Back in the lead-up to the Iraq War one of the few, perhaps only, US intelligence agencies to be consistently skeptical and correct about Iraq’s phantom WMDs, was INR, the State Department’s in-house intelligence shop. (INR’s full name is the Bureau of Intelligence and Research.) That put INR frequently at loggerheads with then-arch-State Department bamboozler John Bolton, now US Ambassador to the United Nations.
During Bolton’s failed confirmation hearings, the head of INR during President Bush’s first term, Carl Ford, actually testified against Bolton’s nomination.
Now comes word that INR is being turned over to Randall Fort, vice president and director of global security for Goldman Sachs, who appears to be a confirmed Bolton supporter.
Fort wrote a letter in support of Bolton during his confirmation hearings.
