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

361nations and within NATO never took substantial form in Bosnia either (apart from Elint). With regard tothe non-exchange of strategic and tactical Sigint, an US military expert declared: ‘NATO-releasable SignalsIntelligence reporting consistently was a day late and a dollar short. It often comprised only marginallyuseful information as much as three to four days old.’ He concluded that in Bosnia Humint formed amuch more valuable, precise and rapid source of tactical military intelligence than Sigint. 2038 His remarkreferred to the SFOR period after the Dayton Agreement. It can be inferred that the situation before thesummer of 1995 was no better, because at that point there were no US ground troops in Bosnia. It mustbe concluded that much intelligence material was gathered by national strategic platforms such as satellitesand special aircraft. It was sometimes released to NATO like Elint data which, as already established, wascollected by US national platforms and which was automatically released to NATO via the LOCE system,and this worked quite well. But this kind of intelligence was of course not automatically released toUNPROFOR. Much Comint is never analysed, or not analysed on time, or due to its high classification isnot permitted to be distributed – not among NATO partners and sometimes not even to a country’s ownnational commanders.Did spy satellites, U-2s, UAVs or other national assets possibly take photographs of thepreparations? The section on Imint established that photographs were available of the events before,during and after the fall of the enclave. This has created a general pattern of expectation that Imintfunctions as a sort of ‘Eye of God’: an eye that is able to perceive absolutely everything on the ground.Satellites, U-2s, UAVs and other national assets may have impressive capabilities, but most systems aresometimes impeded by weather conditions above a certain area that can influence the operationalpossibilities. As described in Chapter 7, other elements play a role too. The speed of analysis, the specificfocus of the analyst’s expertise and other factors can all affect the quality of the Imint product. It is not somuch the speed of transmission of the Imint to the ground that is the problem, but rather the speed of theentire process of analysis, processing and searching for further confirmation. One author concluded in thisrespect: ‘For that reason, it would be difficult to intervene in a specific incident of ethnic cleansing.2039Nevertheless, tracking the civilian toll had value in a war where the political stakes are high’. As saidearlier, the characteristics of Imint, analogous in many regards to the shortfalls in the Sigint realm,resulted in documenting the war crimes, but not preventing them.From the start of July 1995 onwards, spy satellites, U-2s, UAVs and other national asets startedcollecting large amounts of Imint, which presented images of buses, trucks, tanks, etc. The fact that thisImint did not arrive promptly on the desks of the US policymakers (i.e. not until the start of August) isclosely related to the set priorities, as demonstrated in Chapter 7 of this study. Other hard targets weremore important. Furthermore, a foreign intelligence evaluation concluded that Imint was ‘useful’, but inview of the guerrilla nature of the fighting few regular units could be photographed from the air andfrom space.2040 The overall picture created by the currently available data is that the eastern enclaves didnot enjoy (high) priority with regard to Imint. 2041 Satellites and U-2 aircraft were indeed active, butother resources such as UAVs only became fully operational over Bosnia at a later stage. In addition,the Imint gathered about Srebrenica was not analysed in time. The imagery intelligence process willalways remain a balancing act between available analytical resources, and the urgency of the tasks athand. As more imagery comes in the door, the ability to analyze all of it becomes dependent on theresources that can be committed. Even as that imagery is analyzed, more continues to come in thedoor, every frame ripe with more urgent tasks. Prioritization of analytical tasks becomes paramount.Moreover, the intelligence community did not assign top priority to supplying military intelligencesupport to UNPROFOR. According to Hayden 2042 , in the summer of 1995 the provision of support for2038 Lt. Col. George K. Gramer, Jr., USA, ‘Operation Joint Endeavor: Combined-Joint Intelligence in Peace EnforcementOperations’, Military Intelligence, October-December 1996, p. 13.2039 Alan Boyle, ‘spies in the watch for atrocities’ MSNBC Interactive, 26/03/99.2040 Confidential information (1).2041 Confidential interview (13).2042 Michael V. Hayden, ‘Warfighters and Intelligence: one team - one fight’, Defense Intelligence Journal; Vol. 4 (1995) 2, p. 24.