When Hillary Clinton said said, “I have proposed an intelligence surge,” how many reporters immediately reminded her of three little letters: INR, the State Department’s Bureau of Intelligence and Research? Was there even one journalist?

The press glowed about INR as the only sane voice in the Intelligence Community when it came to Iraq’s WMD when Colin Powell was Secretary of State, but, when Hillary took charge and Benghazi erupted in 2012, reporters acted as if INR didn’t even exist.

Witness this:

“Clinton was able to deflect responsibility for initially incorrect assessments of the motivation of the attack, stating the State Department was relying on information from the intelligence community.”

But Secretary Clinton had her own, in-house intelligence service – INR, an integral yet independent part of that broader “intelligence community,” as the Intelligence Community itself, “seventeen separate organizations” notes:

“The Bureau of Intelligence and Research within the Department of State (DOS) provides the secretary of state with timely, objective analyses of global developments, as well as real-time insights from all-source intelligence. It serves as the focal point within the DOS for all policy issues and activities involving the Intelligence Community.”

INR itself boasts:

“The Bureau of Intelligence and Research's (INR) primary mission is to harness intelligence to serve U.S. diplomacy. Drawing on all-source intelligence, INR provides value-added independent analysis of events to U.S. State Department policymakers; ensures that intelligence activities support foreign policy and national security purposes; and serves as the focal point in the State Department for ensuring policy review of sensitive counterintelligence and law enforcement activities around the world.”

INR:

“the focal point in the State Department for ensuring policy review of sensitive counterintelligence and law enforcement activities around the world”;

“provides the secretary of state with timely, objective analyses of global developments… the focal point within the DOS for all policy issues and activities involving the Intelligence Community” –

Yet AWOL on Benghazi with Hillary in command?

Did INR analysts warn Secretary Clinton about dangers in Libya?

If so, she did…what?  If they didn’t, why not?

Did they inform her about:

• Al Qaeda in Iraq’s resurgent power that led to the Islamic State
• and Iran’s increasing influence on Prime Minister Maliki
• and the danger of U.S. troops abandoning Iraq to Iran’s sway?

If so, she did…what? If they didn’t, why not?

Just what did INR do to protect American interests in the Middle East in her tenure and at her direction?

Then there’s the original “surge” and Obama Defense Secretary Robert Gates’ comment:

“Hillary told the president that her opposition to the [2007] surge in Iraq had been political because she was facing him in the Iowa primary... The president conceded vaguely that opposition to the Iraq surge had been political. To hear the two of them making these admissions, and in front of me, was as surprising as it was dismaying”

Since her opposition to the surge was political – despite having voted for the Iraq War “with conviction” only later claiming “I did get it wrong in Iraq” –  what else can her 2016 call for an intelligence surge be other than political? Which of her moves has not been “political,” to benefit her political career?

In 2007 she famously said of the Iraq War:

“Obviously, if we knew then what we know now, there wouldn’t have been a vote, and I certainly wouldn’t have voted that way.”

Insert Benghazi for Iraq and ask,

• What does she know now that she didn’t know then?
• Why didn’t she know?
• Why didn’t INR?
• What changes did she make at INR since her analysts, supposedly, failed to inform her and she consequently failed to protect Chris Stevens, Sean Smith, Glen Doherty, and Tyrone Woods?

Democrat professor and columnist Walter Russell Mead wrote that the Obama Administration is “the most disastrous American foreign policy presidency since World War II.”

And Hillary Clinton was a full partner to that policy.

The late management guide Peter F. Drucker:

“An effective leader is not someone who is loved or admired. He or she is someone whose followers do the right things. Popularity is not leadership. Results are.”

The results of Hillary Clinton’s leadership are Syria, Libya, Afghanistan, and Iraq fighting for life as Russia, China, and North Korea strut while Hillary and Barack boast of their brilliance.