June 10, 2004
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U.S. Will Revise Data on Terror
WASHINGTON — The State Department is scrambling to revise its annual report on global terrorism to acknowledge that it understated the number of deadly attacks in 2003, amid charges that the document is inaccurate and was politically manipulated by the Bush administration.
When the most recent Patterns of Global Terrorism report was issued April 29, senior Bush administration officials immediately hailed it as objective proof that they were winning the war on terrorism. But on Tuesday, State Department officials said they underreported the number of terrorist attacks in the tally for 2003. Several U.S. officials and terrorism experts familiar with that revision effort said the new report will show that the number of significant terrorist incidents increased last year, perhaps to its highest level in 20 years.
The report stopped counting terrorist incidents on Nov. 11, leaving out several major attacks, including bombings of two synagogues, a bank and the British Consulate in Turkey that killed 62 and injured more than 700.
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