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FROM COLD WAR TO HOT PEACE 473
Croatian artillery to locate the positions of rebel Serbs on the
ground. Reportedly, the drones were operated by the CIA from
a base at Zadar on the Adriatic coast. More importantly, NSA
supplied Croatian signal~ intelligence units with improved satellite
dishes for electronic surveillance of telephone traffic. 22
Sigint was a major factor in the Croatian success. The Croatian
equivalent of NSA, the National Central Electronic
Reconnaissance Agency (NSEI), was the most significant and
secretive part of the country's intelligence system. In 1995 it
was able to listen in on panicked phone calls to Slobodan
Milosevic , the Serbian leader in Belgrade, pleading for help as
Serb forces were pushed back during 'Operation Storm'. It was
also able to follow Milosevic in his efforts to put pressure on
neighbouring Montenegro. NSEI successfully monitored other
key participants across all regions of the former Yugoslavia.
These included the British, who found themselves subject to
aggressive sigint collection by multIple elements. However, while
NSEI was good on sigint, it was bad on its own communications
security. Accordingly, when the Croatians shared the sigint
they had collected en the British amongst themselves, this was
in turn picked up by additional parties and shared again.23
Milos Stankovic, a British major from the Parachute Regiment
who was serving on General Rose's United Nations staff at
Sarajevo, explains this strange situation in a section of his
memoirs appropriately entitled 'The Mad Hatter's Tea Party'. It
was accepted by the long-serving British officers accompanying
Rose that their offices were under technical surveillance by the
Americans, and probably the Croatians and Bosnian Muslims
too. However, the Bosnian Serb leaders in Pale, such as Radovan
Karadzic and Ratko Mladic, also seemed to have advance warning
of any British initiative. Stankovic patiently explained the situation
to a new initiate on the British team:
*
. .. the Serbs were bugging the buggers ... if you'll excuse
the pun. Everyone was bugging each other. No secrets in
the Balkans. The only people not playing this game was