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

198the value of the close co-ordination under the UKUSA agreement.’ 1051 This refers to a treaty signed byLondon and Washington in June 1948, known as the UKUSA Comint Agreement. This set out thedivision of the Comint efforts that at that time were directed against Moscow and its allies. At a laterstage Canada, Australia and New Zealand also joined this agreement. 1052Sigint was of great importance to other countries too, such as Canada, a major supplier oftroops to UNPROFOR. The national Sigint agency, the Communications Security Establishment(CSE), was the most important supplier of intelligence in Ottawa. 1053 And in the Netherlands tooComint has played an important role in the past, for instance during the oil crisis. In later years too theAfdeling Verbindingsinlichtingen (Signals Intelligence Department/AVI) of the MIS supplied importantintelligence. 1054Disadvantages of SigintDespite its advantages, Sigint also has a number of disadvantages. These weak aspects and limitationsare however sometimes also applicable to other intelligence disciplines. Twelve disadvantages are listedbelow. Firstly, intercepts are always a matter of the greatest secrecy. The distribution of the Sigintproduct is thus always very limited. Only a very small circle of the highest political and militarypolicymakers have access to Sigint. This secrecy is also important in the context of intelligence-sharingbetween the United States and its allies. Sigint is often incorporated into intelligence reports, but Sigintis often available to just a few people and then mostly only on a need-to-know basis. The main reasonfor this is that leaked Sigint can cause considerable damage. If the person or organization beingmonitored, the ‘target’ in intelligence jargon, discovers this, then he or it can quickly change codes orciphers, thus at a stroke rendering useless all the previous effort expended in breaking this code orcipher.The disadvantage of this extreme secrecy is that Sigint often fails to reach the right people at thelower levels. Sometimes Sigint does not reach the commander on the ground, because it has beendecided that this Sigint has a need-to-know classification and hence the intelligence is not distributedany further. This was the case, for instance, during the war in Korea. The Comint not only failed toreach the US troops on the ground, but also failed to reach the US Navy and Air Force. As a resulthighly valuable tactical and strategic intelligence remained unused. Little was learned from the KoreanWar, because virtually the same thing happened in the Vietnam War. Important Sigint about thelocations of North Vietnamese defence systems and MIG fighter aircraft remained ‘hung up’ at theNSA and never reached the US Air Force and Navy. The consequences were far-reaching: more USaircraft were shot down and more pilots were killed needlessly.In the mid-1980s, under the Reagan administration, the NSA initially even refused to pass on tothe CIA intercepts about support provided by Cuba and Nicaragua for the armed resistance in ElSalvador. Such limitations also apply to other countries than the United States. In Moscow the KGBand the Military Intelligence Service (GRU) supplied their Sigint only to a small group within thePolitburo. Sharing Sigint with members of the Warsaw Pact was even officially forbidden. In Europeancountries too, such as the United Kingdom, Germany, France and the Netherlands, access to Sigint isconfined to a select group of policymakers and military commanders. 10551051 CM 4897, Intelligence and Security Committee, Annual Report 1999-2000, 02/11/00. For this see: http://www.officialdocuments.co.uk/document/cm48/4897/4897-02.htm.1052 Andrew, Eyes Only, p. 163 and Hager, Secret Power, pp. 61-62.1053 For the importance of CSE: Martin Rudner, ‘Canada’s Communications Security Establishment from Cold War toGlobalization’, in: Aid & Wiebes (eds.), Signals, pp. 97-128.1054 Cees Wiebes, ‘Dutch Sigint during the Cold War, 1945-1994’, in: Aid & Wiebes (eds.), Secrets, pp. 243-284.1055 Matthew Aid & Cees Wiebes, ‘Introduction on the importance of SIGINT in the Cold War’, in: Aid & Wiebes (eds.),Secrets, pp. 12-14.