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

29in all, Van Kappen found it a ‘shameful exhibition’. 101 A senior German intelligence official confirmedthis description. A specific person was pinpointed and this particular person was the only one toreceive intelligence from the BND. The official also confirmed that files with national intelligence weredesigned in order to influence certain UN officials. 102American intelligence support to the UN was limited, partly because of the ‘varied’ compositionof this unit. The documents that were handed over were often unclassified. However, the disadvantageof this, as a UN employee explained, was that it was ‘dated’ and often consisted of a summary of earlierUN reports. 103 However, as an US official adamantly remarked: it is such an ignorant perspective byasserting that ‘unclassified = worthless’. 104Actually, the UN was constantly confronted with an internal dilemma: they did not want tocarry out intelligence gathering themselves, but it was also clear to the organization that intelligence isnecessary in peacekeeping operations. For instance, the Military Advisor to the Secretary-General,Major General Maurice Baril, admitted in January 1995 at a meeting of troop-contributing nations, thataccess to intelligence was important, but that such help would have to be arranged bilaterally, for accessto intelligence was, as Lord Owen was able to recall, ‘a potentially difficult one’. 105The reluctant attitude to active and independent intelligence gathering was therefore not a signthat the UN believed that it had absolutely no need of intelligence in its peacekeeping operations.According to Johnston, there were in fact no compelling reasons for the UN not to provide effectiveintelligence support to its own peacekeeping missions. 106 However, the resistance to intelligenceremained a part of the UN culture, and that would also initially be the case with UNPROFOR. Intraditional peacekeeping operations, the policy of the troop-contributing nations was to minimize anddisregard the military-intelligence component, because they assumed that intelligence gathering couldundermine the principle of impartiality.In addition, New York wanted to avoid awkward questions, such as whether the intelligence thatthe UN would gather had to be shared with all the warring parties. With respect to ‘openness’ versus‘confidentiality’, the UN was confronted with a dilemma, because there are advantages and disadvantagesto both. A potential advantage of openness is that it makes the operation more acceptable and lessthreatening to all warring parties. It would also reduce the fear of all manner of covert operations, andbuild trust. A disadvantage of too much openness is the danger of leaks, for which the UN was renownedand which would lead to a sustained refusal among the troop-contributing nations to share more and107better intelligence with the UN.An added factor is that states can have different political interests in a peacekeeping operation,which are not necessarily in line with the mandate of the Security Council. This can be a reason for atroop-contributing nation to share gathered intelligence only selectively, or not at all.Another problem is the diversity of nationalities within a UN operation. The kind ofintelligence that can be shared between a Dutch and a British official, for example, cannot be sharedwith an official from Ukraine. As an example from the practical situation in Bosnia, the first ForceCommander of UNPROFOR, Lieutenant General Satish Nambiar, had no NATO intelligence at hisdisposal because he came from India. 108The official NATO guidelines on sharing intelligence with non-NATO member states areextremely stringent: intelligence is only intended for the member states, and therefore cannot be101 F.H. van Kappen, ‘strategic intelligence and the United Nations’, Militaire Spectator 170 (2001) 11, p. 595. Also: BertBommels, ‘Marinier in New York’ (Being a Marine in New York), Elsevier, 30/05/98.102 Confidential interview (99).103 Robert J. Allen, ‘Intelligence Support for Peace Operations’, in: Pickert, Intelligence, p. 122.104 . Confidential information (80).105 Interview with Lord Owen, 27/01/01.106 Paul Johnston, ‘No Cloak and Dagger Required: Intelligence Support to UN Peacekeeping’, Intelligence and NationalSecurity, Vol. 12 (1997) 4, p. 111.107 Sir David Hannay, ‘Intelligence and international agencies’, in: Shukman (ed.), Agents, pp. 179-180.108 Hugh Smith, ‘Intelligence and UN Peacekeeping’, Survival, Vol. 36 (1994) 3, p. 177.