing?

    Silly carpetbags, no matter what happens it means that Bush’s strategy (sic) is not failing. If there’s more terrorism, it’s only the result of the dead-enders in the generational war trying to make Democrats hate America even more, so much that they will tell the liberal media to say that Americans in general want to cut and run. This false mythology is designed to hand America over to the Taliban and their allies the gay secular global warming cultists.

    And remember, no matter how bad it looks, it’s a proven fact that it would be exponentially worse if a Democrat was elected president. Just ask Dick Cheney, who has never been wrong yet on any of his predictions.

    cough.

  • Two words: Flypaper Theory

    A lot of people will consider the Bush strategy a success as long as there are no terrorist attacks (not including family planning clinic bombings of course) in the good old USA. Most Americans could care less if they killed pretty much everyone else in the entire world — as long as they leave enough Chinese people to keep us in cheap toasters and wide screen TVs…

    Do I sound cynical?

  • He’s just stalling the slow surge escalation till he can get out of office. The surge was the only policy or plan option Bush could do besides admitting complete failure. It was his plan frm the beginning and the ONLY option left him. Unless congress stops this by withdrawing the funding it will drag out till his term ends. It puts the Dems in an awkward position either way. The mess is their “fault” because they cut funding…the mess is their “fault” because Bush is now out of office and they refused to follow “his plan”. That is what this whole “surge” thing is about. Bush and cohorts screwed up and had no other way out besides admitting complete failure. The Dems will have to straighten it out either way. I hold Bush directly responsible for every soldier’s death for they are all due to his incompetence and political stubbornness and outright lies and it will continue till he’s gone unless congress withholds funding now. (NO, let’s wait and see how many more get killed and if “too” many start dying then we’ll cut the funding). ” I was wrong. I lied. I screwed up bad. Now what the hell do I do?” Welcome to the truth.

  • Bad news goes out on Friday afternoon. That’s why we’ve seen nearly every press release from this administration on Fridays at 5:00 PM.

  • Ugh. It’s bad in so many ways; kudos to McClatchy (formerly the well regarded Knight Ridder brand).

    Note that article mentions that the report excludes attacks on our troops.

    It reiterates the fact that Iraq was trying to get A. Zarqawi even as Cheney suggested that Iraq was providing safe haven for that vermin.

    On and on and on.

  • Isn’t it obvious by now that Bushco will never admit any mistakes. Not the wars, not Katrina, not politicizing the misnamed Department of Justice more than Richard Nixon could have fantasized about. Those in the reality based world keep thinking, “Aha, we have them now!”, yet they will not ever, ever, reveal what actually has gone on (some waterboarding might help), nor admit that any of their policies hasn’t worked. As Jon Stewart said to Bill Moyers on Friday night, “they would rather look like pinheads than reveal or admit anything.” He was, of course referring to Gonzo’s testimony before Congress.

    Running the clock and stonewalling are their own policies right now, and in the absence of a major surge of revulsion across the land, just now beginning, we can expect to see the unimaginable mess handed over intact to the Democrats on Jan. 20, 2009. Bushco will then go to their handsomely appointed castles to write books and sling mud because their grand plans, successful by definition, have now been abandoned. When you own the propaganda machine you can create your own reality. The problem, as always, is not to believe your own press releases.

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