The Foreign Service Journal, June 2004

ton’s hidden jewels,” is the way Ignatius refers to INR, which inherit- ed the responsibilities of the wartime Office of Strategic Services in 1945. The bureau now has some 300 analysts — a fifth of the manpower at CIA’s Directorate of Intelligence and about a tenth of the Pentagon’s Defense Intelligence Agency. “Despite its small size (or more likely because of it), the bureau has what many regard as the best track record in the government as far as assessing intelligence issues for policy- makers,” states Ignatius. For instance: INR provided more accurate bomb damage assessments during the Vietnam War than did the Pentagon; INR warned in the late 1970s that if the deposed shah of Iran entered the U.S. for medical treatment, there would be trouble in Tehran (in the end the U.S. embassy was seized). But, emphasizes Ignatius, it is on Iraq that the INR has distinguished itself. A year ago INR criticized the administration’s theory that Iraq would be the beginning of a pro-democracy toppling of dominoes in the Arab world. It warned that Turkey would feel sufficiently threatened by the prospect of Kurdish autonomy that it might not allow U.S. troops to transit its borders into Iraq. The bureau was consistently skeptical of administration claims of WMD in Iraq, and warned before the March 2003 invasion about the political and ethnic turmoil that was likely to follow. State Department officials attribute the INR’s effectiveness to the fact that it has maintained a culture that sup- ports dissent — and demands exper- tise. The average INR analyst has 11 years of experience in his area of expertise, four times as long as the CIA average. It is a culture that rejects easy answers and shoddy work. INR analysts are typically skeptical and demand hard evidence. Moreover, Ignatius reports, be- cause the bureau is so intimately con- nected with State Department policy- makers, it never loses sight of what the consumers of intelligence actually want: sound judgment. Global Warming: A National Security Issue? A report, “An Abrupt Climate Change Scenario and Its Implications for United States National Security,” prepared for Pentagon Defense Adviser Andrew Marshall’s office last fall, caused a brief flurry in the international media early this year (full report at http://www.ems.org/ climate/pentagon_climatechange. pdf ). Some activists hoped that publicity on the report would galvanize pressure on the Bush administration to reconsid- er its stance on the issue. That does not appear to have happened. Nonethe- less, the fact that an agency such as the Pentagon decided to take a second look at climate change suggests this issue is not off the agenda yet. Contention over the severity and even the existence of global warming has been brewing for nearly 30 years. For the casual observer sifting through material and discerning objective information from subjective rants can be a daunting task, but here are some online resources that can help. Perhaps one of the best places to start is the Environmental Protection Agency ( http://yosemite.epa.gov/ oar/globalwarming.nsf/content/ind ex.html ). T he tone of EPA’s analysis, especially under the current adminis- tration, is not alarmist. It tries to main- tain a neutral tone while providing information with which the public can make its own decision. This site is a good introduction to the debate over global warming because it acknowl- edges the problem exists but also acknowledges uncertainty over its severity and impact. An engaging, if less balanced, resource is “Global Warming: Early Warning Signs” ( http://www.climate hotmap.org/ ). T his Web site offers an interactive world map that shows the local consequences of global warming. There is also a comprehen- sive section titled “Solutions” that offers various solutions for the public. By contrast with the even-handed EPA, the organizations that have cre- ated this map consider global warming to be a serious and life-threatening problem. This categorical view is also appar- ent at the Environmental Defense Web site ( http://www.environmental J U N E 2 0 0 4 / F O R E I G N S E R V I C E J O U R N A L 13 C YBERNOTES I n the beginning some people thought the Americans were helping them. There was no hatred toward Americans. After what happened in Iraq, there is an unprecedented hatred and the Americans know it. — Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak, Ap ril 23, www.metimes.com