WASHINGTON, 20 April 2005 — The State Department said on Monday it will stop releasing annual statistics on terrorism deaths after officials botched last year’s count, leaving the intelligence community to publish and explain the data.
State Department spokesman Richard Boucher said the National Counterterrorism Center, a newly created office responsible for compiling the statistics, would release them. It was unclear when this would happen.
Critics suggested the State Department might be removing the data from its terrorism report because they could show a rise in attacks and deaths and raise questions about the Bush administration’s claims to be winning the war on terrorism.
Philip Zelikow, a top aide to Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice who advised her on whether to stop publishing the numbers, denied this and said he did not know what the recent data showed.
“That wasn’t the reason for the decision,” said Zelikow, who was executive director of the commission that investigated the Sept. 11, 2001 attacks. He argued that the NCTC should release the data because a law overhauling US intelligence agencies last year gave it responsibility for compiling them.
“If the numbers ultimately end up showing that the problem has gotten worse, then the administration will still have some questions to answer regardless of who puts out the numbers,” he said. “One way or another I am sure the numbers are going to be made available to Congress.”
The State Department was fiercely criticized last year when it initially used faulty data compiled by the intelligence community in its 2003 “Patterns of Global Terrorism Report” to argue the United States was winning the war on terrorism.
The government later revised the figures, saying the number of people killed and injured in terrorist attacks in 2003 was more than double what it had first reported.
The CIA, which is handling media inquiries for the nascent NCTC, said no decisions had yet been made on what data it would provide.
“Although no decisions have been made, the National Counterterrorism Center is looking closely to see precisely what data it can provide, with a methodology that is as strong and clearly understood as possible,” said CIA spokesman Paul Gimigliano.
Former intelligence official Larry Johnson said in a Web log he believed the State Department was dropping the data because the 2004 statistics would show a sharp increase in the number of “significant” international terrorist attacks to at least 655 from about 172 in 2003.
“For Secretary of State Rice these numbers are a disaster,” Johnson wrote. “It is tough to argue we are winning the war on terrorism when the numbers in the official government report will show the largest number of incidents” since the State Department began reporting on such events.
“The analogy is that we declare war on poverty and we stop producing the poverty statistics,” said Princeton University Professor Alan Krueger, who co-wrote an opinion piece that helped unmask last year’s wrong figures.
Rep. Henry Waxman, a California Democrat who successfully lobbied the administration to review and revise the incorrect figures last year, blasted it for dropping them this year.
“This is mind-boggling. Is the State Department relying on actual terrorism data for its report? If so, why hide this data? If not, what is the report based on?” he said in a statement.
“The administration owes it to the American people to provide the facts — not propaganda or political spin.”
