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

215The NSA and CIA, as well as GCHQ, did not intend to institute extensive intelligence exchange withthe Netherlands. In the year 2003 this matter has still not been arranged to the satisfaction of theDutch. 1139The complaints from the Cold War were repeated in the 1990s: the NSA received much moreSigint from its European partners than it itself was prepared to share with them. One specific Europeancomplaint concerned the NSA’s refusal to share high-level (the most secret and thus most valuable)Comint. This had been the case in the Cold War too. As early as 1951 the forerunner of the DutchSigint agency stopped the weekly transmission of intercepts of communications traffic from the Sovietembassy in The Hague, which were supplied to the CIA station attached to the American embassy inThe Hague. The reason for this embargo was that the CIA refused to share its analysis of theseintercepts with The Hague. So little has changed in this respect.Third Party countries received the same treatment from America. A former Norwegianintelligence officer stated: ‘Where it was not in the interest of the NSA that we should possesscryptographic insight, they did not have to share such matters with us.’ 1140 A British analyst recentlywrote the following: ‘America’s allies have long complained that it is particularly mean with itsintelligence’. 1141 Staff of the UN verification mission in Iraq (UNSCOM) constantly complained that alltheir Sigint was supplied to the NSA, but that they seldom got to see the results. 1142The American refusal to share high-level Comint is based on a directive dating from the 1950s,which derived directly from the NSA. It is not clear whether this directive is still in force, 1143 but this isprobably the case. The bilateral Sigint relations of the NSA with other countries were certainlycontinued into the 1990s. In the process, some partners received more intelligence than others; this wasoften determined by geopolitical and geographical considerations. Norway, for instance, always had afavoured position, but this was because the NSA was dependent on Norway for the information thatwas indispensable to the Americans: Norwegian monitoring stations provided Foreign InstrumentationSigint on the Soviet launch base in Plesetsk and the testing base at Nenoksa on the White Sea. 1144Other Third Parties, such as Greece and Turkey, were involved less generously. The relationswith these countries were regarded as a relic of the Cold War. European intelligence officers alsosuspected that the NSA sometimes played off these two countries against each other. The problem ofdependence on the Americans still exists today. Some European countries tried to overcome this bycollaborating more closely. France and the United Kingdom exchanged Sigint, for instance, even in theperiod following 1966 when Paris had left the military structure of NATO. Since the 1970s Paris andLondon have exchanged much Sigint relating to international terrorism. Another sign that Europeancountries were trying to decrease their dependence on the Americans was seen during the FalklandsWar in 1982. The United States initially failed to help London, upon which the GCHQ received directhelp from allies such as the Netherlands, France, Germany and Norway. 1145 Moreover, on Frenchinitiative the cooperation with the Bundesnachrichtendienst was increased through bilateral agreements.And since the end of the 1990s the cooperation between the Dutch, German and French monitoringservices has been growing strongly. Together with Denmark and Belgium, a so-called ‘Group of Five’ isslowly taking shape, intended as a counterbalance to UKUSA. 1146 The irritation in Washington at thisfact is clearly noticeable. It was revealed by the sudden decision to close the sizeable US monitoringstation at Bad Aibling, Germany. 11471139 Confidential interview (21).1140 Riste, Norwegian, p. 95.1141 Grant, Intimate Relations, pp. 4-5.1142 Marian Wilkinson, ‘Revealed: Our Spies in Iraq’, Sydney Morning Herald, 28/01/99.1143 Matthew Aid & Cees Wiebes, ‘Conclusions’, in: Aid & Wiebes (eds.), Secrets, p. 323.1144 Berdal, The United States, pp. 30-31.1145 Grant, Intimate Relations, p. 6.1146 Confidential interview (22).1147 Duncan Campbell, ‘Fight over Euro-intelligence plans’, The Guardian, 03/07/01.