Powell: Terror up, not down

2004-06-11 06:51

Washington - US Secretary of State Colin Powell acknowledged on Thursday that 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 realise 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 organisation 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.

The data had shown acts of terror and related deaths easing, positive political news for US President George W. Bush who on the re-election campaign trail has touted his accomplishments in the war on terror.

Walked down the wrong road

Department spokesperson Richard Boucher insisted that "as the secretary said there was no attempt at manipulation or political distortion. But we did walk down a road that was the wrong one."

"When we got the data here at the State Department, I have to say we, obviously, did not check it thoroughly enough or verify the conclusions that had been reached because of the apparent change in the numbers.

"So we got the wrong data and we didn't check it enough. I think that's the simplest explanation for what happened," he added.

Figures will be up sharply

Boucher said a revised report and analysis was forthcoming. "I would say that our preliminary results indicate that the figures for the number of attacks and casualties will be up sharply from what was published in the Patterns of Global Terrorism" report, he allowed.

"Apparently they were different types" of mistakes, Boucher explained. "It was several errors that led to a significant omissions in the figures. The time period was not - apparently they didn't do the full year."

Reminded that administration officials had touted the first report as evidence of strides having been made against terror, Boucher said officials after the reassessment "will say whatever is justified by the facts".

"They based their previous statements on the facts as we had them at the time; the facts that we had were wrong. When we're sure we have the new facts, the right facts, we will prepare an appropriate analysis and give you our assessment at that moment," Boucher said.

- AFP