Paul Krugman writes about the gang that cannot count straight: the reasons that the "Patterns of Global Terrorism" report was embarrassingly inaccurate were "inattention, personnel shortages, and [a] database that is awkward and antiquated"--this is the Terrorist Threat Integration Center, set up to "merge and analyze all threat information in a single location. Our government must have the very best information possible."
Posted by DeLong at June 25, 2004 08:15 AM | TrackBack | | Other weblogs commenting on this postThe New York Times: Errors on Terror: "Tonight, I am instructing the leaders of the F.B.I., the C.I.A., the Homeland Security and the Department of Defense to develop a Terrorist Threat Integration Center, to merge and analyze all threat information in a single location. Our government must have the very best information possible." Thus spoke President Bush in the 2003 State of the Union address. A White House fact sheet called the center "the next phase in the dramatic enhancement of the government's counterterrorism effort."
Among other things, the center took over the job of preparing the government's annual report on "Patterns of Global Terrorism." The latest report, released in April, claimed to document a sharp fall in terrorism. "You will find in these pages clear evidence that we are prevailing in the fight," Deputy Secretary of State Richard Armitage declared. But this week the government admitted making major errors. In fact, in 2003 the number of significant terrorist attacks reached a 20-year peak. How could they get it so wrong? The answer tells you a lot about the state of the "war on terror." Credit for uncovering the report's errors goes to Alan Krueger... and David Laitin.... Krueger tells me that as soon as they looked at the latest report, they knew something was wrong... the supposed decline... resulted from a fall in the number of "nonsignificant" events, which... "are counted with a squishy definition."... [T]he list of significant attacks ended on Nov. 11, 2003, but there were several major terrorist incidents after that date. Sure enough, including these and other omitted attacks more than doubled the estimated 2003 death toll.
Was the report's squishy math politically motivated? Well, the Bush administration has cooked the books in many areas, including budget projections, tax policy, environmental policy and stem cell research. Why wouldn't it do the same on terrorism? The erroneous good news on terrorism also came at a very convenient moment.... [W]e can be sure that if the statistics had told the administration something it didn't want to hear, they would have been carefully checked....
[T]he incompetence explanation is hardly comforting.... [C]ounterterrorism coordinator Cofer Black attributed the errors to "inattention, personnel shortages and [a] database that is awkward and antiquated." Remember: we're talking about the government's central clearinghouse for terrorism information, whose creation was touted as part of a "dramatic enhancement" of counterterrorism efforts.... And it still can't input data into its own computers? (...the job of data input was given to... private contractors.)
Think of it as just one more indication that Mr. Bush isn't really serious about this terrorism thing. He talks about terror a lot, and invokes it to justify unrelated wars he feels like fighting. But when it comes to devoting resources...
I swear on my ancestors underwear that I am not prone to conspiracy suspicions -- most of the time. Is it just a manifestation of institutional responsibility that the number 2 guy at State, a big Powell ally, was given the job of delivering the report? I mean, if you knew the report was flawed, but wanted to put it out there in hopes that nobody noticed, at least let Armitage be the messenger.
I understand that a mistake of the sort described here is just as likely to fall one way as the other, but the "mistake" did fall in the direction of making Bush look like a success in combatting terrorism - an area on which much depends in November. And wouldn't ya always try to sort out "non-significant" instances of terrorism from the rest, to get a feel for how things are going?
Posted by: kharris on June 25, 2004 12:05 PMMy guess is Armitage didn't yet know about the flaws in the accounting when he reached for the positive, upbeat bottom line that the first published version seemed to warrant. Maybe he should have waited, but I can well imagine the temptation to rush to convey a positive message at a time so much is going badly. (Such is life in the policy arena). Armitage is not dishonest; to the contrary, he's a pretty good guy.
TTIC is indeed a very new outfit, and in this case it was performing a function that State used to perform. It screwed up. It'll do better next time. I doubt seriously it was a question of dishonesty or politics.
Sad, really, that the relationship between the State seventh floor and the Intell Community just seems to get worse with each passing week.
Posted by: Jim Harris on June 25, 2004 01:18 PMPK has honed his technique to perfection. Keep a file of all the rosy pronouncements that Mr Bush claims for his policies at the time they are enacted. Follow up on the results. Then juxtapose the rosy rhetoric with the results of the policy. Since very few of the policies of Mr Bush have produced results that benefit America as a whole (Does a list of top ten Bush successes exist?) it is easy pickings.
Mr Bush only gets away with incompetent policies because the press often does not bother to follow the results. The Bush base does not care if his policies are incompetent. It just furthers their belief that government can do nothing right. Just one problem. The public is starting to question his results.
Posted by: bakho on June 25, 2004 01:43 PMPK has honed his technique to perfection.
Technique? I thought this was basic journalisim. The reason PK is looking so good is because everyone else in mainstream print real-estate is looking so incompetent.
Posted by: Alan on June 25, 2004 02:09 PMJim Harris,
Was the mistake due to dishonesty? Maybe, maybe not. It's not implausible. In any case, Krugman makes a critical point on this issue when he says,
"[W]e can be sure that if the statistics had told the administration something it didn't want to hear, they would have been carefully checked...."
If the allegedly innocent mistake had gone the other way you can bet it would have been caught. Tell these guys what they want to hear and nobody asks any questions.
Posted by: Bernard Yomtov on June 25, 2004 04:11 PMThe only people with less credibility than Paul Krugman and the NY Times are the schmucks who believe them.
I'm more prone to believe that the personnel shortages are attributed to a lack of people being detailed off to a surprisingly useless report made just to satisfy the public curiosity, not to actually conducting the war on terror.
What's probably the case with the TTIC is that the various components of US intelligence are still hesitant to operate in a truly joint environment, and the funding for an integrated center takes second fiddle to the various intel agencies wanting to continue with their current ops. not necessarily a lack of funding, more probably a lack of 100% cooperation by the elements of US intelligence.
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