by Larry C Johnson (bio below)
Simply amazing; the Bush Adminstration still has not figured out how to accurately count terrorist incidents. I know some readers of this blog will be tempted to dismiss my statement as just another diatribe from a knee-jerk Bush hater. I do not hate Bush and still consider myself a political conservative. What I do not understand is, if terrorism is the biggest threat we face, why we cannot make a commitment to accurately monitor terrorist activity around the world.
Before plunging into the statistical mess created by the Bush Administration let me offer this disclaimer–statistics alone do not fully inform us about the threat of terrorism. Statistics do not predict future behavior/activity. However, terrorism statistics, if properly used, can provide us some indication of the scope and scale of the threat. Statistics can also pinpoint where the attacks are taking place and who is responsible for those attacks. Knowing who and where the activities are occurring should guide our policy and our resource allocation. If most of the terrorist attacks are taking place in Iraq and none have occurred in Latin America shouldn’t our resources and attention be focused on Iraq? Logic says yes.
So, welcome to the world of terrorist statistical chaos.
Last April I blew the whistle on the Bush Administration’s attempt to not publish the statistics for 2004 terrorist incidents because the attacks in which people were killed and wounded had soared to unprecedented levels. Caught trying to play “hide the salami”, the Bush Administration trotted out Phil Zelikow (Counselor to Secretary of State Rice) and John Brennan, acting Chief of the National Counter Terrorism Center, to explain things.
Brennan and Zelikow reported that in 2004 there were 651 attacks worldwide in which someone was killed or wounded. By comparison there were only 175 such attacks in 2003. I believe the most important statistic for assessing terrorist activity is the number for the attacks that either killed or wounded someone. In the State Department reports prior to 2005, this statistic was known as a “Significant Incident”. A Significant Incident was an attack in which someone was killed, wounded, kidnapped, or there was property damage in excess of $10,000.
The following chart illustrates the difference between terrorism in general and significant acts of terrorism in particular.
This chart, which is derived from the U.S. Government’s statistics, clearly shows that not only has the number of terrorist attacks soared since we invaded Iraq in 2003, but that the number of Significant Incidents haa quintupled. If that constitutes “winning the war on terrorism” or a record of success then we have entered an Orwellian world in which up is down and black is white.
Zelikow and Brennan also reported that 1907 people died from terrorist attacks in 2004 (the second highest number ever recorded since the CIA started collecting statistics back in 1968) and 6704 were wounded. So far so good.
Now, go check out the statistics listed on the National Counter Terrorism Center website for 2004. 2004 was worse than Zelikow and Brennan claimed it was during their press briefing last May. There were a total of 3204 terrorist incidents in 2004. Instead of 1907 fatalities there were 6110. And, instead of 6704 people wounded in terrorist attacks there were 16,257. So far, no one in the mainstream media has asked the Bush Administration to explain why more people died from terrorist attacks in 2004 than in any previous year, including 2001.
Remember, the National Counter Terrorism Center is:
the primary center for US government analysis of terrorism. It falls under the Office of the Director of National Intelligence (ODNI). One of its primary missions is “to serve as the central and shared knowledge bank on known and suspected terrorists and international terrorist groups, as well as their goals, strategies, capabilities, and networks of contacts and support.
So, the definitive voice? Apparently not. If you have not heard of the The National Memorial Institute for the Prevention of Terrorism (MIPT) and its Terrorism Knowledge Base, check it out. The MIPT is:
A non-profit organization dedicated to preventing terrorism on U.S. soil or mitigating its effects. MIPT was established after the April 1995 bombing of the Murrah federal building in Oklahoma City, and it is funded through the Department of Homeland Security’s Office of Grants and Training (G&T). The United States Congress directed MIPT to conduct “research into the social and political causes and effects of terrorism” through our automated information systems and to “serve as a national point of contact for antiterrorism information sharing among Federal, State and local preparedness agencies, as well as private and public organizations dealing with these issues.”
Here we have another U.S. Government funded effort to keep track of terrorist activity. According to the MIPT statistics for 2004, there were 2640 terrorist attacks, 5066 fatalities, and 10,857 wounded. What really happened in 2004? Were there 3204 attacks or 2640? How many died? 1907 or 5066 or 6110? I guess sloppiness with counting and methodology should not come as a surprise to an Administration that has tried to keep scientists from reporting accurately on Global Warming. Still, this is scandalous.
