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502 GCHQ GOES GLOBAL
NortheI!l Ireland. Forty minutes before the explosion, the words
'The bricks are in the wall' were heard on the same phone, a
code understood to mean the bomb was in place. White claims
that when Special Branch later asked why the information came
so late, GCHQ said: 'We missed it: 47 Understandably, the assertions
that GCHQ had intercepted mobile phone calls prior to the
detonation caused a public furore. Eventually the Intelligence
Commissioner, Sir Peter Gibson, was called on to investigate.
GCHQ is such a sensitive topic that Gibson's report was never
made public. Instead, a short summary was produced that was
hedged around by the excruciating secrecy that still accompanies
sigint. Nevertheless, to the discerning eye much was revealed.
Gibson effectively conceded that the mobile phones of the Real
IRA were indeed being monitored live by GCHQ - which underlines
that these people were a very high priority. But there were
two problems. First, the Real IRA knew this, and used obscure
code words. It is unlikely that the conversations GCHQ captured
prior to the bombing indicated clearly that an attack was under
way. Second, GCHQ had insisted on convoluted procedures that
restricted sigint very tightly to a few people in Northern Ireland.
Some GCHQ staff had been lent out to RUe's intelligence headquarters
in Belfast; however, Gibson himself concedes that:
*
Once intercept material reached RUC HQ and Special
Branch South, any further publication and release of that
material, even to another part, or other members, of Special
Branch, was subject to strict conditions imposed by GCHQ
... If those persons within the RUC HQ and Special Branch
South who received intelligence from GCHQ wanted to
disseminate it within the RUC or even within Special
Branch a set procedure had to be followed ... and a form
of words cleared with GCHQ.
*
This was hardly a procedure designed to permit immediate
action. Moreover, Gibson also shows that GCHQ had prioritised
the flow of sigint to RUC headquarters in Belf