The Foreign Service Journal, April 2005

duction of a CFR special report to make procedural recommendations that will promote bipartisan policies for the Congress and for the adminis- tration; and expansion of Friday bipar- tisan briefings to include more senior foreign policy staff of Capitol Hill. “The Council is a truly nonpartisan institution,” said CFR President Richard N. Haass. “This set of initia- tives is designed to help foster a return of bipartisanship at a critical moment in our country’s foreign policy.” State’s Foreign Arms Sales Reports Open to Question The reliability of the State Department’s annual reports to Congress on the quantity and dollar value of U.S. weapons licensed for sale internationally was thrown into question in a Jan. 28 Government Accountability Office report, “State Department Needs to Resolve Data Reliability Problems that Led to Inaccurate Reporting to Congress on Foreign Arms Sales” ( www.gao.gov/ new.items/d05156r.pdf ). Under Section 655 of the Foreign Assistance Act, the State Department reports annually to Congress on the details of foreign arms sales by U.S. industry. This report is the basis for congressional oversight of weapons sales. In the course of a review of the problem of proliferation of man- portable air defense systems, the GAO found that State reported to Congress that it had approved licens- es for the commercial sale of Stinger missiles to foreign countries in five instances in 2000 and 2002 — when U.S. government policy precludes the commercial sale of Stinger missiles. In the event, the State Department stated the information was incorrect, and submitted corrected reports to Congress. GAO proceeded to inves- tigate the reasons for State’s misreport- ing, reviewing Stinger-related docu- mentation for FY 1999 to 2003. The GAO established that no Stinger missiles were sold commer- cially during that time, but they identi- fied some serious weaknesses in the design of the Directorate of Defense Trade Control’s licensing database (for instance, only one commodity and one country code can be entered per license application, regardless of how many commodities and countries actu- ally appear on the application), and in the DDTC’s coding and reporting practices. DDTC officials argue the new licensing database, D-Trade, will solve the problem. But these same officials acknowledge that it will be years before D-Trade is fully developed and utilized. The weaknesses in the data- base and in coding, reporting and reli- ability-check practices, however, raise questions about the accuracy and reli- ability of the Section 655 report to Congress that need to be answered. GAO recommends that State make improvements to reduce the potential for further reporting errors. State has not commented on the GAO report and recommendations, which have been circulated to rele- vant congressional committees. Foreign Assistance Strategy for the 21st Century Relief efforts in the wake of the A P R I L 2 0 0 5 / F O R E I G N S E R V I C E J O U R N A L 11 C YBERNOTES The New York Public Library’s collection of prints, maps, posters, pho- tographs, illuminated manuscripts, sheet-music covers, dust jackets, menus and cigarette cards is now online. This is a fascinating and useful destination for any cyberspace browser or researcher. At this writing 275,000 images are available for free from the library’s vast holdings. The content of the images is far-ranging: from artwork such as Goya’s Disasters of War and rare illustrated books such as William Blake’s hand-print- ed masterpiece of 1793, America a Prophecy , to 16th-century maps and draw- ings depicting the landing of European explorers in the Western Hemisphere and contemporaneous engravings of battle scenes of the American Revolution. The geographic scope is international, with strong representation of New York, the U.S., Europe and the Far East. Though there are some post-1950 holdings, images from the Middle Ages to the mid-20th century predominate. For a quick overview of the gallery, the FAQ is helpful. Casual browsers need do no more than follow the leads under the heading EXPLORE. Serious researchers will appreciate the clear and abundant help offered under Browsing, Searching and the User’s Guide. Begun in 1999, the gallery is a work-in-progress that will continue to evolve as more visual collections are added, and navigation is enhanced. Site of the Month: http://digitalgallery.nypl.org