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

67atrocities but the Bosnian Serbs much more). They were also able to follow what weapons and othergoods were being brought into the region. The CIA also knew that many ‘visitors’ from the MiddleEast were entering the region in an attempt to influence the conflict. 299The journalist Halberstam is of the same opinion. According to him there has been no lack ofAmerican political, military and intelligence talent in Yugoslavia for the last forty years. Belgrade was ‘agood listening post’ for developments in the Warsaw Pact. In the autumn of 1990, the CIA predicted ina thorough analysis that within one year Yugoslavia ‘would no longer function and in two years itwould begin to dissolve’. The CIA pointed to the dangers of armed conflicts between the variousethnic factions in Yugoslavia. Neither the United States nor the European countries would be able tostop this process, according to the service. 300 It would nonetheless appear that the Americaninformation position in general was not actually that good. There were shortcomings, especially in thearea of Humint, Imint and Sigint, as will be demonstrated in the following chapters.Humint did play an important role for the Americans; not so much in the CIA, but in the DIA.One of the best sources of intelligence was formed by the flows of Displaced Persons that left Bosnia,Croatia, Serbia and the Republika Srpska to apply for asylum in European Union countries. Not only theserefugees, but also deserters, were an extremely important Humint source. The US Army Intelligence andSecurity Command was running a sizeable programme in Germany and Italy that was aimed at debriefingrefugees and deserters. They were interviewed in joint interrogation centres about their experiences in theformer Yugoslavia. These special units were later incorporated into the Defense Humint Service. The CIAalso had a separate unit in Croatia, the Refugee Debriefing Center, to interview and screen DisplacedPersons from Bosnia.301 The Austrian and Swiss intelligence services, incidentally, are also said to havegathered much intelligence thanks to the debriefing of refugees from the Balkans. 302The US community also acquired information from other similar projects. Via the 66th IntelligenceBrigade in Munich, for example, which was also occupied with debriefing Displaced Persons. Furthermore,the American DIA had the ‘Formica’ project, in which all US military personnel that had been stationedwith UNPROFOR or had travelled through the Balkans were comprehensively interrogated. DeclassifiedAmerican government documents reveal that in 1992 and 1993 this service already had a good insight intothe atrocities committed in Bosnia in various camps where Muslims had been held prisoner, for example,Luka-Brcko and Omarska. It was also clear to the service that captured Muslims and Croats had beenmurdered on a large scale in Brcko. In order to mislead the International Red Cross, Bosnian Serbs weresaid to have inflicted minor wounds on themselves and pretended that they had been prisoners who hadotherwise got off reasonably lightly. 303 According to a senior US intelligence official US awareness on thisissue was broad and well-defined. Nevertheless, the reporting priority given to the atrocities was nil. Manyfelt that the issue was very important, and reported extensively on it, but the direct application of thereportage was nil. Reporting on atrocities was seen as being aimed at three to five years down the road, forsome ill-defined effort to hold parties accountable. It was an expression of faith in the system. Allreporting on atrocities was done “out of hide”, and in addition to the required reporting on tactical andoperational requirements. 304Another US intelligence officer confirmed that the debriefings of refugees resulted in muchuseful intelligence. All raw intelligence from counterintelligence, Humint operations and Osint from theBalkans was entered into the so-called Blackbird Database. However, this officer also stated that the DIA299 Interviews with R.J. Woolsey, 08/06/00 and 01/10/02.300 Halberstam, War in a Time of Peace, p. 94. See also: Cohen, Hearts grown brutal, p. 173.301 H.K. Roy, ‘Betrayal in the Balkans: undercover Central Intelligence Agency officer introduced to Iranian Intelligence’,World and I, Vol. 16 (2001) 8, 01/08/01.302 Confidential interview (26).303 FOIA, US Army Intelligence, Annual Historical Review, 1 October 1992 to 30 September 1993, no date (approx. end 1993). Withthanks to Jeffrey Richelson for making this document available. See further: Jeffrey Richelson, ‘As World Fiddled ArmyIntel gathered World Of Serb Butchery’, Defense Week, Vol. 17 (1996) 37, 16/09/96.304 Confidential information (80).