In the Loop: Are Gen. Odierno and Ambassador Hill Not Getting Along?

PROPHETS OF DOOM

The CIA is launching the Center on Climate Change and National Security as the focal point for its work on the subject. It's a small unit, the agency announced, and will be led by senior folks from the intelligence directorate and the science and technology directorate.

The focus is not on climate-change science, but rather on figuring out how predicted things such as desertification, rising sea levels, population shifts and heightened competition for natural resources will affect national security. The new office will provide analyses to guide policymakers when they work on international agreements on environmental issues.

We have ways of making you forecast?

STATE OF CONFUSION

There was some consternation Tuesday afternoon when the White House put out this curious announcement: "Harris D. Sherman, of California, to be Under Secretary of Agriculture for Natural Resources and Environment, vice Mark Edward Rey, resigned, which was sent to the Senate on September 10, 2009."

What could this be? Yet another vetting misstep? A tax problem? A nanny problem? Some health concern?

No, nothing like that. Seems the White House, in sending his nomination up to the Hill, mistakenly said that Sherman was from California instead of from Colorado. They don't use Wite-Out at the White House, we're told, so this meant they had to withdraw the nomination and then send it up again.

At ease, everyone.

BOUCHER, L'HOMME DE FER

Career diplomat Richard Boucher always seemed to end up on islands. He was ambassador to Cyprus and was top envoy to Hong Kong before that became part of China. Now he's retiring from the State Department after 32 years in the Foreign Service and headed for another job, not far from the Ile de la Cite in Paris, as a deputy secretary general of the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development.

Boucher, who was most recently assistant secretary of state for South and Central Asia, has the distinction of being the longest-serving spokesman or deputy spokesman in the history of the State Department. He logged more than nine years in those positions, serving for a total of six secretaries of state.

AMBASSADOR KING

Also on the ambassadorial front, our colleague Colum Lynch is hearing that Betty King, the Clinton administration's ambassador to the U.N. Economic and Social Council, will be the U.S. ambassador to the U.N. organizations in Geneva. King was part of a delegation that went to Geneva earlier this year to explore possible U.S. participation in the racism conference in Durban -- the decision was not to go. Eileen Donahoe, who's affiliated with Stanford University's Center for International Security and Cooperation and is married to eBay's chief executive, lost out to King but may get a consolation prize in the form of a new ambassadorial post to the U.N. Human Rights Council.