It's progress because they say it is

Speaking of not involving details ...

The Bush administration's yardsticks for progress in its fight against terrorism are inadequate and do not show whether the United States is winning or losing, a study by a congressional think tank says.

"Although four years have gone by since September 11, government agencies have still not agreed on criteria to measure progress against terrorism, even though billions of dollars have been spent," said Raphael Perl, author of the internal report by the Congressional Research Service.

"The risk is that without these criteria, we just take action and we measure progress retrospectively against what we've done. And of course since we've done some stuff, we've made progress," he told Reuters in an interview on Monday.

Statistics often cited by U.S. officials -- such as the death or capture of more than two-thirds of top al Qaeda leaders and the seizure of over $200 million in terrorist funds -- do not show how much damage has actually been inflicted on militant groups, the report said.

[snip]

Administration officials were not immediately available for comment.

And on this report, I suspect they never will be.