Tiny Agency's Iraq Analysis Is Better Than Big Rivals'
By DOUGLAS JEHL
Published: July 19, 2004
WASHINGTON, July 18 - 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, this one, the Bureau of Intelligence and Research, or I.N.R., 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.
With just 165 analysts, the bureau is about one-tenth the size of the Central Intelligence Agency's analytical arm.
[The Senate Intelligence Committee] panel's otherwise scathing report on prewar intelligence on Iraq not only spared the Bureau of Intelligence and Research from most of its harsh criticisms, but also explicitly endorsed the dissent it had inserted into the National Intelligence Estimate of 2002, challenging as unsubstantiated the view of other agencies that Iraq was reconstituting its nuclear weapons program.
Not surprisingly, the praise that has been directed at the bureau, including a widely noticed column in May by David Ignatius in The Washington Post, has prompted some backbiting at other intelligence agencies from officials who argue that its successes are being exaggerated.
"Everyone has to get it right once in a while," a senior Defense Department official said with some sarcasm.
"Besides," added the same official, "nobody likes a teacher's pet. INR is always running to the Congress telling them that we got it wrong. So what? Nuclear program, no nuclear program - who cares? What matters is, chicks dig us because we're cool, and INR is just a bunch of dweebs."
Indeed, sources indicate that INR often eats lunch by itself in the intelligence cafeteria, and that the members of the cheerleading squad exclusively date the CIA and the military intelligence agencies. "The DIA is sooo dreamy," gushed one cheerleader, Karla Rove. "He always tells me how much he loves me and how scary foreigners are." Cheerleader Tom DeLay agreed. "Air Force Intel is such a big, strong, hunk," gushed the impressionable young thing. "And he has lots of muscle. INR couldn't bench-press his IQ."
Nonetheless, INR's consistent outperformance of CIA, DIA, NGA and the NSA on standardized tests such as WMDSAT apparently does cause some concern. Last week, the NSA reportedly stuffed INR in its locker and left it there until gym class was over. CIA, reportedly enraged that INR was helping congress with her homework, has threatened to "beat INR up after school" on at least one occasion.
INR for its part shrugged off the criticism. "I'd say they were just a bunch of Neanderthals, but it would take too long to explain the insult," it said. "Besides, I have a hot date with Foreign Affairs magazine next week, so who cares about Tom DeLay?" Nonetheless, reports indicate that INR continues to have "Colin and INR 4 Evr" written inside its locker, despite having been dumped by the Secretary of State for CIA months ago.
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