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

98advice on the subject from the MIS could possibly have strengthened their position, but they made nouse of the services of the MIS/CO or the MIS/RLNA. In other words, the MIS was given no part toplay. This was reinforced by the fact that the political decision to go to Bosnia had already been takenin the summer of 1993: the MIS had not been involved in that decision beforehand and afterwards thedecision was irreversible. 447Another problem in this respect was that the Army’s 898 th Signals Battalion in Eibergen alsoassumed a Cold War mentality regarding the military communication traffic intercepted there.Furthermore, the Air Force and Army units operating there had capacity problems, and there was noSerbo-Croat language capacity in Eibergen whatsoever. One bright spot was that the Eibergen AirForce unit did have a good liaison with the German Bundesnachrichtendienst, and valuable military trafficwas sometimes received via liaison. An issue in Eibergen at the time was whether the Sigint structurecould continue to exist. The intelligence associated with it, Sigint, had an uncertain future in theNetherlands at the time because the Ministry of Defence was not then alert to Sigint. In Eibergen, therewere three groups engaged in Sigint, one from each branch of the Armed Forces, without anycoordination.The capacity of the First Air Force Signals Group was cut back sharply, and Sigint in the Navyrelied on the Technical Information Processing Centre (TIVC), while the Navy’s commanders wereinterested in more strategic political and maritime information. It was because of this situation that thepolitical need arose in the mid 1990s to integrate the operational Sigint of the three Armed Forces unitsin Eibergen. Another factor was the economic cutbacks, which meant that in September 1994 thesenior officers of the Royal Netherlands Army came close to closing down the unit that was engaged inSigint in Eibergen, the 898 th Signals Battalion. The Head of the Cabinet Office of the Commander-in-Chief of the Royal Netherlands Army managed in a memo to persuade his boss, Couzy, not to goahead with this proposal. 448 It had already been indicated in Van Idsinga’s report that the Navy wantedas rapidly as possible to hand over the TIVC in Amsterdam to the Strategic Sigint Centre in TheHague, because the upkeep of a separate centre for operational and strategic Sigint was a severe drainon the Navy’s budget. However, at the time, the Army and the Air Force were opposed to anycofinancing of a new, yet to be established joint centre for strategic Sigint; the Commanders-in-Chiefstated that they had no need for this type of intelligence. 449The Army and Air Force Sigint units were at the time still resources purely under the auspicesof the Commanders-in-Chief. Almost no Sigint went to the MIS/CO, except for the Green Editioncontaining intercepted communications traffic. Neither was there any capacity for analysing Sigint, andthere were problems with the MIS/Navy, which, in spite of all the financing problems surrounding theTIVC in Amsterdam, did not wish to hand over the raw Sigint to the MIS/CO.In addition, the Head of MIS/Navy was not at all happy with the appointment of Duijn as theHead of the MIS, because this also made Duijn what was known as a Sigint Senior. This meant thatDuijn would be the Netherlands’ sole representative at the annual meeting of the nine most importantWestern Sigint countries instead of the Head of the TIVC, which was under the command of the Headof the MIS/Navy. The MIS/Navy would therefore find itself out of the loop, and for this reason it wasfiercely opposed to transferring this task from MIS/Navy to MIS/CO.However, because Duijn’s appointment did go ahead, he went on to visit Norway, Denmark,Belgium and Hungary. As well as friction between MIS/CO and the Royal Netherlands Navy,problems also arose in relation to the Royal Netherlands Army. The senior Army officers did not wantDuijn to discuss Sigint in Denmark. This was claimed by MIS/Army as an exclusive right. Duijn was,however, able to establish good contact with the Hungarian MIS regarding the sharing of Sigint.447 Interview with H.J. Vandeweijer, 19/01/98. See also: M oD , Archive DEFAT Ottawa 1994, Map 14.8, Werger to Defats, 23/03/94.448 Interview with H. Bosch, 10/10/01.449 MoD , Archive MIS/CO, Report Van Idsinga, DIS/95/21.11/809, 29/03/95.