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

235get O’Grady out of Bosnian Serb territory alive (see Chapter 2 of Part III of the main Srebrenicareport).1248 Despite the technical causes that led to the failure to prevent O’Grady’s F-16 from beingdowned, the alliance cooperation in the field of Elint was generally good. It has already been concludedthat this was much less so regarding the exchange of American high-level military and political Comint.The role played by the Netherlands in this Comint flow has not yet been discussed. This chapter thusconcludes with a closer examination of the position of the Netherlands Military Intelligence Service inthe field of Sigint.6. Dutch Sigint in the Bosnian conflictBetween 1992 and 1995 there were three units engaged in Sigint: the First Tactical Air Force SignalsGroups (1LVG), the 898th Signals Battalion (898 Vbdbat) of the Royal Netherlands Army, and theTechnical Information Processing Centre (TIVC) of the Royal Netherlands Navy. In 1996 these threeservices were merged to produce the Afdeling Verbindingsinlichtingen (Sigint Department, AVI) of theMilitary Intelligence Service (MIS). Until this time each of the three branches of the Armed Forcesintercepted Sigint for itself.Around 1995 the situation was as follows. The 898th Signals Battalion, with its home base atEibergen, was then still under direct command of the Commander in Chief of the Royal NetherlandsArmy. The Sigint material was passed to the MIS/Army. The Sigint units at Eemnes, Zoutkamp andAmsterdam were then under the command of the MIS/Navy. Eibergen concentrated mostly onintercepting military communications traffic on the HF frequency. The TIVC, with its Grangerantennas in Eemnes, also concentrated on intercepting international traffic on the HF frequency andalso, via two receiving dishes in Zoutkamp, on intercepting signals sent by satellite. The Sigint sectionof the Air Force, 1LVG, also concentrated on intercepting military traffic on the HF frequency. Thissection did not however engage in any interception of HF links in the former Yugoslavia. 1249Interception of Comint was carried out in various ways. The first method is to search the ether, andespecially satellite links, with a ‘vacuum cleaner’. This is done with the help of a computerizeddictionary that can search for key words. Another method was to program computer systems forspecific telephone, fax or GSM numbers. If the material received at Eemnes or Zoutkamp was codedthen it was passed to the encryption analysis section in Amsterdam, where attempts were made to breakthe code with computers.Following the fall of the Berlin Wall the tasks of these three units – i.e. one unit for each branchof the Armed Forces – generally involved the production of operational Sigint for the NetherlandsArmed Forces with regard to Sea, Ground and Air Forces in the countries of the former Soviet Union.Another task was to produce strategic Comint; this related to political and strategic decision-making,organized crime, proliferation of nuclear weapons, terrorism and economic developments. Thisintelligence was produced for the Ministries of Defence, Justice, Foreign Affairs and Internal Affairs.Both the operational and strategic intelligence production was based on the interceptions andsubsequent processing by each of the three aforementioned units, combined with shared Comint fromforeign partners. It was only following the reorganization in 1996 that the exchange of Comint was also1250extended to crisis management operations.At no time during the deployment of Dutchbat did the Army, Air Force and Navy interceptionservices actively focus on the events in the former Yugoslavia. The only exception to this was on 17July 1994, for one of the three, the 898th Signals Battalion at Eibergen, concentrated on intercepting1248 Daniel Williams, ‘I’m Ready to Get the Hell Out of Here’, Washington Post, 09/07/95 and Richard J. Newman,‘Breaking the Surface’, US News & World Report, 06/04/98, p. 30. See for the problems regarding sharing of US nationalintelligence with US marines supposedly to rescue O’ Grady: Margaret S. Macdonald and Anthony G. Oettinger,‘Information Overload’, Harvard International Review, Vol. XXIV (Fall 2002) 3, p. 48.1249 NIOD, Letter from MIS, Department AVI/BR&C to C. Wiebes, 10/07/00.1250 MoD, MIS, HAO to HMID, no. AO 960708, 31/12/96.