MARTIN RUDNER
Hunters and Gatherers: The Intelligence
Coalition Against Islamic Terrorism
The terrorist attacks of 11 September 2001 on the United States catapulted the intelligence services to the forefront of the
``war'' against international Islamicist terrorism. In responding to that threat, most governments in other vulnerable
regions of the world expanded their intelligence services, provided them with substantially increased resources, equipped
them with significantly augmented statutory powers, and vested them with high expectations.
Yet, by way of contrast with conventional interstate conflict situations, where adversaries are clearly identified and the
function of intelligence is to collect actionable information as to the intentions and capabilities of rival powers,
intelligence services faced extraordinary challenges in confronting this international Islamicist menace. Precisely because
of the global andfurtive character of Islamicist militant networks, intelligence for the war against terrorism has had to
address threats of unprecedented geographic scope emanating from a multiplicity of obscure and furtive belligerents. In
dealing with the international terrorist menace, intelligence has been transformed into a hunter as well as a gatherer: it
must seek out and identify hostile terrorist networks, cells, and individuals; garner information about hostile intentions
and capabilities; disrupt their Dr. Martin Rudner is Director of the Canadian Centre of Intelligence and Security Studies at
the Norman Paterson School of International Affairs, Carleton University, Ottawa, Ontario, Canada. Prior to joining the
Carleton faculty in 1984, he taught at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem and the Australian National University. President
of the Canadian Association for Security and Intelligence Studies (CASIS), he is also an economic and political advisor to
the Canadian International Development Agency (CIDA). Author of numerous books and articles, Dr. Rudner appears frequently as
a radio and television commentator on security matters.
International Journal of Intelligence and CounterIntelligence, 17: 193-230, 2004
Copyright # Taylor & Francis Inc.
ISSN: 0885-0607 print/1521-0561 online
DOI: 10.1080/08850600490274890
193
recruitment, training, planning, deployment, supply, and financial systems; provide threat assessments and early warning; and
thwart terrorist operations. Moreover, since in most jurisdictions terrorism is defined as a crime as well as a national
security threat, the hunting and gathering of intelligence should also serve to support law enforcement authorities in
bringing terrorists to justice.
MEETING A COMPLEX THREAT
That al-Qaeda, its affiliates, and cells embedded themselves in countries far afield--from the U.S. itself to Afghanistan,
Canada, Germany, Great Britain, France, Indonesia, Kuwait, Italy, Malaysia, the Netherlands, Pakistan, the Philippines, Saudi
Arabia, Singapore, Spain, Tunisia, Yemen, and elsewhere--placed a premium on intelligence cooperation for countering this
globalized terrorist threat. Absent intelligence cooperation, the imminence of the threat would have prompted unilateral
operations in erstwhile friendly countries against terrorist networks, cells, and individual operatives. International
intelligence cooperation against terrorism created a collective security alternative to rampant clandestine warfare across
the globe.
So great was the complexity and magnitude of the task that even the world's preeminent superpower, the United States, found
itself impelled to seek cooperation with a large number of other countries in its intelligenceled war on international
Islamicist terrorism. While international cooperation in the intelligence domain is hardly a new thing--the United States has
itself been involved in closely knit alliances with selected partners for over fifty years--the wide geopolitical scope and
extent of collaboration and exchanges in the aftermath of 11 September amounts to a quantum leap toward cooperative security
through intelligence partnering. A broad coalition of some 100 countries has emerged, comprising a framework of many parts.
The emergent intelligence coalition has been characterized by different areas of cooperation, different degrees of
information sharing, different disciplines for partnering, and different specializations for exchanges among the various
participating countries. Nevertheless, the alliances and coalitions that were formed in the intelligence domain have since
then played a front-line role in the global counterterrorism effort, while also contributing substantively to the diplomatic
and military elements of the campaign.
