" Media Matters ," week ending June 24, 2005

" Media Matters ," week ending June 24, 2005 ... : "1,382 DAYS AFTER 9/11 -- TERRORIST ATTACKS AT AN ALL TIME HIGH: By objective measures, the Bush administration's approach to combating terrorism is an abject failure. Last year '[t]he number of serious international terrorist incidents more than tripled.' According to State Department data, 'attacks grew to about 655 last year, up from the record of around 175 in 2003.' How did the administration respond? By halting the publication of the State Department report. The year before, 'the State Department retracted its annual terrorism report and admitted that its initial version vastly understated the number of incidents.'

1,382 DAYS AFTER 9/11 -- OSAMA BIN LADEN STILL AT LARGE: More than three and a half years ago Bush vowed to capture terrorist mastermind Osama bin Laden 'dead or alive.' He's failed. The administration wants you to think we are hot on his tracks. CIA Director Porter Goss said he had 'an excellent idea' where bin Laden is hiding. Vice President Cheney said he had 'a pretty good idea of a general area that he's in.' Note to the Bush administration: close doesn't count in terrorist manhunts.

1,382 DAYS AFTER 9/11 -- IRAQ WAR MAKING THINGS WORSE: According to the CIA, '[t]he war in Iraq is creating a training and recruitment ground for a new generation of 'professionalized' Islamic terrorists.' An in-house CIA think tank concluded that, since the U.S.-led invasion, Iraq has served as 'a training ground, a recruitment ground.' In the poorly planned aftermath of the invasion 'hundreds of foreign terrorists flooded into Iraq across its unguarded borders.' There is a serious risk Iraq is now 'creating newly radicalized and experienced jihadis who return home to cause trouble in Saudi Arabia, Egypt, and elsewhere.'

1382 DAYS AFTER 9/11 -- LOOSE NUKES: The Bush administration has repeatedly asserted that nuclear weapons in the hands of our enemies is the greatest threat to America. "