Reported terror decline a ‘mistake’

WASHINGTON – A State Department report that incorrectly showed a decline last year in terrorism worldwide was a “big mistake,” Secretary of State Colin Powell said Sunday.

He said he was working with the CIA, which helped to compile the data, to determine why the errors got into the report.

“Very embarrassing. I am not a happy camper over this. We were wrong,” the secretary told NBC’s “Meet the Press.”

Powell said he planned a meeting on the issue Monday and that the intelligence agency was working through the weekend in preparation.

“I’m not saying it is responsible until I sit down with all of the individuals who had something to do with this report: CIA, my department, members of my department, other agencies that contributed to it,” Powell said.

“It’s a numbers error. It’s not a political judgment that said, ‘Let’s see if we can cook the books.’ We can’t get away with that now. Nobody was out to cook the books. Errors crept in,” he told ABC’s “This Week.”

He pledged to release a corrected report as quickly as possible.

A leading House Democrat, Rep. Henry Waxman of California, had challenged the findings, contending they were manipulated for political purposes. The conclusion that terrorism was on the decline was used to boost one of President Bush’s chief foreign-policy claims, success in countering terror.