INTELLIGENCE ISSN 1245-2122 N. 75 New Series, 16 February 1998 Editor Olivier Schmidt (email intelligence-adi@wanadoo.fr; web http://www.blythe.org/Intelligence) TABLE OF CONTENTS, N. 75, 16 February 1998 FRONT PAGE USA/EUROPE - TURNING THE SCREWS AT KROLL - O'GARA p.1 TECHNOLOGY AND TECHNIQUES PUBLIC CRYPTOGRAPHY & PRIVACY TECH IN THE WORLD p.2 WORLD WIDE WEB WARFARE FOR GULF WAR SYNDROME p.3 EUROPEAN ATLAS OF SPECIALIZED SECURITY FIRMS p.4 PEOPLE GREAT BRITAIN - FRANK STEELE p.5 GREAT BRITAIN - FRANCOIS GORDON p.6 RUSSIA - "SASHA" p.7 GREAT BRITAIN - "MARDI GRA". p.8 POLAND - Zbigniew Nowek. p.9 RUSSIA - Pavel Popovskikh. p.10 AGENDA COMING EVENTS THROUGH 16 MARCH 1998 p.11 INTELLIGENCE AROUND THE WORLD USA/GREAT BRITAIN - SEITZ "STORM" DOESN'T ROCK UKUSA p.12 "TK Intelligence" Is Back. p.13 GREAT BRITAIN - GOOD COPS TARGET THE "SWEENEY" p.14 MA FAMILY SLEAZE CATCHES UP WITH TORIES p.15 NORTHERN IRELAND - BRITS CONCEDE "BLOODY SUNDAY" INQUIRY p.16 FRANCE - INTELLIGENCE "TRANSPARENCY" SLOWLY SINKING IN p.17 NETHERLANDS - FORMER SPIES REFERRED TO EMPLOYMENT AGENCY p.18 POLAND - EXPENSIVE & MESSY "UP HILL" BATTLE TO ENTER NATO p.19 ALBANIA/KOSOVO - THE NEXT BALKAN WAR GETS UNDER WAY p.20 RUSSIA - Border Service "Back in the Fold". p.21 KAZAKHSTAN - New "Russian" Service in Central Asia. p.22 MEXICO - ANTI-KIDNAPPING CHIEF CAUGHT ... KIDNAPPING p.23 ISRAEL - BURNED OUT MILITARY HIGH-TECH p.24 POLITICAL AGENDA DICTATES SPY WARS p.25 AFGHANISTAN - FBI "G-Men" On The Scene & Snowed In. p.26 --------------------------------------------- Intelligence, N. 75, 16 February 1998, p. 12 USA/GREAT BRITAIN SEITZ "STORM" DOESN'T ROCK UKUSA In our previous "Front Page" report, we mentioned the newly- published memoirs of Raymond Seitz, the former American ambassador in London, which have caused something of a furore in Britain (see "USA/Great Britain - Seitz Evens His Score with the Irish"; INT, n. 74 1). Seitz, appointed by the Bush administration in 1991 and removed by Clinton three years later, claimed that members of the Clinton administration relayed sensitive intelligence supplied by the British to contacts in the Irish Republican movement. Seitz's autobiography, "Over Here", published in Britain last month, contends that, as a result, Britain stopped providing "sensitive intelligence" -- presumably about Ireland -- to the US. Reporters seeking details were blocked by Seitz: "I could elaborate further but it would not be proper", he said. In the absence of more information, it is all but impossible to work out what, if anything, had been compromised or what, if anything, was withdrawn from the normal extensive intelligence exchange between the British and Americans outlined in the secret UKUSA agreement (see "USA/Great Britain: 'Joined at the Hip' Intelligence Cooperation"; INT, n.45 1). The position is further complicated by the willingness of some sources, specifically ministers in the last Conservative government, to confirm Seitz's allegation ... and of others to dismiss it. At the root of the story is the change in the American government's Northern Ireland policy which followed Clinton's 1992 election victory. Key Clinton administration figures, notably the ambassador in Dublin, Jean Kennedy Smith, were determined to forge a new policy. The position of previous Republican administrations, which had been largely to defer to the British, was discarded in favour of more direct contact with the Irish Republican Movement. As a result, to the chagrin of the British, contacts increased between senior Irish Republicans and Clinton administration figures including the then national security adviser, Tony Lake, and policy adviser, Nancy Soderbergh, as well as Kennedy Smith. The culmination of this process was the issuing of an American visa to Sinn Fein leader, Gerry Adams. The British were apoplectic: Seitz was called to Downing Street for a personal dressing down from Prime Minister John Major's foreign policy adviser, Roderick Lyne. Even now, Lyne's predecessor, Charles Powell, felt inspired to write in a review of "Over Here" that the Adams visa was like "inviting the Oklahoma bomber to tea at Number Ten". COMMENT -- But did any of this affect the Anglo-American intelligence flow? Richard Norton-Taylor, perhaps the best mainstream media commentator on British intelligence, is sceptical. "Their unique co-operation is mainly in the field of electronic eavesdropping, the work of GCHQ and NSA. Ireland, one