By see-dubya • June 26, 2008 02:57 AM
“I thought this comment in the Corner was funny and sad–people who joined intel agencies hoping to support our warfighters and inform our policymakers about threats to our security have been tasked to fighting Al Gore’s battles. Trained analysts who could be tracking Al Qaeda or probing for weaknesses in Mugabe’s regime or watching China’s buildup or tracking smugglers or interrogating Khaled Sheikh Mohammed are instead cranking out a new National Intelligence Assessment on Global Climate Change.
“Yesterday Congress held hearings about it, and it sounded like some of the spooks didn’t much care to be there:
“‘2) Intelligence Committee Ranking Member Peter asked what intelligence was used for this estimate and whether intelligence collection requirements were prepared. National Intelligence Council Chairman Thomas Fingar said no clandestine intelligence was used and that intelligence officers extrapolated what would happen if the “mid-level estimates” by the UN’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change were correct. When Hoekstra asked why the U.S. Intelligence Community would write an major analysis of low to medium confidence that contained no intelligence, Fingar answered, ‘because you [Congress] told us to.’
“This is so stupid. Like we don’t have anything better to worry about.”
