Nuclear Weapons

Senate Benghazi Report Urges Better Open Source Analysis

01.16.14 | 2 min read | Text by Steven Aftergood

The U.S. intelligence community needs to expand the collection and analysis of open source information, according to a Senate Intelligence Committee report on the 2012 attack on U.S. facilities in Benghazi, Libya.

But that recommendation ironically comes just as the CIA has terminated public and scholarly access to its open source collection of foreign news reports.

“The IC must place a greater emphasis on collecting intelligence and open-source information, including extremist-affiliated social media, to improve its ability to provide tactical warnings, especially in North Africa, the Middle East, and other areas where the U.S. has facilities under high threat,” the new report said (p. 25).

“The IC should expand its capabilities to conduct analysis of open source information including extremist-affiliated social media particularly in areas where it is hard to develop human intelligence or there has been recent political upheaval,” the report said.

In the past, public consumers of CIA open source reporting were able to provide a measure of analytic support as well as area expertise to policy makers.

Such public consumers contributed to “expanded participation in informed analysis of issues significant to U.S. policy interests,” said the CIA’s J. Niles Riddel in 1992.  Back then, intelligence agencies “value[d] the work of private sector scholars and analysts who avail themselves of our material and contribute significantly to the national debate on contemporary issues such as economic competitiveness.”

But today’s CIA decided to cut off public and scholarly access to such material through the World News Connection, to the detriment of the “informed analysis” that public consumers might have contributed to the national debate.

The entire archive of the former World News Connection from 1995-2013 has been acquired by East View Information Services. For a subscription fee, “Researchers will still have access to over 1 million foreign newspaper articles, broadcast transcripts and datelines from Beijing, Beirut, Bogota, Cairo, Jakarta, Iraq, Mogadishu, Qatar, Ramallah, Sarajevo, Vienna, and hundreds of other spots around the world.”

publications
See all publications
Nuclear Weapons
Report
Nuclear Notebook: Russian Nuclear Weapons, 2023

The FAS Nuclear Notebook is one of the most widely sourced reference materials worldwide for reliable information about the status of nuclear weapons, and has been published in the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists since 1987.. The Nuclear Notebook is researched and written by the staff of the Federation of American Scientists’ Nuclear Information Project: Director Hans […]

05.08.23 | 1 min read
read more
Nuclear Weapons
Blog
Video Indicates that Lida Air Base Might Get Russian “Nuclear Sharing” Mission in Belarus

On 14 April 2023, the Belarusian Ministry of Defence released a short video of a Su-25 pilot explaining his new role in delivering “special [nuclear] munitions” following his training in Russia. The features seen in the video, as well as several other open-source clues, suggest that Lida Air Base––located only 40 kilometers from the Lithuanian border and the […]

04.19.23 | 7 min read
read more
Nuclear Weapons
Blog
Was There a U.S. Nuclear Weapons Accident At a Dutch Air Base? [no, it was training, see update below]

A photo in a Los Alamos National Laboratory (LANL) student briefing from 2022 shows four people inspecting what appears to be a damaged B61 nuclear bomb.

04.03.23 | 7 min read
read more
Nuclear Weapons
Blog
STRATCOM Says China Has More ICBM Launchers Than The United States – We Have Questions

In early-February 2023, the Wall Street Journal reported that U.S. Strategic Command (STRATCOM) had informed Congress that China now has more launchers for Intercontinental Ballistic Missiles (ICBMs) than the United States. The report is the latest in a serious of revelations over the past four years about China’s growing nuclear weapons arsenal and the deepening […]

02.10.23 | 6 min read
read more