It's Terror When We Say So

[chlamor]

THE ROVING EYE
It's terror when we say so
By Pepe Escobar

The Bush administration's iron-clad spin is that it is winning the "war on terror". Then comes a problem: the recently created (by a George W Bush executive order) National Counterterrorism Center (NCTC) states there were more terrorist attacks in 2004 than in any year since 1985. So what does the State Department do? Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice orders the "sanitation" of this year's version of "Patterns of Global Terrorism", a report regularly issued by the State Department.

The NCTC was created on a recommendation by the 9-11 Commission. Now it has the responsibility of analyzing and integrating all US intelligence on terrorism. By law, Congress and the Senate must receive "Patterns of Global Terrorism" by April 30 every year, detailing what Washington considers terrorism activity country by country. This year, there will be not be a complete "Patterns of Global Terrorism", but a simple report without any data. The NCTC will be in charge of the details. According to US State Department spokesman Richard Boucher, this data will be released, but no date has been set.

<snip>

It's telling that all the members of the US intelligence community who volunteered to talk off the record about the shelving of the new report stressed the information is classified. Most of all they fear the wrath of the gods, ie the White House. Many agree that Rice decided to ax "Patterns of Global Terrorism" because the NCTC would not use an "alternative methodology" that would have decreased the number of terrorist attacks, ie doctored downward the impact of the Sunni Arab Iraqi resistance.

The NCTC is not exactly there to undermine the White House. On the contrary. It operates under the "direction and control" of the new director of central intelligence, Porter Goss, an extremely close Bush ally. Goss would have something to say about terrorism himself, as he was having breakfast on the morning of September 11, 2001, with Mahmud Ahmad, then director of the Pakistani Inter-Service Intelligence, and the author of a wire transfer to one of the September 11 masterminds.

http://www.atimes.com/atimes/Front_Page/GD23Aa01.html

[Barrett808]

1. Another great essay by Pepe Escobar

See this one on Iraq:

The shadow Iraqi government
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=103x120921