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

370patterns of thought). On 7 July, therefore, Karremans still thought that the VRS attack was an attemptto provoke and intimidate the ABiH. Analysts in the US intelligence community also failed to realizethat Mladic was aiming for the entire enclave, because what would he then do with so many refugees?In such a situation signals are constantly interpreted wrongly and perceived intentions are subject todisbelief. This aspect of self-generated noise was important. Both UNPROFOR and The Hagueactually assumed that the VRS ‘would not dare to go to such brutality and thereby provoke the wholeinternational community’. 2085 It was thought inconceivable that Mladic would do precisely this. Perhapsthis self-generated noise also includes the exaggerated effect that was attributed to air power.Policymakers long assumed that this would prove a sufficient deterrent to the VRS.Metselaar concluded that the way in which the warnings about a VRS attack were treated can beregarded as an intelligence failure. But the problem was precisely that there were no warnings. In spiteof this, can Srebrenica still be called an intelligence failure, and under what circumstances could we callit a ‘hit’? A warning would have needed to be based on adequate intelligence capabilities. In that casethe preparations could have been noted in time. History shows that in the case of many successfulsurprise attacks, the attacked party had sufficient information to make an accurate prediction of theenemy’s behaviour.2086 However, the indications were ignored or interpreted wrongly. Preventing asurprise attack was therefore ‘not simply a problem of detection, but very much a problem ofassessment and acceptance’. 2087In Srebrenica it was possible for a surprise attack to take place because enemy preparationswere not discovered in time. So in Eastern Bosnia it was indeed ‘simply a problem of detection’, andthus also ‘very much a problem of assessment and acceptance’. If Dutchbat had had been given its own‘eyes and ears’ then the preparations might have been discovered in time. Let us suppose that theNetherlands Army had agreed to the positioning of the US Sigint equipment in the enclave or that theMIS/Army had been permitted to operate with an Electronic Warfare unit from Tuzla or the enclave(and this option was possible, as shown in Chapter 5 of this study). In such a case the informationsituation could have been strongly improved. There was an ‘intelligence shortage’ and this could andshould have been exploited. As it was, the Dutch intelligence and security services remained ‘poor’. Byagreeing to the US offer, The Hague would not only have been given ‘ears’ but also ‘eyes’, because theAmericans would then have been dependent on the Dutch for a large proportion of their Sigint on theenclaves.This could even have led to the timely provision of Imint from U-2s and UAVs in exchange forDutch Sigint. The MIS would probably have analysed the Imint quickly. Sigint and Imint would haverevealed more about the intentions of the VRS. And if Karremans had set up an active structure forgathering intelligence, had given his men explicit orders to have more contact with the local populationin order to gather information, and had also given the JCOs a free hand within and outside the enclave,then his Humint situation might have improved. These were missed opportunities, because as it was theDutch intelligence services had little or nothing to expect from their foreign counterparts and fromUNPROFOR. The most important partners were concentrating on Sarajevo, Gorazde and Croatia.This could and should have been exploited, because intelligence on Eastern Bosnia would haveconsiderably improved the quid pro quo position of the MIS.On the other hand, one should not blame other intelligence services too easily. From day One,the Dutch policymakers and military leadership knew the incredibly precarious position of their troopsin Srebrenica. They refused the assistance of foreign capabilities, offered to reduce the threat like theUS offer to bring tactical Sigint equipment into the enclave. The Hague refused to employ their ownassets to learn about the threat, both Sigint and Imint. No Dutch indigenous Sigint assets weredeployed nor were the readily available Dutch TACRECCE assets like the RF-16s properly used. And2085 M.V. Metselaar, ‘Understanding Failures in Intelligence Estimates’, p. 46.2086 See for instance: Hughes-Wilson, Military Intelligence Blunders, passim.2087 Gordon H. McCormick, ‘ Surprise, Perceptions, and Military Style’, ORBIS, Vol. 26 (1983) 4 , pp. 836-837.