The counterterrorism coalition that was formed in the aftermath of the 11 September attacks built on preexisting mechanisms
for international intelligence cooperation. These mechanisms in the domain of intelligence remain highly secretive as to
their actual names and descriptions, mandates, and country participants. Yet it is known that international
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arrangements for intelligence cooperation have taken on multilateral,
plurilateral, and bilateral attributes:
a. Multilateral systems for intelligence cooperation comprise formal alliance arrangements which are characteristically
shrouded in secrecy. The multilateral essence of these arrangements is attributable less to the number of participating
countries (just the closest of like-minded allies) than to the intimacy, automaticity, and scope of their intelligence
relationship. These are partnerships tightly knit in the elements of burden sharing, technology sharing, targeting and
coverage, operational collaboration, accessibility to alliance intelligence assets, and a wholesale sharing of intelligence
products.
b. Plurilateral cooperation, by way of contrast, typically occurs through more loosely structured, informal networks,
``groups'' or ``clubs,'' for intelligence sharing. Although plurilateral networks may involve a relatively large number of
arms-length allies, nevertheless, their information sharing mechanisms are somewhat more discretionary, or less automatic and
fulsome, than the alliance model, and tend to focus on specific threats or issue areas of common concern to the participating
countries.
c. Bilateral intelligence cooperation, for its part, proceeds through regular liaison or ad hoc mutual arrangements,
facilitating direct exchanges of intelligence information and specialized services that typically address particular issues
and threats. The retail terms of trade for these bilateral exchanges reflect the comparative advantages of the countries and
agencies involved in intelligence collection and=or threat assessment. International cooperation in intelligence plays a
significant, albeit an almost invisible role in collective security. A modest intelligence power like Canada, for example,
may be engaged in multilateral, plurilateral, and bilateral intelligence relations with nearly 150 countries.1 To be sure,
international cooperation can be a somewhat ambiguous matter in the intelligence domain. Cooperation might well enhance reach
and effectiveness, and liaison relationships can curtail some foreign intelligence operations within cooperating countries.
But, as it is said, ``There are no friendly secret services, only the secret services of friendly states.'' Intelligence
communities of even friendly countries tend to be reticent and secretive about anything to do with their respective
capabilities, methods, and sources, lest disclosure militate against any future strategic requirement or operational tasking.
I. MULTILATERAL INTELLIGENCE ALLIANCES
Two significant multilateral alliance systems have been identified in the domain of intelligence. One is the United
Kingdom-United States Security
Agreement on communications intelligence cooperation (the UKUSA
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alliance), which has been in existence for nearly sixty years.2 Little known and still highly classified, the UKUSA alliance
has provided a framework for multilateral cooperation that considerably extended the individual signals intelligence
capabilities of the United States, United Kingdom, Canada, Australia, and New Zealand. The second multilateral system is an
incipient European alliance intended to develop an expanded and coordinated European capability in space-based intelligence.
This French initiative, joined by Germany and Italy, is open to other European Union member countries. Other alliance
arrangements for intelligence and security cooperation against international terrorism include the Shanghai-6, embracing
China, Russia, Kazakhstan, Kyrgysztan, Tajikistan, and Uzbekistan, though little is known about its cooperative mechanisms
and activities. The former Soviet bloc had its own multilateral arrangement for intelligence cooperat ion among Communist
Eastern European governments, structured around a hub-and-spokes mechanism controlled by the KGB, but this no longer exists.
All these multilateral arrangements for intelligence cooperation were predicated on systematic burden sharing, technology
sharing, shared access to specified intelligence assets, a division of labor regarding targeting and geographic areas of
coverage, and a fulsome sharing of intelligence products.
THE UKUSA AGREEMENT ON COMMUNICATIONS INTELLIGENCE
The UKUSA Agreement had its origins in wartime Anglo-American SIGINT cooperation against Germany and Japan. In 1945 the
British government approached the United States to propose continued peacetime SIGINT cooperation, based on their shared
wartime experience of geographic specialization, coupled with product sharing. As discussions progressed, the British also
dispatched missions to Canada and Australia to elicit their participation in an expanded arrangement. A follow-up meeting in
London produced the British-USA agreement (BRUSA), whichis still classified, and which set out specific arrangements for a
SIGINT partnership among the United States, the UK, and the two self-governing Dominions (as they were then); New Zealand
entered the arrangement under the aegis of Australia.3
The diplomacy of intelligence cooperation between the United Kingdom and the United States proceeded through zigs and zags as
the two Great Powers reconciled their shared and unilateral interests and objectives in the early Cold War security
environment. During the winter of 1946-1947 the UK proceeded to convene a conference of the Dominions' signals intelligence
services with a view to setting up a Commonwealth SIGINT network under British leadership and with a global surveillance
capability. A Commonwealth SIGINT Organization (CSO) Agreement was signed in
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1947, but the objective proved to be excessively ambitious. Nevertheless, these early consultations did nurture close, even
intimate, long-term operational relationships, particularly among the SIGINT organizations of the UK, Australia, and Canada.
