Almost two weeks ago, BTC News White House correspondent Eric Brewer
reported a dramatic increase in terrorist attacks and fatalities from 2004 to 2005. Since then, no one in the institutional press has seen fit to examine the statistics or question the administration about them. Today, Eric went back to the press room and
asked Scott McClellan how the upsurge in attacks squares with the White House insistence that we're winning the "war on terror."
The good news is that Eric got a more responsive answer than he usually gets from Scott. The bad news is that the answer was — not surprisingly, but depressingly — completely insane.
What Eric found in looking at the numbers was an increase in terrorist attacks and fatalities in 2005 that is simply stunning, even by today's extremely high bar for that adjective. But according to Scott, it's cause for celebration. Here's the exchange:
ERIC BREWER: "According to data currently available at the Department of Homeland Security-funded Terrorism Knowledge Base, the incidence of terrorism increased markedly in 2005. Worldwide, attacks were up 51% from the year before, and the number of people killed in those attacks was up 36%. Since the year 2000, attacks are up 250% and deaths are up 550%.
How do you reconcile those numbers with your claim that you are winning the war on terrorism and putting terrorists out of business?"
SCOTT MCCLELLAN: "Well, just look at the facts, Eric. If you look at the facts, many of al-Qaeda’s known leadership have been put out of business. They’ve been brought to justice. They’ve either been captured or killed. No longer is America waiting and responding. We are on the offense; we are taking the fight to the enemy. We are engaged in a war on terrorism. The enemies recognize how high the stakes are, and one of the things that the President will talk about, will continue to talk about in the coming weeks, is that we continue to face a serious threat. This is a deadly and determined enemy. The difference is, now, that we’ve got them on the run. We’ve got them playing defense. We’re taking the fight to them, and all of us in the international community must continue to work together. We’ve been fortunate that we haven’t been hit again since the attacks of September 11th. That’s in no small part thanks to the great work of our men and women in uniform abroad, and because of the great work of our intelligence community, and the great work of our homeland security officials here at home, who have worked together using vital tools like the Patriot Act, and other tools to help disrupt plots and disrupt attacks, and there’s great progress being made. The President made it clear after September 11th that this was going to be a long war, but he’s going to continue acting, and leading, doing everything in his power to win that war so long as he is in office. And we also have to work to continue to advance freedom, and 2006 [sic] was a year of progress when it came to advancing freedom around the world. The Middle East is a dangerous troubled region, and that’s why it’s important that we continue to support the advance of democracy throughout that region."
Breathtaking, isn't it? Eric didn't get the opportunity to ask a followup, and he probably wouldn't have received a more rational response if he had, but the logical extension of Scott's answer is that when the entire Middle East is governed by fundamentalist fanatics and when terrorists have run out of people to kill, we will have won.
