Condi Rice: Never One to Let Facts Get Ahead of Her Ego or Her President

From the Guardian:

A state department report which showed an increase in terrorism incidents around the world in 2004 was altered to strip it of its pessimistic statistics, it emerged yesterday.

The country-by-country report, Patterns of Global Terrorism, has come out every year since 1986, accompanied by statistical tables.

This year's edition showed a big increase, from 172 significant terrorist attacks in 2003 to 655 in 2004.

Much of the increase took place in Iraq, contradicting recent Pentagon claims that the insurgency there is waning.

Condoleezza Rice, the secretary of state, ordered the report to be withdrawn and a new one issued minus the statistics.

A Democratic congressman, Henry Waxman, has written an angry letter about the change to Cameron Hume, the state department's inspector general, arguing that Ms Rice's decision "denies the public access to important information about the incidence of terrorism".

Mr Waxman said: "There appears to be a pattern in the administration's approach to terrorism data: favourable facts are revealed while unfavourable facts are suppressed."

This isn't news, per se, but Condi's role in suppressing the evidence (while implied before) is rather certain now.