well-placed source said, is very different". Indeed, it is. NSA, GCHQ and their allied UKUSA agencies in Canada, Australia and New Zealand, comprise a signals intelligence (SIGINT) multinational whose operations lie beyond the immediate control of any individual government. The flow of SIGINT from, say, the GCHQ base in Ayios Nikolaos, Cyprus, to NSA headquarters at Fort Meade, Maryland, would not, indeed, could not, be affected by a dispute over Ireland policy. During a previous, far more serious dispute with New Zealand in the early 1980s over the Lange government's nuclear-free policy, there was no interruption whatsoever of normal SIGINT activities. This SIGINT exchange, which is conducted largely automatically, accounts for at least 90 percent of the Anglo- American UKUSA intelligence exchange. The remainder occurs through, firstly, sharing at an operational level between individual agencies (for example, between MI5 and the FBI over IRA arms shipments or between MI6/SIS and CIA concerning the movements of senior Iraqi officials) and, secondly, through the forum of the Joint Intelligence Committee (JIC), Britain's highest intelligence entity. The JIC, comprising the heads of the British intelligence agencies, its permanent chair and specialist staff, seconded according to the subjects under discussion, normally meets once a week. The CIA Chief of Station in London is also present at these meetings, at least for the first part, departing at the point the agenda reaches "domestic business". Ireland is generally part of this domestic business. This does not necessarily mean that JIC assessments on the topic are not provided to the Americans. The greatest possible extent of British action at this level, therefore, would have been to withhold JIC reports on Ireland from the CIA. These assessments are overviews of the latest IRA Army Council thinking on the "peace process", for example, rather than, say, detailed information about IRA activities. Moreover, these assessments arrive at the JIC in a fairly sanitized form. The implication of Seitz and his British supporters that somehow lives of British intelligence personnel were put at risk by Clinton administration officials is quite implausible. Politicians and diplomats may have fumed over the Adams visa, but it is unlikely that anyone in the intelligence milieu lost much sleep. However, in the media, the story still "makes good mileage". On 31 January, the British army stated it was investigating how secret intelligence documents on IRA operations were leaked and published the previous weekend in a Dublin newspaper and during the week in "Republican News", the IRA-Sinn Fein weekly. The leaked documents describe "Operation Vengeful," a joint army- police operation to monitor movements of IRA suspects and were reportedly part of Welsh Guard briefing material distributed during a recent tour of duty along Northern Ireland's South Armagh "bandit country" border region with the Irish Republic. The documents supposedly identified 21 alleged local IRA supporters living on both sides of the border, giving their names, nicknames, aerial photographs of their homes and their likely daily movements. When the Welsh Guards' tour ended in December, the documents were reportedly passed along to Sinn Fein officials ... not to Washington and the White House. Nonetheless, references to Seitz's memoirs appear in almost all news reports on the case. Similar future references are expected by most specialists. --------------------------------------------- Intelligence, N. 75, 16 February 1998, p. 17 FRANCE INTELLIGENCE "TRANSPARENCY" SLOWLY SINKING IN An article in our previous issue on the French Defense Ministry's media and public relations office, the SIRPA, entitled "SIRPA 'Loosens Up' and Downsizes" (INT, n. 74 36), resulted in the "Grand Muet" (the "Great Silent One", as the armed forces are called in France) "clamming up" even further. But "Intelligence" is sure this is only a temporary reaction due to age-old reflexes. Proof of this, and a new discreet openness in defense, security and intelligence, is the publication of the new defense budget by the Assemblee Nationale and several other related articles. For example, an "almost public document", published annually by the Syndicat des Commissaires et Hauts Fonctionnaires de la Police Nationale (SCHFPN) trade union, is their directory of all senior French police officers. In the 148-page 1997 