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

275to Baxter, the Military Assistant of General Smith, the ABiH in Sarajevo never delivered intelligence toGeneral Smith, his staff or anyone else at UNPROFOR. 1463Various members of foreign intelligence services also said during interviews that no intelligencehad been received from the Bosnian Muslims. This also holds true for the MIS and the NetherlandsNational Security Services. Studies of UNPROFOR documents revealed that no ‘hard’ tacticalintelligence based on Comint and Humint that were apparently collected was ever passed on.Nonetheless, Sigint was altogether a principal source of intelligence information for both the ABiH andVRS for Humint penetration was probably extremely difficult other than low-level Humint collection.It has to be concluded that the Bosnian Muslims did not have enough personnel, interceptionequipment, crypto analysts, analysis capabilities or even an adequate internal communication networkto get the collected Comint to the right destination quickly and efficiently. The monitoring methodswere so labour-intensive that many recorded messages are ‘missing’. Only snippets were intercepted.These snippets could still, on occasion, have provided important intelligence, but never the completepicture. It is clear that the ABiH did not have a centralized Sigint service, but rather depended onindependent collection efforts by electronic warfare units assigned to corps and divisions. This isobviously important because it explains the disorganized nature of the ABiH intelligence effort ingeneral. It also important to emphasize the fact that the Sigint effort by the ABiH was crude andcreated from nothing, which explains why they used a hodge-podge of commercially available andmilitary radio equipment in their Sigint effort. There were no computers to assist in decryption work,which meant that they were dependent on plain-language voice intercepts for the bulk of theirinformation.In this regard, the ABiH was always a step behind the VRS in its intelligence operations. Inaddition, the Bosnian Muslims could not count on the support of the Americans or other intelligenceagencies for the delivery of Comint. And, as was shown in the previous chapter, their Sigint coverage ofEastern Bosnia was poor. The question still remains as to why the Bosnian Government or the militaryleaders did not pass on to UNPROFOR even the small amount of intelligence which they claimed tohave. One possible explanation is that, according to many documents and official agreements,UNPROFOR in Safe Areas was considered ineffective by the ABiH and partial by the VRS. 1464 In 1995ABiH hostility towards UNPROFOR merely intensified. 1465 Sarajevo was even contemplating nonrenewalof the UNPROFOR mandate because the UN troops had not clearly and openly taken the sideof the Muslims or helped the ABiH in the fight against the VRS. Very little came of attempts to gainmore active armed involvement from the international community, specifically NATO. This triggeredcalls in the spring of 1995 to face the future without the UN. Relations between the ABiH andUNPROFOR deteriorated while Muslim offensives continued to increase. More and moreUNPROFOR soldiers were shot or attacked and the ABiH imposed more and more restraints onUNPROFOR freedom of movement.It is often forgotten that the freedom of movement of the Canadian troops around Visoko wasalmost reduced to zero by the Bosnian Muslims and that Canadian soldiers were even held hostage bythe ABiH in June 1995. Canadian units at observations posts were also cut off from convoys carryingfood, medicine and fuel. So, it is not only the Bosnian Serbs who were guilty of such practices. Perhapsits low level of expectation and downright hostile attitude contributed to the fact that the ABiH passedno intelligence on to Sector North East in Tuzla, BHC in Sarajevo, or UNPF in Zagreb. The BosnianGovernment may have accorded prime importance to exploiting the unconditional support of theinternational media in its campaign to blame UNPROFOR for the failure of the defence of Srebrenica1466and Zepa.1463 Interview with James Baxter, 16/10/00.1464 Confidential information (178).1465 Confidential collection (7), Janvier to Annan, no. Z-1068, 28/06/95.1466 Confidential collection (4), G-2 UNPF HQ, ‘ABiH Hostile Attitude towards UNPROFOR’, G-2 Rick Morgan (drafterCapt. Theunens) to COS, 12/07/95.