The CIA has a lot on its plate these days, mainly a global war on terror…oops, I mean “ongoing military operations throughout the world.” Besides detecting terror plots, the agency must also provide policy makers with accurate and timely information on threats to proliferation, i.e. Iran, North Korea, Russia, etc. Add to that the ever increasing threat from China, and now, courtesy of the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence, the director of Central Intelligence is also required to:
(1) assess the political, social, agricultural, and economic risks during the 30-year period beginning on the date of enactment of this Act posed by global climate change for countries or regions that are– (A) of strategic national security importance to the United States and at risk of significant impact due to global climate change; or (B) at significant risk of large-scale humanitarian suffering with cross-border implications as predicted on the basis of the assessments; (2) assess the capabilities of the countries or regions described in subparagraph (A) or (B) of paragraph (1) to respond to adverse national security impacts caused by global climate change; (3) assess the strategic challenges and opportunities posed to the United States by the risks described in paragraph (1); and (4) assess the impact of global climate change on the activities of the United States intelligence community throughout the world. (c) Coordination- In preparing the national intelligence estimate under this section, the Director of National Intelligence shall consult with representatives of the scientific community, and, as appropriate, multilateral institutions and allies of the United States that have conducted significant research on global climate change.
This according to Ares blogger Catherine MacRae Hockmuth, who also includes this reaction from the committee’s Republicans:
The task of the intelligence community is to steal foreign secrets. Global climate change simply does not require clandestinely acquired, classified information or analysis. The United States is spending more than $6.5 billion in FY07 on global climate change. Thousands of reports have been paid for on global climate change across the U.S. government. Hundreds of universities and private organizations have written many more reports on climate change. This is not the time to force our intelligence professionals to waste scarce intelligence resources on trendy topics such as global warming for the purposes of `political correctness’.
Byron York writes on this over at NRO today:
Hoekstra and other Republicans worry that Democrats want to return intelligence policy to a time in the 1990s when the Clinton administration established what was known as the DCI Environmental Center within the CIA. The Center used satellite spying resources to track environmental matters. “They took pictures of volcanoes and sea turtle nests and took air samples of air pollution, as opposed to checking for traces of biological or chemical weapons, and it was all done at the behest of Al Gore,” says one Republican knowledgeable about intelligence affairs.
Former CIA director George Tenet mentions Gore’s environmental emphasis in his new book, At the Center of the Storm. “True to his interests, [Gore] had a fascination for wonkish issues,” Tenet writes. “He asked lots of questions about the impact on national security of water shortages, disease and environmental concerns.” Tenet reveals that some inside the CIA derided Gore’s priorities as “bugs and bunnies.”
“We started allocating precious intelligence resources to environmental issues just as al Qaeda was on the upswing,” says Rep. Hoekstra. “We were becoming politically correct. My fear is that we’re going back to the same place.”
“We started allocating precious intelligence resources to environmental issues just as al Qaeda was on the upswing,” says Rep. Hoekstra. “We were becoming politically correct. My fear is that we’re going back to the same place.”
Surely the DCI can find better ways to spend his time than worrying about “bugs and bunnies.”
