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CIA Focuses on Doomsday Arms NewsMax.comUnder the Bush-Cheney administration, the CIA is gearing up as never before to monitor the growing spread of missile technology and mass-destruction weapons. George J. Tenet, director of the Central Intelligence Agency, has created a unit of 500 analysts, scientists and support personnel whose sole task will be to keep the new president and Congress better informed on worldwide nonproliferation and arms-control issues. Cutting through a clutter of largely uncoordinated intelligence efforts related to weapons of mass destruction, this move reflects the sharpened focus on these concerns expressed by President Bush, Vice President Dick Cheney and conservative members of Congress. They have all been alarmed by Communist China's acquisition of United States nuclear and conventional weapons technology, through both espionage and purchase during the eight years of the Clinton-Gore administration. This is taking place against a background of growing concern about not only China's mounting threat to U.S. security but also that of Russia and North Korea, which between them continue to sell missile technology to China, Libya, Iran, Pakistan and other countries. The Washington Post is reporting that: One senior CIA official said the U.S. intelligence community is stretched "very thin" trying to keep pace with the spread of nuclear arms in South Asia, proliferating ballistic-missile technology throughout Asia and the Middle East and attempts by terrorist groups and numerous countries to acquire or develop nuclear, chemical and biological weapons. In creating the new Weapons Intelligence, Nonproliferation and Arms Control Center within the CIA, Tenet said, he is striving for "increased synergy on key missile and nuclear issues as well as better integration between payload and delivery-system analyses. "By including all weapons, we will also be better able to surge and grow on issues such as advanced conventional weapons, missile defense and space-related systems. "This is a move that many in the weapons field have endorsed and called for over the years." What Tenet has done is to merge three existing CIA analytic staffs under Alan Foley, a veteran Soviet military analyst who, as head of the Arms Control Intelligence Staff, spent the past three years supporting arms-control treaty negotiators. Foley will report directly to the CIA chief. Foley will now be responsible as well for the existing Nonproliferation Center, which dealt with a broad range of proliferation issues, and the Office of Transnational Issues' Weapons Intelligence Staff, composed largely of scientists and engineers.
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