Department of State, Assistant Secretary of State for Intelligence and Research

Department/Agency: Department of State

Position:

Assistant Secretary of State for Intelligence and Research

Executive Schedule: Executive Level IV - Presidential Appointment with Senate Confirmation

Major Responsibilities:

Provide independent intelligence analysis for the Secretary of State
Principal liaison with Office of the Director of National Intelligence and State's representative in the U.S. Intelligence Community
Determine which countries belong on the State Sponsors of terrorism list
Identify global "hotspots" where timely diplomacy can prevent problems from spiraling out of control
Conduct polls around the world on public attitudes about U.S. foreign policy
Gather and disseminate information about humanitarian emergencies around the world
Decide what gets declassified within State

Key Competencies and Preferred Qualifications:

Intelligence expertise
Extensive diplomatic/Foreign Service experience

Insight:

The assistant secretary of state for intelligence and research runs the Secretary of State's in-house intelligence unit, providing independent analyses of intelligence from all sources to guide the Secretary and Deputy Secretary of State in difficult diplomatic situations and in making important foreign policy decisions. As head of State's Bureau of Intelligence and Research (INR), the assistant secretary also represents State on the U.S. Intelligence Community. This relatively small and largely anonymous bureau (165 analysts) won recognition after the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence revealed in 2004 that it was one of the few dissenting voices two years earlier when the Central Intelligence Agency and other U.S. intelligence shops concluded that Saddam Hussein's Iraq was furtively trying to build weapons of mass destruction - a judgment that was discredited after the United States invaded Iraq and toppled Hussein's regime.

The bureau harnesses intelligence to serve U.S. diplomacy and decision-making. It serves as the focal point within State for policy reviews of sensitive counterintelligence and law enforcement activities. Its intelligence forms the basis for the congressionally mandated report each year on which countries support terrorism. The bureau also analyzes geographical and international boundary issues. Although its principal customer is the State Department, the White House, National Security Council, DOD, and other agencies within the intelligence community also benefit from the work of the State Department's analysts. The Congressional Research Service, in a report on Intelligence Issues for Congress, describes the INR this way:

The State Department's Bureau of Intelligence and Research (INR) is one of the

smaller components of the Intelligence Community but is widely recognized for the high quality of its analysis. INR is strictly an analytical agency; diplomatic reporting from embassies, though highly useful to intelligence analysts, is not considered an intelligence function.

The INR attracted wide notice when the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence Committee revealed in its July 2003 probe of prewar intelligence that the bureau dissented from the October 2002 National Intelligence Estimate, which concluded that Iraq was trying to acquire materials to make nuclear weapons. The INR termed "highly dubious" reports that Iraq had been trying to procure uranium ore and yellowcake from African countries, according to the Senate intelligence panel's investigation. Analysts for the U.S. Department of Energy also dissented, believing that Iraq had been trying to obtain aluminum tubes for use in conventional rockets, not nuclear warheads.

The Senate report also discussed the intelligence behind Secretary of State Colin Powell's dramatic, prewar speech before the U.N. Security Council in February 2003, where Powell presented to the world the U.S. case that Iraq was hiding weapons of mass destruction. Some of the intelligence on which he based his arguments later was discredited. INR got to vet Powell's speech in advance of delivery. "Most but not all of the material to which INR objected was removed," according to a summary of the Senate panel's report by the Arms Control Association, a nonpartisan group.

A 2004 New York Times article about the INR's work was headlined Tiny Agency's Iraq Analysis Is Better Than Big Rivals'. The Times reported, "On Iraq and illicit weapons, the intelligence agency that got it least wrong, it now turns out, was one of the smallest -- a State Department bureau with no spies, no satellites and a reputation for contrariness. Almost alone among intelligence agencies... the Bureau of Intelligence and Research, or INR, does not report to either the White House or the Pentagon. Its approach is purely analytical, so that it owes no allegiance to particular agents, imagery or intercepts. It shuns the worst-case plans sometimes sought by military commanders." The article noted that the INR's staff of 165 analysts is a fraction the size of the analytical arms of the CIA (more than 1,500) and Defense Intelligence Agency (more than 3,000). It said that the INR's analysts tended to be older, more experienced and more likely to come from academic backgrounds. It quoted Carl W. Ford Jr., who led the INR from 2001 to 2003, as saying that his analysts were "a curmudgeon-like group who delight in being different and getting to the body of something and not caring what other people think.'' Still, the INR, like its intelligence brethren, got in wrong in concluding that Iraq possessed chemical and biological weapons.

