C. Wiebes - Intelligence en de oorlog in Bosnië 1992-1995. De rol van de inlichtingen- en veiligheidsdiensten - Engels

11Chapter 1The United Nations and Intelligence1. Introduction‘If you understand the situation in the former Yugoslavia, you musthave been poorly briefed’. 5The final assessment of the UNPROFOR Deputy Force Commander (DFC), the Canadian MajorGeneral Barry Ashton, as formulated in his End of Tour Report, did not beat about the bush:‘Operations were frequently impaired by a lack of credible and dedicatedintelligence means. This was the case, in particular, for information concerningSerb offensives against Srebrenica and Zepa and for Croat, Bosnian-Croat, andBosnian government offensive actions against the Bosnian Serbs in westernBosnia in September. While NATO information was often made available, thecaveats placed on it made it awkward to use in a transparent internationalorganization’.Ashton also pointed to a recent UN operation that had had the same problems.‘As has been pointed out for other UN missions, for example by Major-GeneralDallaire in Rwanda, operating in a complex and higher risk peacekeepingenvironment without adequate means of information limits the ability of UNforces to carry out their mandated tasks, impairs operational capabilities, andplaces UN personnel at greater risk’. 6The Swedish Force Commander, Lieutenant General Lars Eric Wahlgren, had gone before him in1993, arguing that the UN in New York ‘must rethink the entire approach to information versusintelligence gathering’. 7 The UNPROFOR Generals Francis Briquemont and Lewis MacKenzie alsocomplained about the problems surrounding the availability of intelligence during their UNPROFORperiod. 8 MacKenzie, for example, had urged the Department of Peacekeeping Operations (DPKO) ofthe UN in New York to use Imagery Intelligence (‘Imint’: see below for an explanation of the differenttypes of intelligence) in order to establish who was the greatest culprit of ceasefire violations aroundSarajevo. His request was rejected or ignored. He complained that the DPKO in New York just did notunderstand that the military and police situation in Bosnia was different from that of a normalpeacekeeping operation, such as the one in, for example, Cyprus. The rules of the UN had nonethelessnot been adapted to the new circumstances. MacKenzie was left empty-handed because ‘an outdatedattitude regarding intelligence kept us from gaining the information we needed’. Help was sometimesoffered by foreign intelligence services, but, because of the insecure connections, this intelligence oftenreached MacKenzie too late or not at all. 95 Smith, New Cloak. Old Dagger, p. 210.6 Confidential collection (6), End of Tour Report by Major General Barry W. Ashton, Deputy Force Commander UnitedNations Peace Forces (UNPF) in the Former Yugoslavia, ca. March 1996.7 Paul Johnston. ‘No Cloak and Dagger Required: Intelligence Support to UN Peacekeeping’, Intelligence and National Security,Vol. 12 (1997) 4, p. 104.8 John M. Nomikos, ‘Intelligence Requirements for Peacekeeping Operations’, RIEAS Papers and Reports, 07/02/01.9 MacKenzie, Peacekeeper, pp. 281-282.