Monday, June 14, 2004
OOPS! TERRORISM ON RISE
By Stockton
Once again, the Administration is racked with intelligence "lapses". One of President Bush's main campaign themes is that the war on terror is working. However, the proof used to support this argument, the "Patterns of Global Terrorism" report, indicates otherwise. Incidence of terrorism are on the rise.
"It was a simple mistake," said one Administration officials. "The report proves terrorism is on the rise. We said it backwards is all. It could happen to anyone. I think it was Tenet's fault."
"It was definitely a lapse," said a State Department official. "It was not a lie or misinformation. If the State Department lies, we have to pay royalities to the Vice-President's office. Our budget's tight so we want to avoid that extra expense."
This latest lapse is one in a long line of lapses that began with the infamous "Q" typo. According to Administration officials, it was Iran, not Iraq, that had weapons of mass destruction. The error occurred when typing the Executive Order for the war. Someone hit the "q" key instead of the "n' key. "That's how we ended up in Iraq," said Press Secretary Scott McClellan. "It was supposed to be Iran the whole time."
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By Stockton
Terrorism up, admits Powell
17:42 AEST Fri Jun 11 2004
AFP - US Secretary of State Colin Powell said poor data in a terrorism report allowed an erroneous conclusion that terrorist acts had decreased worldwide, but insisted the foul-up was unintentional.
"We didn't look deeply enough into the data to realize there were inconsistencies in reporting from the way we reported in previous years," Powell told ABC News.
"We'll put out a corrected report," he said of the "Patterns of Global Terrorism" report, which should have concluded that terror strikes were up.
"There was no attempt to mislead or cook the books in any way.
"So far, it appears to be an honest administrative error on the part of a new organization working with new people and we didn't watch it carefully enough to catch the errors as they were going through our system," he told the television network.
Once again, the Administration is racked with intelligence "lapses". One of President Bush's main campaign themes is that the war on terror is working. However, the proof used to support this argument, the "Patterns of Global Terrorism" report, indicates otherwise. Incidence of terrorism are on the rise.
"It was a simple mistake," said one Administration officials. "The report proves terrorism is on the rise. We said it backwards is all. It could happen to anyone. I think it was Tenet's fault."
"It was definitely a lapse," said a State Department official. "It was not a lie or misinformation. If the State Department lies, we have to pay royalities to the Vice-President's office. Our budget's tight so we want to avoid that extra expense."
This latest lapse is one in a long line of lapses that began with the infamous "Q" typo. According to Administration officials, it was Iran, not Iraq, that had weapons of mass destruction. The error occurred when typing the Executive Order for the war. Someone hit the "q" key instead of the "n' key. "That's how we ended up in Iraq," said Press Secretary Scott McClellan. "It was supposed to be Iran the whole time."
