Annual State Department Report on Global Terrorism Is Out

What a blast of fresh air McClatchy (formerly Knight-Ridder) is. In an article about the just-released State Department report showing that terrorist incidents are up by 29% worldwide -- but with attacks in Iraq and Afghanistan accounting for most of the increase -- Warren P. Strobel and Jonathan S. Landay note the following:

President Bush and his aides routinely call Iraq the "central front" in Bush's war on terrorism and likely will say that the preponderance of attacks there and in Afghanistan prove their point.

But critics say the U.S. invasion and occupation of Iraq have worsened the terrorist threat.

The contention by Bush and Vice President Dick Cheney that al-Qaida terrorists were in Iraq and allied with the late Iraqi President Saddam Hussein before the invasion has been disproved on numerous fronts.

In September, a Senate Intelligence Committee report found that Saddam rejected pleas for assistance from al-Qaida leader Osama bin Laden and tried to capture another terrorist whose presence in Iraq is often cited by Cheney, the late Abu Musab al-Zarqawi.

"Postwar findings indicate that Saddam Hussein was distrustful of al-Qaida and viewed Islamic extremists as a threat to his regime, refusing all requests from al-Qaida to provide material or operational support," the Senate report said.

What other major news service would spend five paragraphs giving readers the truth instead of just passively repeating administration lies?

The McClatchy piece also includes this gem:

The annual report's release comes amid a bitter feud between the White House and Congress over funding for U.S. troops in Iraq and a deadline favored by Democrats to begin a U.S. troop withdrawal.

Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and her top aides earlier this week had considered postponing or downplaying the release of this year's edition of the terrorism report, officials in several agencies and on Capitol Hill said.

Ultimately, they decided to issue the report on or near the congressionally mandated deadline of Monday, the officials said.

"We're proceeding in normal fashion with the final review of this and expect it to be released early next week," State Department deputy spokesman Tom Casey said.

Kevin Drum's response:

Say what? They considered postponing a congressionally mandated report because it might be inconvenient for the president's war policy? Is there some kind of "political sensitivities" exemption in the law?

Does there need to be?