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

21additional financial and other investments, as well as to pay the hundreds if not thousands ofemployees for their work. It is obvious that national governments will have such intelligence ‘factories’at their disposal. Even small states generally have a national intelligence capacity in the form of civil andmilitary intelligence services. However, this was not the case at the UN.5. Intelligence and UN peacekeeping operationsThe author Walter Dorn passes harsh judgement on the relationship between intelligence andpeacekeeping operations in a UN context: ‘Many failures in the history of UN field operations mighthave been avoided had the UN taken a more forthright approach to intelligence and possessed astronger mandate to gather information and improve its information-gathering system.’ 56Since 1945, the use of intelligence in peacekeeping operations has always been difficult. Allthose involved understood well enough that some intelligence input had to exist, but the UN in NewYork never took any substantial action to improve the existing situation, even though intelligenceshould be an integrated part of planning and policy. After all, intelligence is essential for the assessmentof a political or military situation, and for taking the correct decisions. It can have far-reachingconsequences, so that demanding requirements have to be set on its quality. 57The only direct experience of the UN with its own intelligence collection capability took placein the 1960 Congo Crisis. In spite of the aversion that existed in New York, UN armed forces(especially at the initiative of Sweden) did set up a rudimentary intelligence cell: the MilitaryInformation Branch, which was operational between 1960 and 1964. The negative undertone of theterm ‘intelligence’, which inferred all sorts of illegal and shady operations, meant that it was avoided,with preference given to ‘information’, hence the unit’s title ‘Military Information Branch’. During thepeacekeeping operation in Congo, use was made of Sigint by intercepting communications traffic,Imint by deploying reconnaissance aircraft and Humint by systematically debriefing and interrogatingprisoners via informants and agents. Comint was a source of much valuable information during theKatanga campaign (Operation Grand Slam) in December 1962 and January 1963, the objective of which wasto remove foreign mercenaries, to restore freedom of movement, and to bring an end to the secession ofKatanga. The Swedish battalion in Congo used Sigint with great success in the period 1961-1962. Thecommunications of the other party, the Katangese units, were always ‘open’, because they assumed,incorrectly, that the Swedish soldiers could not understand Swahili, and therefore they revealedextremely valuable intelligence. 58 In addition, in November 1962 the Swedish government also madespecial photographic reconnaissance aircraft and photographic analysts available.During this operation, the UN had little contact with national intelligence services. There isnothing remarkable about this, because the CIA was operating in Congo with a goal entirely of its own,which did not correspond with that of the UN. According to Dorn, the American, British and Frenchintelligence services supplied little or no intelligence to the UN mission in Congo. This should have helpedconvince New York of the usefulness of having its own independent intelligence capability, by illustratingthat the agenda of foreign intelligence services may well differ from the UN agenda, even if thegovernments in the Security Council sanction the operation.In other peacekeeping operations, the UN had more intelligence available, especially becauseAmerican Imint was shared with the UN. This was shown (not handed over!) to the commander of theUN Emergency Force in the Middle East in the mid-1960s. For instance, a military consultant of theSecretary-General of the UN was shown Imint from the American U-2 espionage aircraft during the CubaCrisis in October 1962. Similarly, the military command of the UN Disengagement Observer Force56 A. Walter Dorn, ‘The Cloak and the Blue Beret: Limitations on Intelligence in UN Peacekeeping’, International Journal ofIntelligence and Counterintelligence, Vol. 12 (1998) 4, p. 414.57 De Valk, De BVD, p. 10.58 Pär Eriksson, ‘Intelligence and Peacekeeping Operations’, International Journal of Intelligence and Counterintelligence, Vol. 10(1997) 1, p. 11.