Yeah, right.

It's amazing how they keep screwing up and no one is responsible. Have no fear, they didn't mean it. Any one who gets caught robbing a 7-11 this is the excuse to use...

WASHINGTON - The State Department acknowledged Thursday it was wrong in reporting terrorism declined worldwide last year, a finding used to boost one of President Bush's chief foreign policy claims -- success in countering terror.

Instead, both the number of incidents and the toll in victims increased sharply, the department said. Statements by senior administration officials claiming success were based "on the facts as we had them at the time. The facts that we had were wrong," department spokesman Richard Boucher said.

The April report said attacks had declined last year to 190, down from 198 in 2002 and 346 in 2001. The 2003 figure would have been the lowest level in 34 years and a 45 percent drop since 2001, Bush's first year as president. The department is now working to determine the correct figures.

Rep. Henry A. Waxman, who had challenged the findings, said he was pleased that officials "have now recognized that they have a report that has been inaccurate, and based on the inaccurate information they tried to take self-serving political credit for the results that were wrong."

Among the mistakes, Boucher said, was that only part of 2003 was taken into account.

Secretary of State Colin Powell (news - web sites) said Thursday the errors were partly the result of new data collection procedures. "I can assure you it had nothing to do with putting out anything but the most honest, accurate information we can," he said.

http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&cid=542&ncid=542&e=1&u=/ap/20040610/ap_on_go_ca_st_pe/powell_terror_report_7