So, how's that War on Terror coming along?

[theknife]

not very well, apparently - 2004 was the biggest year for terror attacks since they started keeping track. naturally the administration sees this as a pr problem, not a terror problem.

their response? cancel publication of the report that tracks the progress of the "War on Terror" this will then allow the prez to continue to claim success without having having any of that pesky documentation popping up to contradict him.

Elimination of terror report coincides with substantial increase

By JONATHAN S. LANDAY

Knight Ridder Newspapers


WASHINGTON — The State Department stopped publishing a terrorism report after the terrorism center concluded there were more attacks in 2004 than in any year since the report began in 1985.

Several U.S. officials defended the decision, saying the methodology the National Counter-Terrorism Center used for the report may have been faulty and may have included incidents that were not terrorism.

But other officials charged that Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice's office ordered the report eliminated several weeks ago because the 2004 statistics raised disturbing questions about the Bush's administration's frequent claims of progress in the war against terrorism.

“Instead of dealing with the facts and dealing with them in an intelligent fashion, they try to hide their facts from the American public,” said Larry C. Johnson, a former CIA analyst and State Department terrorism expert who first disclosed the decision to eliminate the report in The Counterterrorism Blog, an online journal.

A senior State Department official, speaking on the condition of anonymity, said the allegation that it was being done for political reasons was “categorically untrue.”

According to Johnson, statistics that the National Counter-Terrorism Center provided to the State Department reported 625 “significant” terrorist attacks in 2004. That compared with 175 such incidents in 2003, the highest number in two decades. The statistics didn't include attacks on American troops in Iraq.

Last June, the administration issued a revised version of the 2003 report that showed a higher number of significant terrorist attacks and more than twice the number of fatalities than had been presented in the original report.

That was embarrassing for the White House, which had used the original version to bolster President Bush's election campaign claim that the war in Iraq had advanced the fight against terrorism.

U.S. officials attributed last year's mix-up to bureaucratic mistakes involving the Terrorist Threat Integration Center, the forerunner of the National Counter-Terrorism Center.

http://www.kansascity.com/mld/kansas...s/11407270.htm

[RoBoBoy]

bureaucratic mistakes

For sure

[floydian slip]

Maybe if Rummy and the new americans bombed some more countires the terror will go away.

[Nicobie]

Originally Posted by floydian slip

Maybe if Rummy and the new americans bombed some more countires the terror will go away.

Remember that old song...

"kick 'um when they're up,
kick 'um when they're down"

[Repo]

After the 9/11 attacks and the anthrax scare that followed, you would think we were all safer. Of course you would be wrong. Two government reports are due out stating that U.S. airports are no safer than before 9/11. That is not exactly comforting news; after spending billions of dollars and creating The Department of Homeland Security; airlines are no safer to fly in than before 9/11. As Homer J. Simpson would say, "DOH!" Apparently the Transportation Security Administration airport screeners aren't any better than the old airport screeners, according to reports of the soon to be released reports. Personally I have no idea whether the screeners are the same, better or worse and I have no idea how much they earn but I can guarantee that if the Transportation Security Administration paid top wages to the screeners they would get top quality applicants that would become better screeners. You get what you pay for, pay top dollar and you get top screeners. The exception to the rule is politicians; no matter how much money they earn, most senators, congressmen, congresswomen and presidents barely give you your money's worth...

Meridian Bioscience Inc. sent testing kits to 4,700 laboratories with the H2N2 killer virus, a strain of "Asian Flu" that killed millions of people worldwide in 1957. The kits were sent at the request of the College of American Pathologists, which helps laboratories conduct proficiency testing in virus detection; the H2N2 virus was sent by mistake. Maybe they should be doing proficiency testing at Meridian Bioscience to make sure they know which virus to send and keep track of how and where they sent them since labs in Lebanon and Mexico never received the virus, even though they were on their distribution list. A little tip for you; if you receive a DHL or FedEx package by mistake and the return address is Meridian Bioscience Inc., Newton, Ohio, don't open it it's not your neighbor's latest DVD order from Netflix...

The bottom line is as long as there are idiot people screening people at airports and idiot people working in laboratories with dangerous viruses, no one on the planet is safe. It doesn't matter how much money the government spends or how many new bureaucratic departments the government opens as long as one moron can send out a deadly virus by everyday courier and that virus gets lost in transit none of us are safe but there is no point worrying about it. Sit back, relax and have a drink, George W. Bush has everything under control...

[Mazer]

Originally Posted by Repo

George W. Bush has everything under control...

Phew, that's good to know. Thanks.

[pod]

Originally Posted by theknife

their response? cancel publication of the report that tracks the progress of the "War on Terror" this will then allow the prez to continue to claim success without having having any of that pesky documentation popping up to contradict him.

Well, lets not let information get in the way of fighting terror.

[Nicobie]

Originally Posted by pod

Well, lets not let information get in the way of fighting terror.

Is that Vancouver, Calif?

Sorry pod, I couldn't help it.

[multi]

link

[theknife]

Ann Coulter is a bomb thrower - sort of a shock jock for the right. i think they bring her on talk shows coz she can always be counted on to say something outrageous. hard to see why Time feels she belongs on the cover since she represents the lowest form of political dialogue (we're right - you're stupid/unpatriotic/immoral etc) in this country.