Terror attacks undercounted / State Dept. accused of fudging numbers for political gain

Honest mistake or politcial manipulation? Either way it looks like we didn't do quite as well on reducing terrorist activity in the world as previously reported by the State Department. They reported in their annual report on glabl terrorism that Terrorism hit a 34 year low in 2003. Now it appears global terrorism may have actually risen.

According to Mary Kaplan on Air America radio today, terrorism actually rose 34%. The descrepency is due to the State Department ending it's review of terrorist activity in November, just before a series of terrorist acts including the bombing of Brittish Embassy in Turkey. Why? They had to beat a printing deadline. Also attacks in Iraq were not included as acts of terrorism. I've yet to see an article confirming Marty Kaplan's report.


Terror attacks undercounted / State Dept. accused of fudging numbers for political gain: "Washington -- The State Department is scrambling to revise its annual report on global terrorism to acknowledge that it understated the number of deadly attacks in 2003, amid charges that the document is inaccurate, dangerously outmoded and politically manipulated by the Bush administration.

The department said it was the second time that the report, considered the authoritative yardstick of the prevalence of terrorist" activity around the world