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

33Virginia, where it was decided which intelligence could be sent to the ground forces in Somalia. Thisprocess would often take between 12 and 72 hours. 125 A later study of the operations in Somaliaindicated that there had been insufficient Humint, and that important ‘intelligence indicators were notassessed and analysed from first principles but were rather conveniently tailored to fit around what waswanted to be believed’. 126The question now was whether this problem of being unable to handle an unexpected highpriority also occurred in Yugoslavia, and in particular with respect to the political and military situationin Eastern Bosnia. Only after Clinton was elected at the end of 1992 was a more aggressive Bosniapolicy introduced, moving the region to the top priority level. 127 The question is whether this happenedin time to gather sufficient intelligence. Some experts believe that this was not the case, and thatHumint efforts in particular were undertaken far too late. Because building up a properly functioningnetwork often takes months or years, it is likely that this failed to happen in time in Bosnia, andespecially in the Republika Srpska. The Humint efforts in Bosnia were only stepped up with the arrivalof the first US ground forces. 128However, what would appear to have been more crucial were the negative signals from theAmerican Congress, which the American intelligence community would hardly have ignored. In spite ofall the measures and President Clinton’s attitude, this is bound to have led to a more restrained policyon sharing intelligence with the UN in peacekeeping operations such as the one in Bosnia. As a result,most countries that were involved could not rely on UN intelligence and were obliged instead toarrange their own, which had to be acquired either by their own activities or via liaison with anothercountry. UNPROFOR therefore had an ill-starred beginning to the war in Bosnia: no intelligenceculture within the UN; no organizational structure in the UN itself devoted to active and timelyintelligence gathering and the analysis of the intelligence gathered; little intelligence contribution fromoutside; and finally little willingness to cooperate among foreign intelligence services.8. The Military Information Office (MIO) in ZagrebSince the UNPROFOR mission, with its peacekeeping character, was essentially a military operation,what is known as a G-2 intelligence staff was set up to provide the Force Commander with intelligence.Zagreb, Sarajevo and Sector North East in Tuzla had similar sections. Because intelligence could not bereferred to by name, here too the term ‘military information’ was introduced. The staff of the MilitaryInformation Office (MIO) in Zagreb was a multicultural affair and consisted of a large number ofdifferent nationalities, but it had no network of sources or agents of its own, and no autonomousresources for gathering intelligence. They were completely dependent on what the UNMO’s and thestaff on the various echelons within UNPROFOR reported and on the voluntary intelligencecontribution of other states. Initially, this led to intelligence often being gathered along national orallied lines. Informal communication channels were exploited and informal agreements were enteredinto to gain access to the intelligence obtained.Even after its wavering start, the MIO never managed to build its own collection capacity: thefinancial resources, the manpower and the political will were all lacking. In this respect, the MIO couldnot be considered to be a real intelligence service: the staff were unable to direct the gathering ofinformation. Nonetheless, some collection management was possible, but generally through national orNATO centers and auspices alone, with the exceptions of the unofficial relationship to the UNMO’sand the NGO’s. But there was no direct tasking authority from the MIO in Zagreb to any collection125 Becker, Coming, pp. 35-39.126 Connaughton, Intervention, p. 116.127 For this see also Chapters 2 and 4.128 Becker, Coming, passim.