Tilted Forum Project Discussion Community - View Single Post - What Do You KNOW About The Status of Post War Iraq or of the War on Terror?

raveneye · 04-18-2005, 07:43 AM

Since host's quotes are a bit lengthy, let me summarize them briefly:

--The State Department has published, annually, a definitive document called "Patterns of Global Terrorism" since 1986. The general public can see all these publications as PDF files here:

http://www.mipt.org/Patterns-of-Global-Terrorism.asp

These publications have always been the definitive source on terrorism acts and statistics.

--There are two versions of the report: one is classified and is required by law to be submitted to Congress by April 30 each year. The other is unclassified and made available to the public. There is no law requiring the unclassified version to be published.

--A former CIA analyst by the name of Larry Johnson found out somehow that the unclassified issue for 2004 was blocked from publication. He also got a copy of it and found that it reported 655 terrorist attacks last year, the most ever reported for one year over the entire history of these reports. That number was corroborated by several other current intelligence agents who have seen the report.

--Larry Johnson found that the main reason for the jump in the numbers was a different method of counting used in 2004. That means that you can't really compare the 2004 numbers to those of the past. And most of the attacks (at least 300) occurred in India in the Kashmir region. The sharp increase was not caused by Islamic extremists; in fact if anything the number of attacks by Islamic extremists might have been lower in 2004. You can read more in Larry Johnson's excellent Counterterrorism Blog here:

http://counterterror.typepad.com/the.../14/index.html

--The Bush administration has admitted that the unclassified version of the report has been eliminated and will no longer be published in the future. Condoleeza Rice's office ordered that the publication be killed.

--The classified version is still mandated by law, and will be submitted this year on schedule to Congress.

--A different unclassified version will be released to the public under a different name. This new unclassified version will contain no statistics on the number of terrorist attacks.

I think it is rather obvious that politics was the reason the annual report was blocked from public view. It would be a major embarrassment to the administration because it implies that terrorism has skyrocketed under Bush's watch.

But those are the best numbers we have. They should be published. The fact that a new and better method of counting is used is irrelevant. It would be very easily to published the results from the old method and the new method side by side for comparison.

Theoretically, Congress could write another bill that requires the annual statistics to be published for the general populace.

But as long as Bush is president, that will never happen.

04-18-2005, 07:43 AM	#11 (permalink)
raveneye Born Against	Since host's quotes are a bit lengthy, let me summarize them briefly: --The State Department has published, annually, a definitive document called "Patterns of Global Terrorism" since 1986. The general public can see all these publications as PDF files here: http://www.mipt.org/Patterns-of-Global-Terrorism.asp These publications have always been the definitive source on terrorism acts and statistics. --There are two versions of the report: one is classified and is required by law to be submitted to Congress by April 30 each year. The other is unclassified and made available to the public. There is no law requiring the unclassified version to be published. --A former CIA analyst by the name of Larry Johnson found out somehow that the unclassified issue for 2004 was blocked from publication. He also got a copy of it and found that it reported 655 terrorist attacks last year, the most ever reported for one year over the entire history of these reports. That number was corroborated by several other current intelligence agents who have seen the report. --Larry Johnson found that the main reason for the jump in the numbers was a different method of counting used in 2004. That means that you can't really compare the 2004 numbers to those of the past. And most of the attacks (at least 300) occurred in India in the Kashmir region. The sharp increase was not caused by Islamic extremists; in fact if anything the number of attacks by Islamic extremists might have been lower in 2004. You can read more in Larry Johnson's excellent Counterterrorism Blog here: http://counterterror.typepad.com/the.../14/index.html --The Bush administration has admitted that the unclassified version of the report has been eliminated and will no longer be published in the future. Condoleeza Rice's office ordered that the publication be killed. --The classified version is still mandated by law, and will be submitted this year on schedule to Congress. --A different unclassified version will be released to the public under a different name. This new unclassified version will contain no statistics on the number of terrorist attacks. I think it is rather obvious that politics was the reason the annual report was blocked from public view. It would be a major embarrassment to the administration because it implies that terrorism has skyrocketed under Bush's watch. But those are the best numbers we have. They should be published. The fact that a new and better method of counting is used is irrelevant. It would be very easily to published the results from the old method and the new method side by side for comparison. Theoretically, Congress could write another bill that requires the annual statistics to be published for the general populace. But as long as Bush is president, that will never happen.