Washington Monthly, in a 2005 article on the INR, said, "Over the last decade, INR has frequently arrived at more prescient conclusions than the CIA and other intelligence agencies about the nature of threats to the United States." It quoted Richard Clarke, a former counterterrorism adviser to three presidents, as saying it was "the intelligence-analysis organization with the best track record for accuracy." The magazine said the new director of national intelligence could learn a lot from the small intelligence shop inside the State Department. "INR provides a terrific model for how the analytic shops at different agencies should operate. The new czar need only learn its secrets: that its performance derives from its analysts' high quality and depth of experience, from their facility with foreign languages, from their human contacts within the regions they study, and, most importantly, from an institutional culture that does not just tolerate dissent--but actually encourages it," the magazine said.

Assistant Secretary Randall Fort told the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence in January 2007 that he regarded his agency as "an intelligence ‘force multiplier'" within the U.S. intelligence community. Fort, a former Capitol Hill intelligence aide and director of global security for Goldman Sachs, said that diplomacy plays a pivotal role "in anticipating, understanding and countering real and potential threats to vital U.S. interests. INR's mandate is to provide the timely, accurate and actionable intelligence analysis necessary to enable US diplomacy to confront and address those threats and challenges, and we are uniquely placed to do so." He added, "INR seeks to identify threats, challenges, and opportunities at an early stage to provide policymakers time to take appropriate action."

He also provided for the public record an overview of how the INR goes about its tasks.

"INR is working within the Department and with our Embassies and smaller posts abroad to help policymakers both anticipate emergent crises and understand their long-term repercussions," Fort said. As an example, he cited INR's Humanitarian Information Unit, which posts on its public web site information about humanitarian emergencies around the world. The web site helps facilitate coordination between U.S. government civilian and military resources and private sector humanitarian response groups, Fort said. "The HIU is an excellent example of an open source intelligence ‘force multiplier.'"

Fort said that, "INR conducts public opinion polling and focus group surveys throughout the world in order to gauge how US policies are perceived, as well as how individuals in key countries perceive the role and behavior of their own governments." He added, "The sharper our understanding of the forces that drive those perceptions, the better prepared we will be to anticipate emergent threats."

Fort discussed the threat to peace posed by failed states where terrorists can find havens. This "points to the critical intersections of diplomacy, democracy promotion, economic reconstruction, and military security," he said. "INR analysts routinely monitor local and regional political dynamics, economic and financial developments, and shifts in military operations, doctrine and thinking. Deep analytic expertise is required to confidently tease apart and make sense of seemingly unrelated trends and anomalies in these areas, even if our policy colleagues might not wish to hear about them."

INR publishes a quarterly report on "global hotspots" designed "to alert the Secretary of State and other interested policymakers to potentially troublesome trends that we have detected," the assistant secretary said. "Our focus is on areas that may have received only limited policy attention, but where significant threats may emerge in the future. The aim is to identify areas where diplomatic action could make a difference, either by shifting the direction of a trend to forestall a threat from manifesting, or by enabling actions that could mitigate the impact of a crisis." He noted that the first such report in November 2006 addressed issues that "ranged from repercussions of electoral fallout in Mexico to concerns over political violence in Bangladesh and friction between Russia and Georgia." That friction erupted briefly into fighting between Russia and Georgia in August 2008 over the breakaway Georgian republic of South Ossetia.

Fort concluded his discussion of INR's work with these words: "I believe INR's abiding challenge will be not only to maintain our vigilant watch over those threats that we know present a clear danger to U.S. interests; going forward, we must also strive to think, analyze and write strategically in order to identify the challenges and opportunities arising from the complex and dynamic global environment."

