December 9, 2025
Latest:

Deep Something

The site for ranting and reporting by John Masters

Politics 

STATE DEPARTMENT REPORT STILL UNRELIABLE

B. John 304 Views

In 2003, the State Department issued a report which said "terrorist attacks and related deaths had dropped to the lowest levels in three decades, and top Bush administration officials immediately cited it as proof of their success in the global war on terrorism." Five months ago, "embarrassed State Department officials acknowledged widespread mistakes in the government’s influential annual report." According to an interim report released in June, the data actually showed terrorist attacks had reached a 21-year high. Now, "internal investigators have found new and unrelated errors ? as well as broader underlying problems that they say essentially have destroyed the credibility of the statistics the report is based on." Problems include: "sloppy data collection, inexperienced employees, personnel shortages and lax oversight." Sen. Patrick J. Leahy (D-VT) said that "either through indifference or incompetence ? these errors have damaged the credibility of this important assessment, undermining our ability to determine what policies and programs are effective in fighting terrorism."

B. John

B. John Masters writes about democracy, moral responsibility, and everyday Stoicism at deep.mastersfamily.org. A lifelong United Methodist committed to social justice, he explores how faith, ethics, and civic life intersect—and how ordinary people can live out justice, mercy, and truth in public life. A records and information management expert, Masters has lived in the Piedmont,NC, Dayton, OH, Greensboro, NC and Tampa, FL, and is a proud Appalachian State Alum.