THE Bush Administration faced deep embarrassment yesterday after having to admit that its claims for the “success” of the war on terrorism were wrong.

Instead of seeing terrorist attacks fall to an historic low last year, as trumpeted by the State Department this spring, officials conceded that the number of attacks had, in fact, risen sharply.

Colin Powell, the US Secretary of State, insisted that the mistake was innocent and was not an attempt to massage the figures on President Bush’s signature policy in an election year. He said: “I can assure you it had nothing to do with putting out anything but the most honest, accurate information we can.”

The State Department’s annual terrorism report, Patterns of Global Terrorism, said that the number of attacks last year fell to a 34-year low, down by 45 per cent since 2001.

Fewer people were being killed, injured and kidnapped, it said, and “mild” terrorism events with no fatalities had dwindled from 231 in 2001 to 21 last year.

Richard Armitage, General Powell’s deputy, said that the report provided “clear evidence that we are prevailing in the fight against global terrorism”. In fact, the number of terror attacks rose sharply during that period to a 20-year high. The report also failed to show that the worst kind of terrorist attacks had spread to at least ten countries.

The errors were uncovered after Henry Waxman, a Democratic congressman from California, asked the Congressional Research Service to check the facts. Mr Waxman complained that the State Department had refused to address his concerns three weeks ago. He had told General Powell at the time: “This manipulation may serve the Administration’s political interests, but it calls into serious doubt the integrity of the report.”

The State Department said that one reason the errors crept in was because officials had not included the whole year. The research was cut off at November 11 because the report had to meet a printing deadline.

One of the incidents it failed to record was the bomb attacks in Turkey of the British Consulate, a bank and two synagogues that killed 62 and injured more than 700.

General Powell said that a new report would be published soon.

Explore World News

• World Agenda

• Iraq News

• US & Americas News

• Europe News

• Middle East News

• Asia News

• Africa News

• Ireland News

Times Recommends

• Michael Jackson: Not the final chapter
• Indian Army spends10m rupees on golf buggies
• Brüno toned down for 15 rating