The bureau's budget has grown sharply in recent years, from under $50 million in fiscal 2007 to nearly $60 million proposed for 2009. Its staff has grown at a more modest pace, from 305 to 313. The State Department's budget justification to Congress describes INR this way:

The primary mission of the Bureau of Intelligence and Research (INR) is to provide all-source intelligence support to U.S. diplomats. The Bureau is at the nexus of intelligence and foreign policy. It has a key role in ensuring that intelligence activities are consistent with U.S. foreign policy, and that other components of the Intelligence Community (IC) understand the information and analysis needs of senior foreign policy decision makers. INR's portfolio is as broad and diverse as the Secretary's global agenda. This requires that INR have on board experts who understand current policy concerns as well as the historical context to provide value-added input to policymakers and timely guidance to the IC. INR performs several critical functions including all-source analysis, intelligence policy and coordination, polling and media analysis, and conferences and workshops to integrate outside expertise. INR ensures that diplomats, policymakers, and other consumers of intelligence have access to focused intelligence products that will help build democracies, promote economic stability, provide humanitarian assistance, and fight terrorism, disease, and the proliferation of Weapons of Mass Destruction (WMD) around the world.

The bureau said its priorities for 2009 include "expanding electronic dissemination of intelligence so that Department policymakers can access intelligence quickly and securely from the desktop," as well as increasing collaboration and information sharing on humanitarian issues. It also serves as a leader in conducting foreign public opinion surveys and polls to inform U.S. public diplomacy initiatives. It commissioned 236 polls in fiscal 2007, providing results to policymakers at the White House, the National Security Council, the State Department and other members of the Intelligence Community. It polls the Iraqi people about the security and reconstruction efforts there, providing both "strategic information on political realignments within the country and tactical information on the operational environment encountered by U.S. troops on the ground," it said. In 2006 it carried out sustained research on Muslim minorities in Europe, "particularly delving into the world views of Muslims trying to reconcile their faith with modern life in Europe," and also "examined the dynamics of leftist-leaning populism in Latin America: a new complication in U.S. efforts to secure free trade and mutual security in the region." The bureau also monitored democratic transitions in Ukraine, Georgia, and Kyrgyzstan.

Key Relationships – Within the Government:

Deputy Secretary of State
Director of National Intelligence
Director and Deputy Director, Central Intelligence Agency
National Security Advisor, National Security Council, The White House
Under Secretary of Defense for Intelligence, U.S. Department of Defense
Director, Defense Intelligence Agency, DOD
Director, National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency, DOD
Director, National Reconnaissance Office, DOD|
Director and Deputy Director, U.S. Department of Homeland Security
Administrator, Drug Enforcement Administration, U.S. Department of Justice
Director and Deputy Director, Federal Bureau of Investigation, Justice
Director, National Security Agency

Key Relationships – Outside the Government:

International Police Organization INTERPOL
Government Communications Headquarters (GCHQ), United Kingdom
Other foreign intelligence services

Nomination Referred to:

Senate Committee on Foreign Relations

Current Position Profile:

1. Philip S. Goldberg (Confirmed: Feb 9, 2010). A career member of the senior foreign service, has served as U.S. ambassador to Bolivia, chief of mission in Kosovo and charge d'affaires and deputy chief of mission in Chile.

Recent Position Profiles:

2. Randall Fort (2006-2009). Former congressional aide and director of Treasury's Office of Intelligence Support. Deputy executive director of President Ronald Reagan's Foreign Intelligence Advisory Board. Former director of global security for Goldman Sachs. Speaks Japanese; once did a stint as research assistant for a member of the Japanese Diet.

3. Thomas Fingar, Ph.D. (2004-05). Political scientist. Currently deputy director of national intelligence for analysis. State Department analyst 1986-2005. Former director of Stanford University's U.S.-China Relations Programs and research associate, Center for International Security and Arms Control. Began career as German linguist and intelligence analyst for U.S. Army.

4. Carl W. Ford, Jr., M.A. (2001-2003). Former China and East Asia analyst for the Central Intelligence Agency. Senate Committee on Foreign Relations staff member. Former deputy assistant secretary of defense. Foreign policy and defense adviser to John Glenn during 1984 presidential campaign. Army infantry and intelligence officer in Vietnam.