- WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The
U.S. count of major world terrorist attacks more than tripled in 2004,
a rise that may revive debate on whether the Bush administration is winning
the war on terrorism, congressional aides said on Tuesday.
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- The number of "significant" international terrorist
attacks rose to about 650 last year from about 175 in 2003, according to
congressional aides briefed on the numbers by U.S. State Department and
intelligence officials on Monday.
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- The aides were told the surge partly reflected an increased
tally of violence in Kashmir, which is claimed by India and Pakistan, and
the devotion of more manpower to U.S. monitoring efforts, which resulted
in more attacks being counted overall.
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- The State Department last year initially released erroneous
figures that understated the attacks, fatalities and casualties in 2003
and used the figures to claim the Bush administration was prevailing in
the war on terrorism.
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- It later said the number killed and injured in 2003 was
more than double its original count and said "significant" terrorist
attacks -- those that kill or seriously injure someone, cause more than
$10,000 in damage or attempt to do either of those things -- rose to a
20-year high of 175.
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- The State Department last week unleashed a new debate
about the numbers by saying it would no longer release them in its annual
terrorism report but that the newly created National Counterterrorism Center
that compiles the data would do so.
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- A spokesman for the CIA, which is handling media inquiries
for the NCTC, last week said no decisions had been made although other
officials expected the data to be made public.
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- Rep. Henry Waxman, a California Democrat, wrote to U.S.
Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice on Tuesday asking her to release the
data.
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- "The large increases in terrorist attacks reported
in 2004 may undermine administration claims of success in the war on terror,
but political inconvenience has never been a legitimate basis for withholding
facts from the American people," Waxman said in the letter, a copy
of which was obtained by Reuters.
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- Former intelligence official Larry Johnson last week
first disclosed the 2004 increase in his Web log, saying the 2004 numbers
would rise at least 655 from about 172 in 2003.
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- Waxman's letter said that of the about 650 significant
attacks last year, about 300 reflected violence in India and Pakistan,
leaving some 350 attacks elsewhere in the world -- double the total 2003
count.
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- He suggested this reflected enhanced U.S. efforts to
monitor media reports of violence, thereby leading to the identification
of "many more attacks in India and Pakistan related to Kashmir."
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- Congressional aides said about 10 full-time employees
worked on the 2004 count, up from about three in past years, and that this
produced a more complete count.
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- "What it effectively means is that the Bush administration
and the CIA haven't been putting the staff resources necessary and have
missed 80 percent of the world's terrorist incidents" in past years,
said a Democratic congressional aide. "How can you have an effective
counterterrorism policy from that?"
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- A Republican congressional aide said it would be unfair
of Democrats to claim terrorism was getting worse under the Bush administration,
stressing that the 2004 and 2003 numbers were not counted in the same way
and hence were not comparable.
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- "That is a conclusion that cannot be drawn because
we have no baseline and certainly last year's revised numbers offer no
accurate baseline of the universe of terrorist incidents," he said.
"Without that you cannot reach an accurate conclusion."
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