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

64the mandate differently or which possibly wanted to avoid conflicts with the warring factions. 282Potentially, the ‘grip’ of national governments on the UN peacekeeping mission in Bosnia would thereforetighten.Troop-contributing nations took the gathering of intelligence into their own hands. France,Denmark and the UK, for example, deployed special commando units, which operated behind enemy linesto gather intelligence. In March 1994 a joint covert operation was executed in Bosnia in which varioustroop-contributing nations participated, such as Canada, the United Kingdom and France. This wasbecause at this point large parts of Bosnia had still not been explored and mapped out.Another example: one day a group of European intelligence officers reported to the Bosniangovernment. As a cover they claimed to be members of a European tourist organization, and told thegovernment in Sarajevo that once the war was over, Bosnia was certain to become a major touristattraction. Therefore the group were keen to explore in particular those areas where UNPROFOR was notyet active. They especially wanted to survey the state of hotels and boarding houses, restaurants, publicbuildings, ski centres, the landscape, the state of the road network and so on, so as to be better preparedfor ‘the great tourist invasion’. The Bosnian government in Sarajevo fell for it and gave them permission.In this way, completely outside the knowledge of the UN, a great deal of intelligence was gathered onpoorly accessible areas in Bosnia. 283 However, this must have been in a timeframe when UNPROFOR didnot control yet almost all Bosnia. Various interviewed intelligence officials had doubts about this story. 284British and French national intelligence cells were created, which operated independently of eachother and of the UN. London and Paris did not want to be dependent on the intelligence contributionfrom the UN, which was minimal. The director of the DIS, Air Marshal John Walker, had the following tosay on this subject:‘Intelligence is a dirty word in the United Nations. The UN is not a thing initself; it’s an amalgam of 183 sovereign nations. If it does intelligence, it will bedoing it against a sovereign UN member, so it’s incompatible. But you need amilitary intelligence job to protect your troops. If you don’t, you pay for it inbody bags’. 285In brief, most Western intelligence services created new structures (usually ad hoc) in order to deal withthe crisis in Bosnia.The US intelligence community, because of the considerable political involvement of theClinton administration in the conflict in Bosnia, had bundled its forces in the form of a ‘Balkans TaskForce’ (BTF), in which the most important national services were represented. Its director was GeneWickland. The BTF included representatives of the CIA and DIA, with intelligence supplied by theNRO and NSA. Military analysis was carried out mainly by the CIA. Each night a daily situation reportwas drawn up for the following morning, which was incorporated in the presidential morning briefingby the CIA. President Bush (Sr.) was always briefed personally, but President Clinton was apparently aspeed reader: he read the material provided extremely rapidly and dispensed with the briefing. Thematerial for the briefing also went to the special Balkans advisor of Vice-President Al Gore, LeonFuerth, who was responsible for monitoring the sanctions against Serbia and did so ‘very much indetail’. 286282 Pär Eriksson, ‘Intelligence and Peacekeeping Operations’, International Journal of Intelligence and Counterintelligence, Vol. 10(1997) 1, pp. 5-6.283 A. Walter Dorn, ‘The Cloak and the Blue Beret: Limitations on Intelligence in UN Peacekeeping’, International Journal ofIntelligence and Counterintelligence, Vol. 12 (1998) 4, p. 429.284 Confidential interviews (45) (54) and (98).285 Urban, UK Eyes, p. 214.286 Interview with R.J. Woolsey, 08/06/00 and Halberstam, War in a Time of Peace, pp. 243-244.