Not to be outflanked, the United States moved swiftly to initiate separate bilateral communications intelligence cooperation
agreements with Canada (CANUSA) and Australia.
Faced with a mounting Cold War confrontation in Europe, the Americans and British resolved their differences and proceeded to
conclude, in June 1948, the UKUSA Security Agreement on communications intelligence cooperation. This Agreement did not take
the form of a single treaty, rather it comprised a set of Anglo-American memoranda of understanding and exchanges of letters
negotiated over the previous two years.4 Australia, Canada, and New Zealand, signed on along with the UK as ``Second
Parties'' to the UKUSA arrangement. Later, other countries were reportedly included in a somewhat looser, more limited
association as ``Third Parties,'' usually by virtue of bilateral arrangements with theBritish (e.g., Sweden) or Americans
(e.g., Norway).5 Details of all elements of the Agreement remain highly classified today.
Sharing Secrets
Available sources indicate that the UKUSA pact constitutes a framework mechanism for close collaboration between the United
States and Great Britain, as First and Second Parties to the Agreement, in technology development, targeting and operations,
and in the sharing of foreign intelligence products.6 From the start, the national SIGINT agencies of the United States and
Great Britain, respectively the National Security Agency (NSA) and the Government Communications Headquarters (GCHQ), served
as the core of this intelligence sharing arrangement, and were by far the major contributors of technology, operational
capacity, and strategic leadership. Other partners, the Australian Defence Signals Directorate (DSD), Canada's Communications
Branch of the National Research Council (CBNRC), later the Communications Security Establishment (CSE), and the New Zealand
Government Communications SecurityBureau (GCSB), served more like auxiliaries at the periphery of the UKUSA's global Signals
Intelligence collection effort. By virtue of this UKUSA Agreement, these five SIGINT agencies, known as the ``Five Eyes'' (as
in ``UKUSA Eyes Only'') constituted a uniquely intimateinternational intelligence partnership. Third Party countries like
Denmark, Japan, the Netherlands, Norway, Turkey, etc., were limited to a rather more restricted and discretionary access to
the UKUSA's SIGINT resources. An underlying principle of UKUSA was that the partner countries did not target one another or
their respective nationals to collect clandestine
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intelligence. Although the UKUSA was very much a hub-and-spokes type arrangement, the partnership did allow middle powers
like Australia and Canada to have access to a global capability to collect and deliver realtime communications intelligence
on foreign targets of interest to their national security. As well, the UKUSA arrangement has given these middle powers a
place at the table for high level strategic deliberations on the part of their American and British allies, along with
privileged access to the most sophisticated technologies for intelligence and for defense generally.
The Targets
From the outset of the Cold War, the UKUSA partners concentrated their SIGINT efforts primarily on Soviet and Warsaw Pact
communications, with the highest priority going to communications relating to nuclear weaponry and its deployment. Soviet
espionage and diplomatic communications constituted second and third priorities. In attacking these priorities the UKUSA
arrangement provided for SIGINT burden-sharing among the ``Five Eyes'' in terms of geographic coverage and targeting. The UK
and U.S. assumed primary responsibility for monitoring Soviet and other Warsaw Pact communications and electronic signals in
central, southern and northern Europe, the Middle East and south=central Asia, and Southeastern and Eastern Asia. Australia
and New Zealand covered more specifically Southeast Asia and the Pacific, while Canada was charged with monitoring Soviet
military and scientific communications across the Arctic and Far East.
