CIA pursues video game on The Washington Times (thanks Rain-X) has word that the spooks in Washington are looking to enhance their outside-the-box thinking via a video game. Here's a bit on the project, as well as a reaction from one of the naysayers who likens this to another recent offbeat plan that came under quite a bit of fire:

The CIA is set to spend several million dollars to develop a video game aimed at helping its analysts think like terrorists, The Washington Times has learned.

The agency's Counter Terrorist Center, or CTC, is working with the Los Angeles-based Institute for Creative Technologies on a project designed to help its analysts, "think outside the box," a CIA spokesman said. The project is close to approval, but officials wouldn't comment on the exact cost of the program.

The institute, part of the University of Southern California, works with Hollywood movie and video game specialists.

Disclosure of the CIA video game project follows the Pentagon's recent cancellation of a plan for an online gambling parlor designed to predict a Middle East terrorist attack. The Pentagon's gambling scheme led to the resignation of retired Navy Vice Adm. John Poindexter, head of the Total Information Awareness data-mining counterterrorism program.

A military official said the CIA video game is "a ridiculous and absurd scheme that makes Poindexter's project look good in comparison."