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When terrorism numbers don't add up
Under Title 22 of the US Code, Section 2656f, the US State Department is required to submit to Congress when it re-assembles after the Easter recess every year a report on the state of international terrorism during the previous year, with recommendations regarding the role of state sponsors of international terrorism.The report, as laid down by Congress, has to include, inter alia, information on terrorist groups and umbrella organizations under which falls any terrorist group known to be responsible for the kidnapping or death of any US citizen during the preceding five years; groups known to be financed by state sponsors of terrorism about which Congress has been notified during the past year in accordance with Section 6(j) of the Export Administration Act; and any other known international terrorist group that the secretary of state determines should be the subject of the report. These annual reports, submitted since 1980, came to be known as the "Patterns of Global Terrorism" report and have enjoyed a certain credibility in the eyes of international counterterrorism analysts, who look forward to the publication of these annual statistics. However, some analysts, such as this writer, have been skeptical about the accuracy of the statistics provided in the reports, which are prepared not by the intelligence community, but by the Counterterrorism Division of the State Department. This writer and others who share this skepticism have felt the State Department is not beyond fudging the statistics and manipulating the analyses in order to serve the policy interests of the current administration. Posted by: john 2005-05-04 |
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