Back in ancient times when I was a current intel analyst on the Army Staff, CIA produced a classified basic intelligence document on nearly all the countries of the world - it had everything you ever wanted to know, and a lot you didn't. Then, sometime in the 70s or 80s they stopped producing it. Meanwhile, the Federal Research Division of the Library of Congress, on a DA contract, produces the Area handbook Series - Country Studies. They are good but not at all up to date. (El Salvador is current as of 1988!) DOD does produce some Country Handbooks - marked FOUO - with lots of pictures of military hardware. And that seems to be where we stand on basic intelligence, so we have to contract out for a study like this one - long after we really need it.
In the Spring 2005, the Security and Defense Studies Review (the e-journal of the Center for Hemispheric Defense Studies of NDU) published a special issue devoted to the ongoing UN PKO mission in Haiti. See link:

http://www.ndu.edu/chds/journal/indexarcspring05.htm

The study is being published this summer by NDU Press/Potomac Press under the title, Capacity Building for Peacekeeping: The Case of Haiti, with all the chapters that were in Spanish or Portuguese (about half) now translated to English - as soon as I finish the final edits. The final article/chapter (at the link in English) by my colleague Andres Saenz and me addresses, in part the issue of this forum - the dearth of basic intelligence and recommends several fixes. But even if implemented beyond my wildest dreams, the problem remains: "You can lead the horse to water, but you can't make him drink." (It really is as true of horses as it is of people.)