Intelligence: From Secrets to Policy (72 page)

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Authors: Mark M. Lowenthal

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The possibility of tension with the United States over the future of Taiwan also puts a premium on knowledge of U.S. deployments, strategy, and tactics in the western Pacific. China regards Taiwan as a rebellious breakaway province. The United States treats Taiwan as something like an independent state, although full, formal diplomatic relations have not been established. However, the United States does have a formal obligation to defend Taiwan.
FRANCE
 
The main French intelligence organization is the Directoire Générale de la Sécurité Extérieure (DGSE)-the General Directorate for External Security—which reports to the minister of defense. The DGSE, created in 1982, is the latest in a series of French intelligence organizations.
The four major directorates largely define the DGSE mission.
• Strategic: responsible for establishing intelligence requirements with policy makers, especially the Foreign Ministry, and also conducting intelligence studies
• Intelligence: responsible for intelligence collection, particularly HUMINT, and the dissemination of this intelligence
• Technical: collects SIGINT, largely through a number of ground sites
• Operations: responsible for clandestine operations
 
Thus, the DGSE has a much broader role than that of agencies in the United States or Britain, combining as it does analysis, operations, and several types of collection.
The Directoire de Surveillance Territoire (DST)—Directorate of Territorial Surveillance—is responsible for counterintelligence. The DST now includes the police surveillance agency, Renseignements Generaux (RG - General Intelligence), a move supported by President Nicholas Sarkozy when he was minister of the Interior.
The Directoire du Renseignement Militaire (DRM)—Directorate of Military Intelligence—was organized in 1992, combining a number of TECHINT entities. As its name indicates, the DRM is responsible for military intelligence and imagery analysis. France has an independent satellite imagery capability. According to some reports, DRM has branched out into political and strategic intelligence areas where DGSE has been responsible.
The Directoire de la Protection et de la Sécurité de la Defense (DPSD)—Directorate for Defense Protection and Security—handles military counterintelligence and maintains, in a uniquely French function, political surveillance of the military, with a view to its political reliability. This function goes back to the French Revolution, when “representatives on mission” served as political commissars, looking over the shoulders of French commanders. It also reflects the occasional intrusion—or threatened intrusion—of the military into French political life, although this has not happened since the Algerian revolt against French rule (1954-1962).
In addition to these major organizations, the official Web site for French intelligence notes several other offices in the Ministry of Defense, the Ministry of the Interior, and the Ministry of Economics and Finance that are dedicated to tracking terrorist-related activities.
France has independent IMINT and SIGINT capabilities, which led it to disagree with U.S. assertions about Iraqi troop movements in 1996. The Iraqi movements led the Clinton administration to send a warning to Iraq by means of a cruise missile attack. France has also played a central role in European efforts to build an independent imagery capability.
The Operations Division of the DGSE has had much greater latitude in its activities than do the clandestine services of the United States and Britain. This includes the use of violence against certain targets. The most famous case was the sinking, in July 1985, of the
Rainbow Warrior,
a boat being used by the Greenpeace organization to protest ongoing French nuclear tests in the South Pacific. French agents planted a bomb on the
Rainbow Warrior
while it was in the harbor at Auckland, New Zealand, which resulted in the death of one person on board. France initially denied responsibility but then admitted it, leading to the resignation of the defense minister and the firing of the head of the DGSE. In 2005. the former head of DGSE, Admiral Pierre Lacoste, said that French president François Mitterand had approved sinking the boat.
France maintains a military presence in many of its colonies in western and central Africa. It is presumed that French intelligence officers have a presence there, often in advisory capacities to the local governments.
The DGSE is also active in economic espionage, including activities against U.S. firms. The targets appear to be companies that compete with major French firms, reflecting the semistatist nature of parts of the French economy. In a response to apparent French economic espionage, in 1993, the Hughes Aircraft firm announced it would not take part in the prestigious Paris Air Show.
In the late 1990s, according to press accounts, a U.S. nonofficial cover (NOC) agent in Paris was discovered. The agent’s area of concentration was economics. French press accounts in 2003 argued that one of the NOC agent’s paid sources, a French government official, became a double agent at the request of the DST. As DCI R. James Woolsey (1993-1995) noted in a 2000 article on the SIGINT key word search system known as ECHELON, the United States had two main economic intelligence concerns: foreign bribery intended to give firms unfair economic advantages and economic counterintelligence.
As the member states of the European Union (EU) work to foster a clearer and distinct European identity and role, the issue of intelligence cooperation becomes more complex. An EU foreign policy spokesperson has been designated, and nascent efforts have been made to build a European military capability that would be separate from the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO). judging from the U.S. experience, however, sharing intelligence with allies is a less straightforward proposition. Not all allies are equal. In 2004, the justice and interior ministers of EU nations rejected an Austrian proposal to create a European Intelligence Agency that would be an analytic and monitoring center focusing only on terrorism and proliferation.
France, like many other Western services, now puts increased emphasis on counterterrorism and WMD intelligence. One French official stated that these two issues represent half of all French intelligence activities. There have also been press reports suggesting that U.S.-French intelligence cooperation, particularly in the counterterrorism area, has increased over the past several years.
ISRAEL
 