UKUSA partners were also successful in attacking the communications and cipher systems of many other countries. Countries
that still relied for their communications security on Hagelin-type encryption machines manufactured by the Swiss firm,
Crypto AG, were especially vulnerable. These machines were similar in design to the German Enigma, which had already been
overcome by British cryptanalysts during World War II. In order to shield its ongoing cryptographic efforts, British
intelligence kept secret its Ultra success for decades afterwards. From the 1970s onwards, a covert arrangement between the
NSA and Crypto AG effectively compromised the communications security of successive models of their encryption machines.7 As
a result, the ostensibly secure diplomatic and military communications of some 130 countries relying on Crypto AGencryption
machines were effectively accessible to the NSA and therefore to other UKUSA partners.8 NSA and GCHQ supposedly could read
the coded messages as fast or faster than the intended recipients.9 The methods utilized to intercept internal land-based
communications are obviously highly classified.10 But the U.S. and some of its UKUSA partners, including Britain's GCHQ and
Canada's CSE, are known to have acquired
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some of the NSA's technologies for operations conducted out of their diplomatic or consular posts, in order to
surreptitiously intercept telephonic or digital communications from within foreign capital cities, sift them for messages to
or from targeted individuals or organizations, and decrypt the enciphered content. In Canada's case, the want of
cryptanalytical capability at that time, around the 1970s and 1980s, meant that the CSE was unable to process the ``take''
from its own external SIGINT collection efforts, but had to rely on its UKUSA partners to process this intelligence product.
Covering the World
The development of satellite communications technology since the late 1960s has led to a rapid expansion of international
telecommunications traffic, which in turn has prompted a dramatic (albeit highly classified) role expansion for the UKUSA
partnership. In 1971, Britain's GCHQ constructed a specialized ground station at Morwenstow, designed to intercept satellite
communications (SATCOM) relays from Intelsat satellites over the Atlantic and Indian oceans. The Morwenstow facility was
linked to a similar NSA station at Yakima, Washington, situated to intercept Pacific Intelsat relays. For a time, these two
sites were able to monitor all Intelsat traffic across the world.
Subsequent refinements to Intelsat satellite design, and the launching of communications satellites by the Soviet Union and
other countries, spurred the UKUSA partners to substantially improve the capabilities of the two existing facilities, while
also constructing a chain of suitably situated intercept stations around the world in order to maintain global coverage.11
Additional SATCOM interception stations were installed in Hong Kong (since dismantled) by GCHQ; at Kojarena, Western
Australia by the DSD; at Leitrim, Ontario by the CSE; at Waihopai in New Zealand's South Island by the GCSB; and at Sabana
Seca, Puerto Rico and Sugar Grove, West Virginia by the NSA. Another GCHQ station may have been set up during the 1990s on
Ascension Island to monitor the Atlantic Intelsats'southern hemisphere communications.
The interception of high-frequency radio and satellite-relayed communications is only one element of the UKUSA's capability
for global SIGINT surveillance. Other components include satellite-based signals intelligence collectors (spy satellites),
and covert devices that tap directly into land-based telecommunications networks. Soviet domestic telecommunications were
especially dependent on microwave networks, since its vast areas under permafrost and immense distances militated against
laying underground cables. Since microwave signals are not deflected by the ionosphere but radiate off into space, they were
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vulnerable to interception by U.S. satellites positioned in an appropriate (usually geosynchronous) orbit to capture the
inevitable microwave spillage. In the event, so immense was the ``take'' from Soviet microwave circuits that the satellites
had to immediately download the collected communications intelligence to an earth station in line of sight.12 For two of the
three satellites, this required the construction of ground satellite stations outside the U.S.--at Menwith Hill in England and
Pine Gap in Australia. To distinguish between two modalities of satellite SIGINT is pertinent--between what may be described
as ``dishes-down'' or ``dishes-up'' capabilities. The former refers to SIGINT satellites designed for spacebased
interceptions of communications or other electronic emissions emanating from the ground, sea, or air; while the latter
relates to a ground-based facility for the interception of communications relayed by satellites in space.
