"war on terror" not going well? Cancel the reports!

Major terror attacks triple in '04 by U.S. count

Intelligence briefing renews debate over war on terrorism

WASHINGTON - The U.S. count of major world terrorist attacks more than tripled in 2004, a rise that may revive debate about whether the Bush administration is winning the war on terrorism, congressional aides said Tuesday.

The number of “significant” international terrorist attacks rose to about 650 last year from about 175 in 2003, according to congressional aides briefed Monday on the numbers by U.S. State Department and intelligence officials.
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The State Department last year initially released erroneous figures that understated the number of attacks, fatalities and casualties in 2003, and used the figures to say the Bush administration was prevailing in the war on terrorism.
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The State Department stirred a debate last week by saying it would no longer release the numbers in its annual terrorism report but that the newly created National Counterterrorism Center, which compiles the data, would do so.
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“What it effectively means is that the Bush administration and the CIA haven’t been putting the staff resources necessary and have missed 80 percent of the world’s terrorist incidents” in past years, said a Democratic congressional aide who spoke on condition of anonymity. “How can you have an effective counterterrorism policy from that?”