Oopsy! We Made a Teensy, I Mean, Big Mistake

The mouths are moving again. Are they telling the truth?

Poor Colin Powell! The alligators are circling again! In April the State Department and the CIA worked together (I'm suspicious already) to compile data about the incidence of terrorism in 2003. The result was a report that there has been a decline in terrorism worldwide. In fact, the report said that international acts of terror in 2003 were the fewest in more than 30 years. Senior administration officials used the report as evidence the war was being won under Bush. Great news! Oh, but today Colin Powell said that this report was a "big mistake." Oh, shucks! Just when we thought something good was happening....

A CNN article reported on The Patterns of Global Terrorism report of April 29, 2004. It said that there had been 190 acts of international terrorism in 2003-- a slight drop from 198 attacks the previous year and the lowest total since 1969. The figure marked a 45% decrease in attacks since 2001, Bush's first year as "president." However, amazingly, it did not include most of the attacks in Iraq, because attacks against combatants did not fit the U.S. definition of international terrorism. Here I would like to insert in true Jon Stewart Daily Show fashion, "Huuuuh?"

Cofer Black, the State Department's ambassador at large for counterterrorism, told a news conference that he attributed the decrease to "unprecedented collaboration between the United States and foreign partners to defeat terrorism." Huuuuh?

Colin Powell tried to reassure us on ABC's "This Week" that "It's a numbers error. It's not a political judgement that said, 'Let's see if we can cook the books.' We can't get away with that now." Did I read that correctly? We can't get away with it now. Emphasis on NOW. You mean, there was a time when we were getting away with it? And now we can't. But we would if we could. Is that it? We may be worse off than I thought.

Rep. Henry Waxman (D-CA) had challenged the findings. The conclusion that terrorism was on the decline was used to boost one of President Bush's chief foreign policy claims- success in countering terror. God knows, Bush needs something good he can claim he has done. It must be murder (no pun intended) to think of things. Powell has told Waxman that the mistakes were unintentional. He went on to say that "There's a new terrorist threat information center that compiles this data under the CIA." We're improving our government every day! Must be, since they're new, they haven't quite got the hang of it yet. A little like letting our 2-year-olds play with knives.

Powell said the report was wrong and will be corrected. Don't we all feel better now?