State Dept., CIA Probe Terror Study
Monday, June 14, 2004; Page A13
Secretary of State Colin L. Powell said yesterday that a State Department report claiming a global decline in terrorist incidents last year was "a big mistake," but he said there was no intent to "cook the books" for political purposes.
Powell said during appearances on Sunday talk shows that the State Department was working over the weekend with the CIA to determine what went wrong, and he plans to meet with officials on the issue today.
"It's a numbers error," Powell said on ABC's "This Week." "It's not a political judgment that said, 'Let's see if we can cook the books.' We can't get away with that now. Nobody was out to cook the books. Errors crept in."
The "Patterns of Global Terrorism Report," released in April, had said that the number of terrorist incidents worldwide had dropped last year to 190, which would have been the lowest level in more than three decades and a decline of 45 percent since President Bush took office in 2001.
But State Department officials conceded last week that the report was in error, in part because it omitted acts of terrorism after Nov. 11, 2003 -- including a suicide bombing in Istanbul that killed 61 and injured more than 700. The original report's accuracy had been challenged by Rep. Henry A. Waxman (D-Calif.), and the Congressional Research Service urged a review of the report's "structure and content."
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http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A38339-2004Jun13.html
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