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

220Smith’s staff also received intelligence from the UK Defence Intelligence Staff (DIS). TheBosnia Cell in this service was also very nationally oriented, and chiefly had access to intelligencegathered by British and US services. This unit supplied mostly strategic intelligence to the Ministry ofDefence. The Bosnia Cell supplied almost no tactical intelligence. Much material from the DIS did goto General Smith, however, via a specially created secure communications system of the British Army.The contact person for this service on General Smith’s staff was his military assistant, LieutenantColonel Baxter. 1170 In addition to his own intelligence cell, Smith also received intelligence from theBritish ‘Black Box’ intelligence cell in Sarajevo, according to a foreign intelligence officer. 1171International negotiators, such as Lord Owen and Carl Bildt, also sometimes received Comintto support their work. Asked whether he received intelligence, Bildt answered that formally he did not,but informally he did. He did not wish to say much about this, but did admit that he also receivedComint when he asked for it. He had noticed that the raw data in the reports from the variousorganizations was often the same as the intelligence resulting from it. This implied that he received hisintelligence from his own Swedish Intelligence Service and from the Americans. According to Bildt,however, this intelligence did not constitute an important factor: moreover, it related to military affairsand this was of no use to him when he had to deal with international organizations. According to him,the Americans were usually busy counting tanks, and that was not relevant for a politician. Bildt citedBBC radio as a particularly important source of information for him. The information he received fromtheir broadcasts was, in his opinion, faster and often more relevant that the analysed and processedSigint reports. 1172In short, the basic Sigint situation was far from ideal. Nevertheless, it was in this situation thatjoint cooperation and mutual exchange on Bosnia needed to take place. It was a difficult affair, becausethe war in Bosnia led to divisions between the European countries and also put pressure on therelationship between the United States and the NATO member states. The political ideas about apossible solution to the armed conflict were disparate, and this was reflected in the way that Sigint was(or was not) shared.5. The results of Signals Intelligence in BosniaIn view of the extreme secrecy surrounding Sigint and the very limited distribution, in particular ofComint (often only on a need-to-know basis), it is not surprising that little is known about the results ofthe use of Sigint in the former Yugoslavia. Governments have never released any information aboutpossible results achieved through Comint. Moreover, such material has never been declassified on thebasis of the US Freedom of Information Act or any other similar act.Nonetheless, disclosures have occasionally been made in recent years. These were mostly byjournalists and other authors, who have found out more about the successes and failures of Sigintduring the war in the former Yugoslavia through interviews and off-the-record media briefings withmembers of the western intelligence community. This section aims to sketch the achieved results,successes and failures, based on these publications and the author’s own research. When describingtargets for Comint and Elint, a distinction will be drawn between the following categories: diplomatictraffic and military communications traffic of the warring factions (military targets), such as the ‘old’Yugoslav Army (the VJ) in Serbia, the VRS in the Republika Srpska, and the ABiH in Bosnia, in thatorder. This is followed by an examination of the Elint targets in and around Bosnia, and finallyUNPROFOR as target. 11731170 Confidential interview (8).1171 Confidential interview (9). It was not possible to confirm this through other interviews.1172 Interviews with Lord Owen, 27/06/01 and Carl Bildt, 13/12/00.1173 The Croat Sigint operations are not considered because Croatia had probably nothing to do with the attack on theeastern enclaves.