by TChris

Blame the proofreader. Blame the database. Blame the CIA. Just don't blame the senior Bush administration officials (like Deputy Secretary of State Richard Armitage) who falsely claimed that the U.S. is winning the war on terrorism.

As TalkLeft reported on June 9, the State Dept. issued a report claiming that the number of terrorist attacks around the world decreased last year. The administration used the report to grade its performance in the war against terrorism, rewarding itself with an "A." Never mind that the report was wrong.

A revised report issued yesterday by the department shows that the total number of terrorist attacks rose slightly in 2003 and that the number of "significant attacks" had climbed to the highest it has been in 20 years.

The revised report said a total of 3,646 people were wounded worldwide in terrorist attacks last year, a sharp increase from the 2,013 wounded in 2002. The previous report put the number of wounded last year at 1,593.

Strangely, while Bush administration officials like to talk about terrorist attacks in Iraq, those incidents don't count as "terrorism" in the State Dept.'s calculations.

Cofer Black, the State Dept.'s coordinator for counterterrorism, claims that the errors were "relatively minor" and argues that significant progress is being made. He blames poor proofreading as one of the causes of the error-filled report. Yet the magnitude of the errors belies the assertion that well-informed government officials simply overlooked the truth when approving or relying upon the report.

"The thing that was disturbing about this is that it was not a subtle error. These were glaringly obvious errors to anyone that has been following this issue," said Ben Venzke, CEO of IntelCenter, a private intelligence company that tracks the number of terrorist attacks and conducts terrorism analysis for the US government.

Finger-pointing might lead to an explanation for the report's inaccurate statements, but it won't explain why people who should have known better relied on a misleading report to tout the administration's progress in its war against terror.