Not-So-Fuzzy Math

Every year, the State Department puts out a report on terrorism. One of the components of this report is the number of what the government considers to be "serious terrorist incidents."

- Last year, the report showed a sharp decline in the number of serious terrorist incidents. The Bush administration loudly touted it as an indicator of success in the war on terror.

- Shortly after the report was released, Colin Powell himself was forced to admit a "big mistake" in calculation. Turns out, "serious terrorist incidents" did not decline, but rather were at a twenty-year high of 208. Whoops.

- This year, the Bush Administration said the the number of serious terrorist incidents simply would not be made public.

- Today, sources leaked the numbers, anyway. Apparently, the official State Department report shows that the number of serious terrorist incidents has climbed from 208 to an all-time high of 655.

To re-cap: There were three times as many terrorist incidents last year as there were the previous year. And the previous year was a record, at the time.

By the most obvious metric available, it's clear we are not winning the war on terror.