edition, for the first time the DST internal security service has its own section listing all five sub-directors (no women) and all 100 divisonary and principal commissioners (including 16 women). The Direction Centrale des Renseignements Generaux political intelligence police has listings down to the level of section chiefs. All police and security officers serving abroad as liaison officers are listed, along with the country in which they serve. Perhaps the most surprising list is that of security officers on detachment to other agencies, including to DGSE foreign intelligence, to DPSD military security and to certain non-governmental organizations such as France Telecom. The weekly, "Express", recently published a four-page article on France's new Agence Nationale de Frequences (ANF), quietly established last year under Jean-Marc Chaduc, to control and keep the electromagnetic spectrum in France under surveillance. The ANF even has an operational "hit squad" under the orders of General Robert Le Guen with 70 specialists, six centers, 20 vehicles and headquarters in the Paris suburb of Villejuif. And "Alliance", the luxurious glossy review of the Consortium Interprofessionnel des Industries et Techniques Europeenees (CIITF), published a detailed article on the super-secret Commando Hubert unit, the equivalent of the US Navy SEAL commandos. The article was apparently published with the cooperation of the DGSE and the Defense Ministry since Commando Hubert headquarters in Saint Mandrier are mentioned and a detailed photo of a combat diver with full -- and "classified" -- equipment appears in the article. Of course, the most astonishing recent document is the 1998 Defense budget with its clear mention of the DGSE, the DPSD and the DRM military intelligence, which cites the US precedent of disclosing the intelligence budget. In fact, pages 64-65 is the section, "Les Credits de la Direction Generale de la Securite Exerieure (DGSE)" with columns for 1996 Budget, 1997 Budget and 1998 Budget, and rows for Ordinary Expenses (personnel and material), and Capital Expenses (electronic equipment and buildings). There is an incredible additional row: "Fonds Speciaux" (special funds)! No one is betting that this will force Washington to declare the CIA's "discretionary funds". For the specialists, there is an amazingly frank discussion of problems with Germany in launching the Helios 2 spy satellite program and the major errors of the Dassault Rafale jet fighter program. The detailed presentation of the French nuclear arms simulation program thoroughly confirms statements by "Intelligence" concerning intimate US-France cooperation, despite denials by certain senior French officials (INT, n. 56 1). COMMENT -- The 1998 Defense budget report is so detailed that it tends to ridicule certain "defense and intelligence specialists" who publish "approved leaks". For example, the DGSE was reportedly expanding and will have 300 job openings soon. The budget, page 48, announces only 65 new jobs in 1998, and specialists have told "Intelligence" that there may not be any more in 1999 or even later. "Le Monde" revealed, on 25 January, that the decommissioned nuclear missile silos on the Albion plateau will be converted into an underground astrophysics research center. The budget stated, page 89, that the decommissioning of Albion will cost FF 368 million and a Foreign Legion engineering regiment will move in, along with a new electronic warfare center, a GRAVES space surveillance radar and a new DGSE center (Section M, which we mentioned previously; INT, n. 72 32). Perhaps "Le Monde" should spend more time reading public documents than on leaks "straight from the horse's mouth". Fortunately for the public, MPs and the Assemblee Nationale Defense staff haven't been reading US public documents thoroughly enough. The French budget clearly refers to the fact that the CIA has revealed the overall US intelligence budget. What the French authorities apparently didn't notice is the "fine print" at the bottom of the page: publishing of the 1997 US intelligence budget overall figure settled an ongoing court case and was presented as an "exceptional measure" that in no way should be considered a precedent. Indeed, the overall 1998 US intelligence budget is ... secret! So the French services now have "one up" on the Americans. The Americans can always reply that the DGSE is in the defense budget but the DPSD, and particularly