Terror attacks increased sharply last year to record high - WTNH.com -

WTNH.com - Terror attacks increased sharply last year to record high:

"The State Department is due to report to Congress and make public by the end of the month its annual report on terrorism around the world. The department announced last week it had decided to stop including an annual statistical account of incidents, turning the task over to a counterterrorism center Congress established last year.

In a letter to Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice that his staff circulated to the media, (Rep.) Waxman said the 2004 figure may be underestimated significantly. Many incidents that most Americans would regard as terror attacks were excluded from State Department data, he said, because they did not meet the department's definition.

Waxman has been critical of State Department reporting on terrorism. Last week, he accused Rice of denying Congress and the public important information about the number of incidents.

'There appears to be a pattern in the administration's approach to terrorism data: Favorable facts are revealed while unfavorable facts are suppressed,' Waxman said in a letter to the department's acting inspector general, Cameron R. Hume, demanding an investigation."