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Experts Criticize U.S. State Department Terrorism Report For Too Much Positive “Spin” By Mike Nartker WASHINGTON — The latest version of the U.S. State Department’s annual terrorism report came under fire last week from critics who accused the department of placing positive “spin” on the reports’ findings (see GSN, April 30). Late last month, the State Department released its 2003 Patterns of Global Terrorism report, according to which there were 190 acts of international terrorism last year. The 2003 total, according to the report, represents a “slight decrease” from the 198 total incidents that occurred in 2002 and a 45-percent decrease from the 346 total incidents that occurred in 2001. In addition, the report also notes that the 2003 total is the lowest reported number of annual terrorist attacks since 1969. During an April 29 State Department press briefing to release the report, Deputy Secretary of State Richard Armitage said the data provided “clear evidence that we are prevailing in the fight” against terrorism. Last week, however, two U.S. university professors published a commentary in the Washington Post criticizing the reports’ findings. While the number of total terrorist incidents may have decreased, the only verifiable information in the report indicates that the number of “significant” terrorist incidents has actually increased annually since 2001, according to Princeton University economics professor Alan Krueger and Stanford University political science professor David Laitin. “Are we winning the war on terrorism?” wrote Krueger and Laitin. “The short answer is ‘No,’ but that’s not the spin the administration is putting on it,” they added. The Associated Press reported today that U.S. officials are concerned that al-Qaeda might attempt a large-scale terrorist attacks this summer, possibly using weapons of mass destruction (see related GSN story, today). Of the 190 terrorist incidents reported last year, 169 are detailed in a report appendix entitled “Chronology of Significant Terrorist Incidents, 2003” — a 36-percent increase from the 124 significant incidents reported in 2001, according to Krueger and Laitin. The remaining 21 nonsignificant acts that occurred last year, however, are not described in detail in the report and are therefore unverifiable, they wrote, adding that the Bush administration engaged in “sleight of hand” by combining the number of significant and nonsignificant incidents to reach a conclusion of an overall decline in terrorist incidents. “The alleged decline in terrorism in 2003 was entirely a result of a decline in nonsignificant events,” Krueger and Laitin wrote. “The fact that the number of nonsignificant terrorist acts has headed down — even if true — is, well, nonsignificant,” they added. Krueger and Laitin’s criticisms were included in a letter sent last week to Secretary of State Colin Powell by Representative Henry Waxman (Calif.), the top Democrat on the House Government Reform Committee. In his letter, Waxman called on Powell to provide by June 1 a “detailed” listing of all total terrorist incidents since 1995 and information about how last year’s terrorism report was prepared, including the identities of the members of the U.S. Government Incident Review Panel, which decides which attacks will be included. The U.S. State Department did not return calls for comment on Krueger and Laitin’s criticisms. In a written response to Global Security Newswire today, Krueger said the department’s silence so far indicated that “some folks there have recognized that our criticisms were appropriate and devastating.”
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