Avatar photoMy Surreal Life

Just be glad this post doesn’t have a picture. Working at a public policy school—where most of the students are studying environmental or social policy issues—is a daily testament to the social divide between domestic and security policy communities. Now, dear readers, you know I like an obscene joke as much as anyone (Hey Baker!), …

Avatar photoWhat Ever Happened to CVID?

Jofi Joseph asks that churlish question, and a few others, in a Defense News (subscription only) op-ed about Six Party talks: The oft-repeated mantra for U.S. diplomats in 2003 and 2004 was this magical phrase: complete, verifiable and irreversible dismantlement, or CVID. In other words, any final agreement must encompass not only North Korea’s known …

Avatar photoRumsfeld to Visit China's 2nd Artillery HQ

Ann Scott Tyson of the Washington Post reports that Secretary Rumsfeld will “for the first time to visit the headquarters of China’s most secretive military command, the Second Artillery Corps … at Qinghe outside Beijing… (right).” The news reports are interesting because they confirm the location of the Second Artillery HQ as Qinghe (a suburb …

Avatar photoKerr Report

The National Security Archive has obtained (through FOIA) Intelligence and Analysis on Iraq: Issues for the Intelligence Community, the third of the three reviews into the Iraq WMD debacle led by former CIA Deputy Director Richard Kerr: The report, from July 2004, is the third of three prepared by a group of intelligence experts led …