The Bureau of Intelligence and Research (INR) is an intelligence bureau in the U.S. State Department tasked with analyzing information. Originally founded as the Research and Analysis Branch of the Office of Strategic Services (1942-1945), it was transferred to the State Department at the end of World War II. The Bureau of Intelligence and Research is part of the United States Intelligence Community, of which there are 16 branches. The current number of employees and its budget is classified. The Bureau is headed by the Assistant Secretary of State for Intelligence and Research.
In July 2004, the United States Senate Select Committee on Intelligence issued a scathing report on prewar intelligence on Iraq. INR was spared the poor performance review that most other intelligence agencies received, and the panel specifically endorsed the dissent that INR inserted into the National Intelligence Estimate of 2002. The bureau is being studied as a positive example, as Congress debates how to best reform U.S. intelligence agencies in the wake of the 2003 invasion of Iraq.
In May 2004, the National Security Archive released a secretive 1969 report on the Vietnam War commissioned by the White House and executed by INR, then led by Thomas Hughes. Highly critical of the current strategy in Vietnam and highly revealing of the political atmosphere in the White House itself, this declassified document has recently highlighted parallels between the situation in Vietnam at the time and the current war in Iraq.
In June 2009, the FBI arrested former INR employee Walter Kendall Myers on charges of serving as an illegal agent of the Cuban government for nearly 30 years and conspiring to provide classified U.S. information to the Cuban government. Myers’ arrest was the culmination of a 3-year joint FBI/Department of State Diplomatic Security investigation. Myers worked in the INR from 2000 until October 2007.
On October 23, 2009, President Barack Obama nominated Philip S. Goldberg to be the Assistant Secretary of State for Intelligence and Research; his nomination was confirmed by the Senate on February 9, 2010.
Famous quotes containing the words bureau of, bureau, intelligence and/or research:
“We know what the animals do, what are the needs of the beaver, the bear, the salmon, and other creatures, because long ago men married them and acquired this knowledge from their animal wives. Today the priests say we lie, but we know better.”
—native American belief, quoted by D. Jenness in “The Carrier Indians of the Bulkley River,” Bulletin no. 133, Bureau of American Ethnology (1943)
“If this bureau had a prayer for use around horse parks, it would go something like this: Lead us not among bleeding-hearts to whom horses are cute or sweet or adorable, and deliver us from horse-lovers. Amen.... With that established, let’s talk about the death of Seabiscuit the other night. It isn’t mawkish to say, there was a racehorse, a horse that gave race fans as much pleasure as any that ever lived and one that will be remembered as long and as warmly.”
—Walter Wellesley (Red)
“Give me a sentence which no intelligence can understand. There must be a kind of life and palpitation to it, and under its words a kind of blood must circulate forever.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)
“The research on gender and morality shows that women and men looked at the world through very different moral frameworks. Men tend to think in terms of “justice” or absolute “right and wrong,” while women define morality through the filter of how relationships will be affected. Given these basic differences, why would men and women suddenly agree about disciplining children?”
—Ron Taffel (20th century)