Israeli intelligence proceeds from the premise that the state is, essentially, under siege. Israel has two major intelligence services: Mossad and Shin Bet. Mossad (Ha-Mossad Le-Modin Ule-Tafkidim Meyuhadim—Institute for Intelligence and Special Tasks) is responsible for HUMINT, covert action, foreign liaison, and counterterrorism, as well as for producing a series of intelligence reports. Shin Bet (Sherut ha-Bitachon ha-Klali—General Security Service) has both counterintelligence and internal security functions. A third component, Aman (Agafha-Modi’in—Military Intelligence), is distinct from the intelligence components of each of the services, producing a series of intelligence reports, including national estimates. The Foreign Affairs and Security Committee of the Knesset (Parliament) oversees Israeli intelligence. In 2004, the Justice Ministry and Mossad began work on a law that would define that agency’s purpose, goals, and powers for the first time. The law would also make clear Mossad’s subordination to the government, oversight mechanisms, the term of office for the head of Mossad, and how the head is appointed.
At a basic level, the intelligence requirements of Israel are simple. It is located in the midst of states that either maintain proper diplomatic relations or remain hostile. Both kinds of neighboring states and the Israeli-occupied territories on the West Bank harbor populations that are overtly hostile to Israel and unwilling to countenance its existence. This allows a fair amount of focus but also demands a constant state of readiness. It is difficult to think of another state whose intelligence services face a similar challenge.
Given this milieu, Israeli intelligence activities have always been given a fair amount of latitude and have become both legendary and controversial. Over the years, a number of successful HUMINT penetrations into Egypt and Syria have been conducted. However, one operation against Egypt in the early 1950s was discovered, resulting in the deaths of four Israeli agents and the prolonged incarceration of several others. It became known as the Lavon affair, after the defense minister at the time, Pinhas Lavon.
A more recent controversy involved a U.S. naval intelligence analyst, Jonathan Pollard. He appears to have been a walk-in, motivated by concerns that the United States was not sharing vital intelligence with Israel. However, Pollard also accepted cash and gifts in exchange for the intelligence he provided, including intelligence reports, imagery, and information about weapons systems. In 1985 he was arrested outside the Israeli Embassy, and in 1987 he was sentenced to life imprisonment. Some people felt that the sentence was too harsh, although successive reviews of Pollard’s case have upheld the initial concerns that prompted the sentence.
Israel initially attempted to pass off the case as a rogue operation but, in early 1998, admitted that Pollard had been working as a regular agent. In 2006, Rafi Eitan, who had been Pollard’s handler, said that the information that Pollard provided was too good to resist and that Eitan could not put a stop to the operation. Pollard had also been granted Israeli citizenship. The Pollard case became a constant irritant in U.S.-Israeli relations, not only because of the ill will it engendered but also because of constant Israeli attempts to get Pollard released. Most significant, Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu raised the Pollard issue during the 1998 peace talks at Wye River, where President Bill Clinton brought the Israelis and Palestinians together. Clinton appeared to be receptive to releasing him. DCI George J. Tenet (1997-2004) reportedly threatened to resign if Pollard was pardoned and released to Israel, whereupon Clinton dropped the issue. (Pollard supporters argue that the United States traded Soviet spy Rudolf Abel for U-2 pilot Francis Gary Powers in the 1960s, thus creating a precedent. However, although the United States has proven willing to repatriate a foreign spy in exchange for a U.S. intelligence officer, it does not trade U.S. citizens convicted of espionage.) The Pollard case is a classic example of a successful penetration whose political costs may far outweigh any intelligence that was obtained.
Concerns about Israeli intelligence collection overseas continue to be problematic. In 2004, the FBI said that Israel had been overly aggressive in collecting information at military equipment exhibitions. The information involved appeared not to be classified but the persistence of Israelis in asking questions about certain equipment had raised concerns. The FBI also had under investigation a U.S. Defense Department official who might have passed information to Israel. New Zealand jailed and then expelled two Israelis for attempting to obtain New Zealand passports illegally. The New Zealand government accused them of being Mossad agents. They denied the allegation but admitted having committed criminal activity. Israel’s Foreign Ministry issued an official apology in 2005. Access to foreign passports is essential to all intelligence agencies, which use them to mask the identities of agents sent overseas.
In 2007, Ashraf Marwan, a wealthy Egyptian businessman living in London, fell from his fourth floor apartment to his death. Marwan’s death became the subject of much speculation, centering on allegations that he had been a long-time spy for Mossad or that he was a double agent. Marwan had been a son-in-law of Egyptian President Gamal Abdel Nasser. Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak issued a statement denying that Marwan had spied for Israel. Also in 2007, Muhammad Sayyid Saber Ali, an Egyptian nuclear engineer, was sentenced to life in prison for spying for Israel. Ali admitted delivering reports taken from Egypt’s atomic agency but said they were not secret and were available online.
In addition to its emphasis on HUMINT, Israel has developed an independent satellite imagery capability and is at the forefront of imagery cooperation between nations. Press reports cite India and Turkey as two of its partners.
Israeli intelligence has conducted a variety of covert operations abroad, including both kidnapping and assassination. The most famous kidnapping was of the Nazi official Adolf Eichmann, who was abducted in Argentina in 1960. Eichmann had been responsible for the implementation of Hitler’s “final solution,” the extermination of the Jews. He was brought to Israel, where he was tried and executed. In 1986 Israeli intelligence abducted Mordechai Vanunu, who had worked at Israel’s secret nuclear installation at Dimona. A year after leaving Dimona, Vanunu published details about Israel’s nuclear weapons program in the London
Sunday Times.
Lured from London to Rome, Vanunu was abducted and returned to Israel, where he was sentenced to eighteen years in prison.
Israeli assassinations have targeted terrorists outside of Israel or the occupied territories. Targets have included the terrorists responsible for the capture and death of Israeli athletes at the 1972 Munich Olympics, although one innocent Arab in Norway was misidentified and also killed by Israeli agents. More recently, Israel has killed a number of terrorists during the unrest in both occupied and Palestinian-controlled areas. Israel refers to these as targeted killings, or interceptions, not assassinations or military reprisals. They appear to have been carried out by either intelligence or military forces.

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