Letnik 9/2, september 2007 - Slovenska vojska

NESLIŠNO OROŽJE: RAZVIJANJE OBVEŠČEVALNEGA SODELOVANJA V ...
The world of counter-terrorism as it has evolved since late 2001, however, places
bilateral operations in a different position, especially for the United States. Baldly
put, the CIA (and, indeed, any intelligence service in the world, taken alone) lacks
the international reach and capacity to successfully target individual terrorists or
terrorist cells without regard to where they may be. To be sure, the CIA can, and
probably does, conduct effective counter-terrorist actions on its own in select
areas outside the United States. Nonetheless, there are important arenas where
it would be difficult if not impossible, by any reasonable measure, for CIA or
other U.S. operatives to conduct inherently risky, intrinsically complex counterterrorist
operations successfully, absent the support or at least the acquiescence
of the local intelligence service. There are a multitude of reasons for this. Most
U.S. intelligence officers are not able to “blend in” to environs such as North
Waziristan in Pakistan, rural areas of Yemen or even the more cosmopolitan venue
of the United Arab Emirates. Indeed, while trained U.S. intelligence officers can
doubtless move comfortably throughout Europe, Latin America and other areas,
they are nonetheless most often betrayed by their ethnicity or, more precisely,
their lack of ethnicity appropriate to the area they are inhabiting, temporarily and
operationally. With few exceptions, a CIA Case Officer speaking solid French will,
nonetheless, not be taken for a native by the habitués of Brest; the officer uttering
precise High German may find it difficult to inconspicuously rent an apartment
in alias in the dialect-ridden valleys of alpine Bavaria. These difficulties multiply
considerably in the Middle East where tribe, family and tradition dictate all, among
populations endemically suspicious of outsiders if not impulsively hostile to them.
In short, expecting unilateral actions to succeed against terrorists in such locations
would be setting the bar high indeed. The odds for success can however improve
markedly with the inclusion of the host-country intelligence service as an engaged
local partner.
What exactly can a cooperative and competent liaison service bring to counterterrorism
operations In theory, a great deal. In practice, this will depend in
each case on the level of cooperation and transparency achieved in the bilateral
arrangement. It is perhaps instructive to here consider the nature of the terrorist
target. Terrorist organizations are of their nature clandestine entities operating
in a covert demimonde. And like politics and real estate, all terrorist structures
are local and deal with location – that is, they have cells in real physical places.
Terrorist infrastructure involves safe houses, hotel rooms rented in alias, phone
booths and cell phones, internet cafes and similar things. Individuals involved in
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