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

212The military intelligence services of the Scandinavian countries also monitored thecommunications traffic in Bosnia. The Netherlands military intelligence service discovered, forinstance, that a Scandinavian intelligence service monitored the traffic between various military units ofthe Dutch signals battalion in Bosnia: this service had intercepted a conversation in which two soldiershad made highly derogatory remarks about their commander. 1124 The Danish military intelligenceservice managed to intercept telephone traffic between the Generals Rose and Mladic; these generalsspoke to each other very regularly on the telephone. 1125 The Austrian military intelligence service wasalso very active in the field of Sigint; the Balkans had long been one of Austria’s major centres ofinterest. For many years Austria had been a Third Party and had cooperated closely with the NSA. TheAustrian monitoring stations on Mount Königswarte close to the Slovenian border, in Salzburg, SanktJohann (Tyrol) and Mühlenviertel were the main stations aimed at the former Yugoslavia. The NSA issaid to have played a major part in funding these stations. 1126 This also applied to the Greek, Turkish,Spanish, Swiss and Hungarian Sigint organizations, which were active in monitoring signals traffic inthe Balkans. It is still not known what results they achieved.The Netherlands Signals intelligence serviceHence, the question now to be asked is whether Dutch Sigint operations also targeted the warringfactions in the Balkans. This was indeed the case: in 1995 there were three Dutch military units engagedin Sigint activities. These were the Eerste Luchtmacht Verbindingsgroep (First Air Force Signals Group), theVerbindingsbataljon (Signals Battalion) of the Netherlands Army and the TechnischeInformatieverwerkingscentrum (Technical Information Processing Centre) of the Netherlands Navy. In 1996these three services were merged to created the Afdeling Verbindingsinlichtingen (Sigint Department) of theMilitary Intelligence Service. These events were examined in detail in Chapter 4. This account showsthat many Western Sigint services were extremely interested in the developments in the military theatreof operations in Bosnia. This is not surprising in view of the involvement of European ground troopsin UNPROFOR and the role of the US Air Force within NATO. Much energy was expended, but thekey question to be examined in the rest of this chapter is what results were achieved. To this end wewill examine whether the intercepted messages were also shared between the allies withinUNPROFOR, and if analytic capability was also present; this is a crucial issue due to one of the majordisadvantages of Sigint, namely its extreme confidentiality and problems regarding its dissemination.4. The international exchange of Signals IntelligenceAs described above, the dissemination of intercepted signals is always accompanied by great secrecy.The exchange of Comint in particular is very limited; only a small circle of the highest political andmilitary policymakers are given access to this. This secrecy is also important when it comes to sharingintelligence between the United States and its allies. The British Foreign Secretary, Malcolm Rifkind, isreported to have resisted the release of intercepts made by the GCHQ which the NSA wanted to handover to the Yugoslavia Tribunal in support of the prosecution of Slobodan Milosevic. This related tointercepts from Cyprus, and which supposedly showed the connection between Milosevic and the Serbatrocities in Bosnia. At the end of 1996 too the Clinton administration was prepared to releaseintercepts for this purpose, but once again the British government blocked the process. 11271124 Interview with J.M.J. Bosch, 10/10/01.1125 Interview with H.A. Couzy, 04/10/01.1126 ‘USA zahlten Horchposten’ (USA paid for monitoring stations), Magazin, No. 16, 21/04/99.1127 D. Leigh & J. Calvert, ‘Rifkind put paid to war crimes inquiry’, The Observer, 18/05/97.