In accordance with the terms of the UKUSA alliance, all ``Five Eyes'' were able to access and share in the products of these
satellite intercepts. So far, the United States remains the only country to have deployed space satellites for the
interception of internal (and inter-satellite) communications. SIGINT satellites and their ground-processing facilities are
exceptionally costly, with the latest classes costing approximately US$1 billion apiece. In the aftermath of the Falklands
War, Britain attempted to design its own SIGINT satellite, known as Zircon.13 But the cost of owning and operating a single
satellite would have increased GCHQ's budget by about a third in perpetuity; three such satellites would have been needed for
complete surveillance of the USSR, and this was simply unaffordable. Moreover, by then the NSA had already achieved
near-global coverage with its two existing classes of SIGINT satellites. In 1987, the British Cabinet decided, in great
secrecy, as with most matters regarding Zircon, to terminate the project. Instead, a secret agreement was reached in 1988 for
Britain to contribute $500 million toward the U.S. designed Magnum class of second-generation SIGINT satellites, the first of
which was launched in 1994.14 In return, Britain obtained a measure of operational control over these spacecraft. No
spacecraft were actually placed at Britain's disposal, however, and the highly sensitive technology has remained exclusively
in American hands.
Despite the sharing principle underlying the UKUSA, the orbital positioning and targeting of this constellation of satellites
remain under the control of the United States, with the NSA retaining the right to override GCHQ in tasking the satellites,
even during the British time share. While the U.S. has sometimes been willing to reposition satellites, so as to hover and
zero in on targets requested by its UKUSA allies, such requests have not been without their difficulties, and the response
continues to be entirely at American discretion.15
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Working Together
From the outset, the several SATCOM interception and satellite ground control stations were linked together into functional
networks. By the 1990s, extensive refinements to the UKUSA's wide-area networking technologies made possible a virtually
seamless global operational capability for the various operational methodologies--HF (high frequency) radio, space-based, and
local in-country. The integration and meshing ofthese SIGINT modalities reached its zenith in the highly sophisticated and
very secret networking system known as Echelon.16 The Echelon system is actually a networked dictionary software, linked
together in an array of large-scale computers called ``Platform'' that enable the various UKUSA intercept stations to
function as parts of an integrated, virtually seamless SIGINT interception and processing network.17
Compared to the earlier SIGINT systems deployed during the Cold War, which were designed primarily to intercept diplomatic,
espionage, and military communications, Echelon had a broadbanded capacity to monitor virtually all types of electronic
communications among public and private sector organizations and individuals in almost every country. The Echelon network
facilitated reciprocal access to networked stations and a full exchange of intercepts among the UKUSA partners. At the
operational heart of this network are the Echelon ``Dictionary'' computers. These specialized computers, with the capacity to
store a comprehensive database on designated organizations or individuals, including names, topics of interest, addresses,
telephone numbers and other criteria for target identification, are located in certain Echelon-linked SIGINT facilities.
These Echelon Dictionary computers are said to be able to sort through vast flows of intercepted telecommunications traffic
in order to identify specifically targeted messaging. Given the closely integrated networking achieved under Echelon, each
participant's Dictionary computer contains not only its parent organization's designated keywords, but also a target list for
each of the other partners among the ``Five Eyes.'' The reciprocity arrangement under the UKUSA pact allowed partner SIGINT
organizations virtually automatic access to each other's interception facilities without the host country necessarily being
aware of their targets. In return, each of the ``Five Eyes'' gained access to the global capabilities of the Echelon system
of COMINT collection and processing. Available information indicates that each of the ``Five Eyes'' can access the Echelon
system solely for its own designated target list, and is not obliged to share any of the intelligence gathered with other
partners.18 Partners may request intelligence product from each other's Echelon Dictionary listings, but actual access is
effectively controlled by that agency. Intercepts are processed through the networked Echelon Dictionary computers, with the
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take being forwarded automatically to the listing agency. These intercepts are then processed through technologically
advanced computer systems, programmed to search for specific telephone numbers, voice recognition patterns, or key words, and
to decrypt text. Under the prevailing UKUSA arrangement, each of the ``Five Eyes'' reportedly specializes in analyzing
particular types of communications traffic.19 The great challenge confronting UKUSA has been the tremendous influx of
intercepts, which overwhelms and exceeds existing capacity to synthesize and analyze raw communications intelligence take
into a readily usable product.
