Last fall, the CIA opened a new center for studying the effects of climate change on national security. The Pentagon is following suit by including climate change as a security threat in the 2010 Quadrennial Defense Review.

The CIA also restarted a program, scrapped by President Bush, to share satellite data with climate change scientists. The CIA controls one of the most sophisticated satellite imaging networks in the world. Incidentally, these satellites gather invaluable data on arctic ice levels and glacial melting. 

Of course, the CIA’s entry (or reentry) into the field of climate change offers tons of new fodder for conspiracy theorists. Political opportunists are also taking the opportunity for cheap shots, claiming that Obama is using resources for climate change that should be used to combat terrorists. In reality, the CIA already gathers more satellite imagery than it can analyze by itself, and satellites have limited usefulness in combating al-Qaeda anyway. Climate change is also expected to increasingly contribute to future conflicts, including the emerging “cold war” for arctic resources.

Of the eight people killed by a suicide bomb at Forward Operating Base Chapman in Afghanistan, one was a captain in Jordanian intelligence. He was also a first cousin of the Jordanian king. The base was used by the CIA to gain information on targets for drone attacks. This is the last thing that Jordan wants to hear talked about in the ME media.

The suicide bomber was a Jordanian, named al-Balawi, who had been arrested in 2007 by authorities for ties to al-Qaeda. Jordan thought that they had turned him, and used him as a spy to find al-Qaeda's number 2, Ayman al-Zawahiri. Instead, al-Balawi acted as a double-agent, spying for the enemy.

Jordan stepped up its activities in fighting al-Qaeda after Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, the al-Qaeda in Mesopotamia leader, ordered the bombing of 3 Amman hotels in 2005. Jordanian intelligence played a crucial role in helping to kill Zarqawi in 2006.

The United States, although good at intercepting communications through the NSA (National Security Agency), has long relied on its allies for human intelligence in the Middle East. Israel's Mossad and Jordan's General Intelligence Department are two of the CIA's closest partners in the region.

This, of course, causes problems. Other countries manipulate what it chooses to share in order to serve its own interest. Yemen's claims that Iran is behind the Houthi rebellion seem to be a political ploy. Pakistanis handed over innocent people who they claimed worked for al-Qaeda just to get payments. In the event of regime change, US intel can become paralyzed. This is what happened when the Shah was overthrown in Iran-- the country became a black hole.

Finally, other countries' mistakes become ours too, as with the unfortunate case of al-Balawi.

Leon Panetta's editorial in the Washington Post is not a classic case of What Not To Read- as CIA Director, there is something inherently valuable in what Panetta says.  Neither is his argument filled with disingenuity, untruths, or the shoddy research that is standard for this category.

Still, Panetta's argument against investigating the CIA's past, and simply moving on, is wrong:

"I've become increasingly concerned that the focus on the past, especially in Congress, threatens to distract the CIA from its crucial core missions: intelligence collection, analysis and covert action."

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