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

138Chapter 4Secret arms supplies and other covert actions1. Introduction‘Embargo! What Arms Embargo? 647Tuzla is a diplomatic can of worms.’ 648There is an element that, strictly speaking, has no connection with all the activities surrounding thegathering of intelligence, but is intertwined with it: covert action (special or clandestine operations).Covert action involves secret activities oriented to influencing foreign governments, persons andorganizations, or political, economic and military developments for the benefit of a country’s ownnational security policy. A crucial point is that the country’s own involvement remains strictly secret.There are various forms of covert action, ranging from propaganda, paramilitary or politicalactivities oriented to overthrowing or supporting a given regime; secret support to individuals ororganizations (trade unions, newspapers and political parties); secret arms supplies; economicdestabilization operations, and lethal attacks. 649 Covert action is therefore concerned with attempts toinfluence or to manipulate a country’s political policy. Strictly speaking, it is not an activity that falls withinthe definition of intelligence, although it can contribute to intelligence gathering. 650 Covert operations tookplace throughout the world during the Cold War. 651In this chapter, we will investigate which secret activities were carried out during the war inBosnia. Attention will be paid to the resources that foreign services threw into the fray to support or toweaken one of the warring factions. In this, little or no attention will be paid to forms of covert action suchas propaganda, coup attempts and assassination attempts. The reason is simple: so far nothing has beendiscovered on these activities. However, there will be a comprehensive discussion of one of the traditionalresources in secret operations, the clandestine arms supplies to one of the warring factions. Such anoperation, involving foreign services, was the secret arms supplies to the Bosnian army from Iran throughwhat was known as the ‘Croatian pipeline’, which we will return to in Section 2. We will consider the rolethat the United States played in this.Section 3 will go into further detail on the so-called Black Flights to Tuzla. In addition to Iran,other countries were actively involved in secret operations to supply the Armija Bosna i Hercegovina(ABiH) with weapons and ammunition. Section 4 will describe what has become known about thelogistical military support to the other warring factions, Bosnian Serbs and Croats, and the associatedrole of Serbia and other countries. We will also pay attention to the ICFY Monitoring Mission that was647 O’shea, Crisis at Bihac, p. 155.648 Ian Bruce, ‘Big stick may not work second time round’, The Herald (Glasgow), 23/02/94.649 Cf. Roy Godson, ‘Covert Action: neither exceptional tool nor magic bullet’, in: Godson, May & Schmitt, U.S. Intelligence at theCrossroads, p. 155 and Godson, Dirty Tricks or Trump Cards, passim.650 William J. Brands, ‘Intelligence and Foreign Policy: Dilemmas of A Democracy’, Foreign Affairs, Vol. 47 (1969), 2, p. 288. Thesame is true of counterintelligence (CI), which can best be defined as the identification and neutralization of the threat comingfrom foreign services and making attempts to manipulate these services and to use them for a country’s own benefit. CI is more aspecific form of intelligence, and it also includes the gathering of information on foreign services, which may be either hostile orfriendly services. CI also makes use of open and clandestine sources to gain information on the structure, working method andoperations of these services. CI can also involve the penetration and destabilization of such services. See: Roy Godson,‘Counterintelligence: An Introduction’, in: Godson, Intelligence, pp. 1-2. Further: Randall M. Fort, ‘Economic Espionage’, in:Godson, May & Schmitt, U.S. Intelligence at the Crossroads, p. 182. See also: Annual report of the National Security Service (BVD) 1995,pp. 29-30.651 For a historical overview of US operations: Richelson, The US Intelligence Community, pp. 342-364.