Technological Prowess
The technologies behind Echelon and other high capacity SIGINT collection and processing systems were mostly American in
origin. These technologies were so specialized and of such advanced complexity that only experienced U.S. defense contractors
and niche suppliers were capable of designing and manufacturing the purpose-built equipment for the NSA, and then only with
government technical and financial backing.20 Some of this equipment including Cray supercomputers, Echelon computer systems
and their miniaturized versions (Oratory) for outstations, miniaturized interception and processing equipment for
embassy-based interceptions, highcapacity= high-speed information retrieval devices, and high-speed traffic=topic analysis
search engines, inter alia, was made available by the NSA to other UKUSA partners. UKUSA partners also relied on NSA training
for their cryptanalytical and other technical specialists. Other UKUSA partners, among them GCHQ and the CSE, also endeavored
to promote technology development in niches where these countries enjoyed certain technological advantages. Over the years
the GCHQ demonstrated a strong in-house capacity to design, develop, and produce specialized hardware and software
applications for its own requirements, including signal processors, antennas and receivers, point-topoint links, and data
networks, and state-of-the-art cryptographic products.21 Both Britain and Canada sponsored research into speech recognition
technologies.
The UKUSA's capabilities in technological interoperability and functional cooperation were revealed in the conduct of joint
operations. In one telling example in 1995, a combined Australian-NSA-GCHQ operation introduced highly sophisticated
eavesdropping devices into the new purpose-built Chinese Embassy in Canberra. The British contribution reportedly involved
specialized equipment for routing the intercepts to an American-equipped monitoring station.22 The operation exemplified the
interoperability of technologies and synergies of planning and execution among UKUSA partners.
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The collaborative strength of UKUSA was further demonstrated in January 2000, when the NSA's main computer system crashed
calamitously for four days. What was described as a ``system overload'' shut down the computers used to process collected
SIGINT intelligencefrom 24-28 January, causing an unprecedented breakdown in the processing and analysis of raw intercepts.23
Nevertheless, SIGINT interceptions continued uninterrupted, thanks to the high degree of network integration under UKUSA.
This enabled the shunting of incoming raw intelligence to other components of the Echelon system, including, presumably,
GCHQ, for processing for the duration of the NSA outage. The robustness of UKUSA burden-sharing capabilities proved to be of
significant value even to the United States.
Combatting the Terrorists
SIGINT has played a significant part in the intelligence war on Islamist terrorism. With its global reach and sophisticated
interception and cryptanalytical capabilities, the UKUSA SIGINT effort was able to attack al-Qaeda telephone and data
communications, and also target its presence in various countries across Asia, the Middle East, and elsewhere.24 Awareness of
these SIGINT capabilities reportedly prompted al-Qaeda to rely for its communications on personal messengers and
sophisticated telecommunications, the Internet, and encryption technologies to try to outfox U.S. surveillance.25
Nevertheless, the ability of the NSA to provide significant and timely intelligence on terrorist threats was grievously
constrained by deficiencies in its technical capability to attack certain modern communications systems, tardiness in
translation and analysis of intercepts, and legal ambiguities regarding interceptions within the United States proper.26
Still, communications interceptions contributed to the identification and tracking of al-Qaeda and its affiliated networks
and cells, to early warning and prevention of terrorist attacks, to the monitoring and disruption of financial transactions,
and to the location and arrest of al-Qaeda leaders, including Khadar Sheik Mohammed, the alleged planner of the 11 September
attacks.27
Ambiguities in the functions of the UKUSA become apparent whenever the foreign policies of the five partners diverge over
issues of national significance. Thus, the New Zealand stance on nuclear weaponry aboard visiting warships provoked the
United States to limit that country's access to American intelligence assets. Similarly, an NSA request to its partner
``Eyes'' that they assist in the interception and analysis of diplomatic communications of members of the United Nations
Security Council (except the U.S. and UK, of course) during the debate on the proposed Resolution authorizing the use of
force to disarm Iraq, posed an acute
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policy dilemma for the UKUSA partnership.28 Whereas at a strategic foreign policy level the U.S., UK, and Australia embraced
similar positions with regard to Iraq, Canada and New Zealand did not; and indeed the two countries adopted a quite contrary
standpoint. Thus, for the CSE or GCSB to have cooperated with their UKUSA partners in targeting the communications of
Security Council delegates would have compromised Canada's and New Zealand's own policy prescriptions and principles. The
2003 United Nations Security Council issue constituted one of the rare singularities wherein divergences in foreign policy
militated against thelongstanding propensity for SIGINT cooperation under UKUSA.
