SENTINEL WATCH January 13, 2003 ISSUE

Sifting for truth in the war on terrorism

By Channing Walker

SUDDENLY , War and Peace looks short. Consider the 12,000-page weapons declaration shipped from Iraq to the UN last month. Imagine sifting through reams of irrelevant data in the quest to uncover one or two useful clues.

In a way, the experts given that task represent a whole class of specialists at work in the war on terrorism who cull valuable nuggets of information from mountains of worthless gravel. They might, for instance, answer a phone-tip line—one where the public calls in, theoretically, with leads on possible threats. But apparently real leads are rare.