Via NY Transfer News Collective * All the News that Doesn't Fit INTELLIGENCE N. 29 New Series, 22 January 1996 Publishing since 1980 Editor Olivier Schmidt (intelligence-adi@wanadoo.fr; tel/fax 33 1 40 51 85 19; ADI, 16 rue des Ecoles, 75005 Paris, France) ISSN 1245-2122 Copyright ADI 1996, reproduction in any form forbidden without explicit authorization from the ADI. FRANCE: CIA & PENTAGON SQUEEZING SPOT OUT OF THE MARKET One of the highlights of American-French intelligence cooperation during the Gulf War was the integration of French Spot satellite wide-area imagery in the direct planning of allied military operations, particularly air attacks. This resulted in the Pentagon purchasing the first militarized mobile Spot ground-station called Eagle Vision and produced by Matra (INT, N. 17/4). Indeed, a relatively low-cost combination of continued use of the Keyhole KH-12 satellites for high-resolution imagery along with Eagle Vision has been considered as an alternative to the National Reconnaissance Office (NRO) expensive next generation 8X surveillance satellite which was invented to "do the impossible", meaning to provide both wide area coverage and extremely high "Keyhole" resolution imagery (INT, N. 23/35). But in mid-December, CIA director John M. Deutch was reportedly considering approving two initiatives to declassify five-meter resolution imagery and set up an "Imagery-Derived Products program. Then the CIA's National Photographic Interpretation Center ((NPIC), the Defense Mapping Agency (DMA) and the Central Imagery Office (CIO) could include five-meter resolution imagery in the planned Controlled Image Bank which would cover the world and be made available commercially. If this takes place -- and it seems to be one of the major "cost- efficiency" arguments of the reform of U.S. military imagery and the creation of the supposed National Imagery and Mapping Agency (NIMA) -- it would effectively squeeze Spot -- and France -- out of a very lucrative market of 10-meter resolution imagery they have dominated for several years. COMMENT - Although French specialists are only now realizing what's behind the imagery shake-up in Washington, they will surely not stand on the sidelines and let it happen. The American demand to be included in future French-German military satellite imagery projects, following the agreement between Paris and Bonn on developing the Helios 2 satellite (INT, N. 27/55), may be used by Paris as a lever to keep Washington from pushing Spot out of the five to ten-meter resolution market. * FRANCE - "War and Peace" Missing Open Source Intelligence. When UNESCO and the French Fondation pour les Etudes de Defense (FED) organized their 18-19 December international conference on "War and Peace in the 21st Century" (INT, N. 25/46), the work was apparently divided up with "peace" going to UNESCO and "war" going to the FED. Together they came up with very high- level and varied sets of personalities including Samuel Hunington, head of Harvard University's John Olin Institute, French anti-terrorist judge, Jean-Louis Bruguiere, French "new" philosopher, Andre Glucksmann, former CIA director, Robert Gates, open source intelligence "guru" Robert Steele, Russian Vice Defense Minister, Andrei Kokochine and French Defense Minister, Charles Millon. The back-to-back presentations by Steele and Gates generated some interesting "sparks", and Judge Bruguiere and Glucksmann both made very interesting presentations on what terrorism is. However, in the division of labor, UNESCO and the FED failed to invite, or even mention, the only real link between war, peace, the CIA and UNESCO: International Alert, a UNESCO-associated group which, working with open sources intelligence, recently completed a major study on future political stability for the CIA (INT, N. 24/50). * FRANCE - Economic Espionage "as Old as the Hills". If there is still some doubt that "economic espionage" is something really new on the international scene, former French DGSE foreign intelligence chief, Claude Silberzahn, recently cleared things up. On 9 January on German ZDF television, he said that French intelligence services have been carrying out economic espionage for "several decades" to give a helping hand to major French companies. * FRANCE - American Spies Arrive to Warm Welcome. This month 130 U.S. security personnel on the French air base of Istres will begin operations with five U-2 spy planes that arrived last month from Great Britain. Given the often sensitive intelligence relations between France and the U.S., the arrival of these American spy planes has been given very discreet coverage in the media. Some French officials will be wondering if the U-2 cameras will be turned off as they fly in and out of France. The U-2s supposed mission is Bosnia, but that country can easily be reached from U-2 bases in England. The move to France apparently means the allies want "round-the-clock" U-2 coverage of the Balkans, at least for the time being. And a few flights toward the Caucuses to see what the Chechens are up to won't hurt, particularly since the Russians don't want any foreign military observers around anymore. * For subscription info, write to: intelligence-adi@wanadoo.fr or point your browser to Intelligence online: http://www.blythe.org/Intelligence ================================================================= NY Transfer News Collective * A Service of Blythe Systems Since 1985 - Information for the Rest of Us 339 Lafayette St., New York, NY 10012 http://www.blythe.org =================================================================