U.S. produces fewer terror convictions than officials claim (moved from ATSNN), page 1

According to a recent analysis performed by the Washington Post, arrest and conviction statistics used by Bush and his administration are misleading. Federal terrorism investigators have arrested and charged over 400 suspects and over half resulted in a conviction, according to President Bush. Upon analyzing the Justice Departments list of terrorism prosecutions, the Washington Post found only 39 convictions related to terrorism or national security.

www.msnbc.msn.com
Most of the others were convicted of relatively minor crimes such as making false statements and violating immigration law — and had nothing to do with terrorism, the analysis shows. For the entire list, the median sentence was just 11 months.

[....]

Among all the people charged as a result of terrorism probes in the three years after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks, The Post found no demonstrated connection to terrorism or terrorist groups for 180 of them.

Just one in nine individuals on the list had an alleged connection to the al Qaeda terrorist network and only 14 people convicted of terrorism-related crimes — including Faris and convicted Sept. 11 plotter Zacarias Moussaoui — have clear links to the group. Many more cases involve Colombian drug cartels, supporters of the Palestinian cause, Rwandan war criminals or others with no apparent ties to al Qaeda or its leader, Osama bin Laden.

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Bush is quoted as saying, "...federal terrorism investigations have resulted in charges against more than 400 suspects, and more than half of those charged have been convicted." If the Washington post is correct, this is a very misleading comment. How does making false statements or violating immigration law constitute terrorism?

There is a big difference between over 200 terrorist-related convictions and 39. I often feel the Bush administration uses misleading numbers to manipulate the overall view of this nation's success with the War on Terror. Findings such as these only serve to strengthen that feeling.

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www.washingtonpost.com