As a taxpayer I would like to have the money spent to monitor and combat terrorism used in a coordinated fashion. Let’s call it, “collecting the dots we want to connect”. Perhaps now you will understand my pissy mood over the Federal Government’s inability to simply count the number of terrorist attacks in any given year. This is not a simple matter of failing to do basic mathematics. I believe it is a further symptom of the failure to make combatting terrorism a genuine priority. Coordination is or should be a critical part of this process. If we cannot perform that simple task of counting terrorist activity around the world we will have even more trouble in tracking down those responsible for such attacks and, as President Bush likes to say, “bringing them to justice”.
What happened to the terrorist trend in 2005? Terrorism got worse. How much worse is unclear. Instead of the “651” attacks in which people were killed, wounded or kidnapped in 2004, there were at least 953 attacks (according to the MIPT database) in which people were killed, wounded, or kidnapped. It is time for Congress to insist that the Administration provide timely and accurate information on terrorism. Since the Bush Administration cannot perform that simple task is it any wonder they have been unable to find Osama Bin Laden or his right hand man, Ayman Zwahiri?
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Larry C. Johnson is CEO and co-founder of BERG Associates, LLC, an international business-consulting firm that helps corporations and governments manage threats posed by terrorism and money laundering. Mr. Johnson, who worked previously with the Central Intelligence Agency and U.S. State Department’s Office of Counter Terrorism (as a Deputy Director), is a recognized expert in the fields of terrorism, aviation security, crisis and risk management. Mr. Johnson has analyzed terrorist incidents for a variety of media including the Jim Lehrer News Hour, National Public Radio, ABC’s Nightline, NBC’s Today Show, the New York Times, CNN, Fox News, and the BBC. Mr. Johnson has authored several articles for publications, including Security Management Magazine, the New York Times, and The Los Angeles Times. He has lectured on terrorism and aviation security around the world. Further bio details.
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Larry it’s simple. The Bush adminstration has never been serious about fighting terrorists. They are serious about using the “threat” of terrorism to acheive other policy goals (such as the invasion of Iraq, the enhancement of Presidential power). But a concerted political, legal and military strategy to eliminate terrorist organizations? That is not something they are particularly interested in.
Funniest thing … with my typical squinting, as I saw BooMan’s post about the editorial this morning for the first time, I read the first line as:
“For George Bush and Bin Laden to demand a ‘long war’ …”
I would be biding my time, waiting and moving and saving money and making a network in the U.S. In five years, when everyone has forgotten, when the debacle in Iraqle is over – then I would attack and start the whole cycle over again.
We will never stop terrorists, it would be incredibly easy for them to scare this country stiff. However, every time I tell people how, I get looks like I must be some monster : )
So you’ll just have to trust me that it would really cramp America’s style and we would never be the same again.
Thanks for posting this, you seem to get some traditional media time, I hope someone can get you on the screen with this information.
Fun post by you, Robert.
it would be incredibly easy for them to scare this country stiff.
Really. It always amazes me that there hasn’t been more. It’d be so easy to start up suicide bomber operations … and I keep wondering why there haven’t been any. So odd.
Of course, I’m thrilled since it’s truly horrific and innocent people die, and it makes everyone scared.
Well, some people think that the terorists like having Bush in charge so they’re not going to rock his boat too much for now. (?)
Truly, why haven’t there been more? Well, what if Osama is not interested in Islam any more than Our Fair Leader is interested in Jesus?
He’s got himself famous starting an immoral war…I’ll leave it up to you to figure out who I’m talking about…now he can just sit back and be “the leader” without answering to anyone.
Osama waited, what five, six years in-between bombing the trade center and going after it again? That was when we were kind of looking for him, but not nearly like now. A smart leader would sit back and wait and wait and wait – not many Americans can understand that type of patience.
When I was visiting my wife in Morocco (she was in the Peace Corps) I quickly saw how much more patience the people in the Mountains had. Mostly because they didn’t have anything to look forward to, their goal was to produce enough food to survive and enough rugs to make enough money to survive. Period. There was no “expansion” they were thinking about or a new house. A few dreamed big and bought little hahnouts (sp?) to sell things at souk, but mostly they just went day to day. So, Osama living in this environment, on top of some mountains, is probably just thinking and planning, planning and thinking.
Unless of course he is deep in the bowels of some American prison waiting for December 2008 to cement Bush’s legacy.
but Osama and W are a whole nother kettle of fish. I have a great supply of tinfoil and I noticed that Osama’s utterances tend to shore up Bushes base. Osama rattles his throat and that group rattles their bones in terror. Bush makes out like a bandit. Notice Osama had one of his offerings right before the 2004 election? Did you also notice that W and Osama’s family are on a first name basis? Remember the F911 and how they were allowed to take to the skies when nobody else could?
