Intel U

Press-Enterprise 4/17/07

America cannot effectively fight terrorism without good intelligence. So a new academic program at Cal State San Bernardino that focuses on intelligence careers is good not just for the Inland school, but also for the country.

The United States desperately needs more intelligence officers. The 9/11 commission report noted in 2004 that America's decades-long defunding of intelligence agencies, and the subsequent lack of intelligence officers, was "one of the most serious issues" that helped blind America to the Sept. 11 attacks.

The opening last week of the new Intelligence Community Center for Academic Excellence at Cal State San Bernardino certainly brings the school prestige. The university is now one of just 10 institutions nationwide running the program.

But the move also reflects the intelligence community's realization that it needs more ethnic and economic diversity than what comes through the Ivy League pipeline. Cal State San Bernardino professor Mark Clark, who directs the program spread across seven CSU campuses, said the school will tap a region with "the most diverse ethnic background" outside of New York City.

In coming years, Inland students will get the kind of training that is vital to America's intelligence gathering -- such as fluency in Arabic, Farsi and other languages. So in a very real sense, America's first line of defense against terrorism will start right here at home.