Wayne White is a scholar at Washington’s Middle East Institute and a Policy Expert at Washington’s Middle East Policy Council.  In 2005, he retired as Deputy Director of the Near East and South Asia Office in the Department of State’s Bureau of Intelligence and Research (INR/NESA).

Entering the Foreign Service in 1973, Mr. White served in Niger and Haiti in a variety of capacities, and as a peacekeeper in Egypt, Israel and the Sinai with the U.S. Sinai Field Mission.

Joining INR/NESA’s permanent staff in 1979, he served as editor of the “Arab-Israeli Situation Report,” Analyst for Iraq, Deputy Director of the Arab-Israeli Division, and Chief of the North Africa, Arabian Peninsula, Iraq and Iran Division before becoming Deputy Director of INR/NESA in 2002.  In 2003, he also took over as head of INR’s Iraq Team for 2 years.

During 26 years with INR, Mr. White spent 10 months in the Middle East during 1981-1986 briefing senior officials in the GCC states and Jordan (including the late King Hussein of Jordan), and then a number of trips to brief senior Israeli officials during 1987-1990, a number of months in Baghdad on TDY as Political Officer, and 12 years as State’s representative to NATO Middle East Expert Working Groups.  Mr. White also was an expert/advisor to the Iraq Study Group or Baker-Hamilton Commission.