Osama could be one of Bush’s gifts to the Cheney (vice) presidency.
I’m not sure whether or not to take your comment seriously. It could be construed to be advising on how to do it successfully and I hope that’s not true but I have no way of knowing anything.
It does bring about some interesting speculation. In looking at the pattern of the past 5 years of prosecutions and allegations in this type of case, an alarming common factor is not terrorism but human rights advocacy. The paper trail created in years prior to 9/11 was used to justify the incarceration without due process.
This could be a possible means of building that network you spoke of in your comment. This could be an effective way to blend into the community and hide, like you suggest. Unfortunately, this same ambiguous threat perception could also be used as an effective way to discourage participation in gathering support to vote against conservative republicans in the upcoming elections. The same threat of unwarranted suspicion of innocent people could be exploited to the advantage of any group that benefits from the gwot or by incumbent democrat associations that fear losing power to a third party candidate.
So, we have the threat of unwarranted surveillance and possible future prosecution for any political activity that doesn’t directly support the conservative-republican/liberal-incumbents who, most likely, also have to be strong in throwing money at the gwot.
It sure don’t look good for them poor people.
They probably just need more money to outsource the assessment analysis. Hey, maybe they could bundle it in with the deal to sell our port’s control to that United Arab Emerite private corporation.
Isn’t it funny that five years later we are FINALLY talking about making our ports safer?
This should be a major ad in every state that has a port. Play Bush saying he would make the ports safe, then show how he hasn’t done it, then give them this information about who is going to be patrolling THEIR ports.
Thanks GWB, sometimes you make it too easy.
Actually, just looking at the raw data and historical patterns it appears that now is exactly the wrong time to even consider something like this. I would hope the experts have already noticed this pattern and advised against it.
Living in an area surrounded by so many vital ports, not to mention a major nuclear sub station — where the nuclear subs take their practice runs within a few miles of my home — the protection of ports has been a huge topic. But our senators/reps. are very disturbed by the lack of federal help. We have gotten some.
It’s now more annoying to take the ferries. The state patrol checks all our vehicles with bomb-sniffing dogs, and such.
But, practically speaking, it’s impossible to check every container so there’s no remotely conceivable way to secure ports.
I don’t think there’s much in the way of evidence to support the notion that the Bush regime is seriously engaged in any sort of actual “war on terrorism”. There is, however, an overabundance of evidence to suggest that the Bush regime is engaged in a relentless propaganda war to perpetuate the fear of a terrorist threat in the public mind in order to mask their own authoritarian ambitions and legitimize their militaristic aggressions.
Does anyone really think Bush/Cheney care how many people are killed and maimed as a result of their insane agenda? By having a negligent and careless approach to keeping track of (so-called) progress, BushCo can muddy the waters sufficiently to make any claim they want and not provide their opponents with a concise way to refute them within the framework of what now constitutes the public debate.
Since it’s not in their interest to provide accurate information on anything, they have no compelling reason to do so.
First of all the statistics show, whether it is gathered by government institutions or independent NGO’s that there have been a significant increase in what is defined as terrorist incidents, this is evidence in it self that the Bush adm. is far away from winning the “War on Terrorism”. Second, a “War on Terrorism” can never be won, it can only significantly diminish the threat, which is why I think the “War on Terrorism” is, at best, a flawed strategy and, at worst, a calculated policy conducted to strengthen the administrations legitimacy vis-à-vis the political opposition and the public in general, most probably all of the above. When war is conducted no one questions the legitimacy of the governments’ policy and it’s an excellent way of rallying support for the cause.
The Afghanistan campaign was in my opinion, at first not a military matter, but when the Taliban regime harbouring the al-Qaeda operatives, refused to extradite the perpetrators to the US, and thus the NATO article 5 was invoked, the line between military and civilian affairs was crossed and thus became a legitimate overseas military operation. The war in Iraq was never about fighting terrorism, but a mixture of regime change policy and US commercial interests. In hindsight though, it seems to have contributed a lot to the surge of terrorist incidents reported.
The difference in numbers reported and recorded can have something to do with how terrorism is defined, that is whether the definition of terrorism used in the survey is narrowly or more broadly defined, but can also be conditioned by the quality of the data received. What can be read out of the statistics presented though, is that the terrorist incidents seemed to have increased dramatically and that it seems to be little or no cooperation between government institutions and NGO’s on how to define and analyze the terrorist threat, indicating a lack of will to effectively fight terrorism or a lack of understanding the causes and effects of terrorism and thus demonstrating their inability to effectively limit and contain it.