the DRM, have almost totally disappeared. --------------------------------------------- Intelligence, N. 75, 16 February 1998, p. 24 ISRAEL BURNED OUT MILITARY HIGH-TECH According to specialists, Israel has two types of economy. One is the "normal" economy based on the desert which was "made to bloom" and produce agricultural products for export. This economy is more sensitive to political disturbances and Israel's "foreign image". The other or "secret" economy is Israel's production of advanced military weapons technology, often "borrowed" unwillingly from the US, an economy which is influenced very little by "political disturbances". Since the "secret" economy apparently now runs the country, one can imagine the catastrophic consequences of "technological failures". But that is what is looking Israel straight in the eye following major difficulties with its two top military technology programs. Massively financed by the Pentagon and furnished with sensitive US technology, the Israel Arrow-2 anti-missile missile is having serious trouble living up to expectations and failed its fifth test launch last August. Indeed, US defense expert, Angelo M. Codevilla, author of the recently published book, "Missiles, Defense, and Israel", has called Arrow-2 "ineffective". According to Codevilla, Arrow-2 and the "Homa" (Wall) defense system might have been be OK for the last war, but not the next one. Homa's "Green Pine" L-band radar can pick up incoming missiles at 500 km and Homa's "Citron Tree" fire-control system can handle up to 14 intercepts at the same time. That was fine for the 1991 Gulf War, but Arrow-2 and Homa would be swamped by a few Scuds with multiple submunition warheads which will probably arrive the next time around. At the same time, Israel's secret Ofek spy satellite program has had a major setback. The Ofek 4 satellite was discreetly launched recently but reportedly failed to orbit properly and is expected to burn up on reentery soon. The launch oddly corresponds with the current crisis with Iraq but was reportedly timed to coincide with the end of Ofek 3's service which began in April 1995. Now, with war on the horizon, Israel is "blind in space" and will have to beg the Pentagon for imagery intelligence, thus giving Washington powerful political leverage over the sabotaged peace process. COMMENT -- To add insult to injury, IAI's MLM Division plant in Be'er Ya'acov, which makes the Arrow and the Shavit missiles which launch Ofek satellites, had a serious fire last April and no one wants to pay for repairs. No money, no repairs, no work, no missiles. No wonder Israel is said to be negotiating with its newly-found ally, Turkey, to bring it into the Arrow program. Perhaps Ankara can pay to clean up the MLM plant. In the meantime, Israeli high-tech has turned to more direct means of earning money. The US Secret Service is reportedly trying to crack an Israeli-based counterfeiting ring that has successfully imported counterfeit $100 bills into the New York City area. The Secret Service has requested Israeli police assistance in catching the counterfeiters. An unanswered question is whether this ring is responsible for the high quality $100 counterfeit bills that have been flooding the market over the last few years and which has been alternatively attributed by the major press to Syria, Iraq or Iran. --------------------------------------------- Intelligence, N. 75, 16 February 1998, p. 26 AFGHANISTAN - FBI "G-Men" On The Scene & Snowed In. Afghanistan -- and Pakistan -- haven't sent all their "Afghan Arabs" home yet and the FBI has arrived in the country looking for several of the 1,200 Arab fundamentalists. The team's principal target is reportedly Libyan secret agent, Abdul Basit Ali, who has a $4 million price on his head in the US. According to the local press, the G-men are apparently snowed- in in Badakhshan Province and will have to modify their secret operation to change it into a heliborne commando assault. --------------------------------------------- INTELLIGENCE SUBSCRIPTION FORM Name . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Organization . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Postal Address . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Telephone . . . . . . . . . . . . Fax . . . . . . . . . . . . Email . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Web . . . . . . . . . . . . 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