Isard Spearheads Republic Intelligence Reform

SBI CENTRAL, CORUSCANT – Armand Isard, Director of the Senate Bureau of Intelligence, has been empowered by the Supreme Chancellor’s Loyalist Committee to reform the Republic’s largest intelligence organization in light of increased security concerns.

“For too long the unscrupulous have been taking advantage of chinks in the bureau’s armor. I say, ‘no more.’ The SBI will be a vital weapon in the fight against those who would fragment our Republic and not a tool of convenience for the wealthy and corrupt,” said Isard.

To that end, Isard has formed a Crisis Branch, a temporary division of Intelligence historically created when the need arises. Running this new branch is a committee of hand-picked Intelligence subdirectors from planetary bureaus throughout the Core Worlds. This is the first time in over 60 years that a Crisis Branch has been formed.

The first act of the Crisis Branch has been the firing of 32 remote intelligence subdirectors throughout the Mid Rim, an area Isard described as “rife with corruption.”

“There comes a time when a structure is so riddled by greddleback bugs that you have to tear it down and build anew. If that’s what it takes to root out the corrupt, that’s what I will do,” said the determined Isard.

Some Senators have expressed concerns that Palpatine’s measures have gone too far. “This is further proof that the Loyalist Committee is little more than a front to increase the Supreme Chancellor’s powers,” an agitated Senator Onaconda Farr said from the Rodian Consulate.

Isard asserts that such measures will help eliminate systemic flaws in Intelligence’s methods, preventing such notorious mishaps as the failure to predict the Naboo blockade of a decade ago, or the Yinchorri incident previous that.

The Crisis Branch will communicate directly with the Jedi Council and the Loyalist Committee. Security analysts predict that after SBI’s reform, three other agencies will undergo similar inspection: the Republican Security Organization, the Interstellar Consortium on Technology, and the Special Acquisitions Branch of the Library of the Republic.