Franco-European Initiatives in Global Surveillance
As part of their respective international security efforts that preceded and followed the end of the Cold War, European
countries also pursued enhanced cooperation in intelligence. The breakup of the Soviet bloc witnessed profound political
changes and altered the structure and dynamics of international relations on the European continent and globally. What was
hitherto a stable, almost predictable balance of East-West power was now supplanted by a more fluid and volatile
international environment. Destabilizing trends in East and Central Europe, such as theconflict in the Balkans, large-scale
human migrations, transnational crime, and trafficking in weaponry of mass destruction posed heightened security risks for
both Western Europe and North America. Faced with mounting risks within Europe, and intensive competition to exercise a
presence internationally, the 1992 Treaty on the European Union--the Maastricht Treaty--initiated a security agenda that later
crystallized into a Common European and Security Policy.29 France, in particular, held to the view that Europe's ability to
conduct its own independent foreign policy depended upon the creation of an integrated intelligence capability comparable to
that of the United States.30
The French government responded to post-Cold War uncertainties by building up its intelligence capabilities. French security
doctrine emphasized the contribution of intelligence to the four main functions of France's defense policy: conflict
prevention, deterrence, protection, and force projection. In order to try to emulate the UKUSA global reach, France embarked
on a determined effort to develop a European spacebased SIGINT and imagery capability--which some have dubbed
``Frenchelon''--designed to induce inter-European cooperation in technology development, operational partnerships, and
financial burden sharing, while creating intelligence assets that could cover broad geographic swaths of interest to French
foreign and defense policy and to Europe's security requirements. Officially, the targets of France's
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IMINT=SIGINT initiative related to conflict early warning and threat deterrence, counterterrorism, and the prevention of the
proliferation of weapons of mass destruction.31 There is little question, however, that France's SIGINT effort was also
directed at economic intelligence and industrial espionage.32
To be sure, France already possessed infrastructure for a space program at its Centre Spatial Guyanais launching complex at
Kourou in French Guiana, and the Ariane rocket was available as a launch vehicle. Satellite ground stations were established
at Kourou and Mayotte, both reportedly in cooperation with Germany's Bundesnachichtendienst (BND), in addition to the core
installation at Domme.33 France's satellite-based IMINT=SIGINT effort, managed by the Direction ge?ne?ral de la se?curite?
exte?rieur (DGSE) and operated by the Direction renseignement militaire (DRM), the military intelligence agency, involved the
building of intelligence partnerships with selected European allies, and the establishment of cooperation arrangements with
numerous countries across the world, especially for the placement of ground facilities.
While elements of partnership and cooperation have been put in place, the sharing process has not been especially smooth or
fulsome. Financial burden sharing has been partial, hesitant, and sometimes even tenuous. Thus, the initial Helios
photographic satellite program was estimated to cost some FF20 billion for two craft.34 France was able to elicit
cosponsorship of the Helios-1 program from Italy (approximately 14 percent) and Spain (approximately 7 percent) but Germany
and Great Britain withstood pressures and urgings, and declined to participate. Germany later agreed to cooperate on
Helios-2, a more powerful satellite with more refined optics and infra-red sensors scheduled for launching in 2003, in return
for a share in the tasking and products, and for French agreement to go ahead with the Horus (originally named Osiris) radar
imaging satellite which Germany particularly wanted. But subsequent budgetary constraints compelled the Germans to pull out
of Helios in 1997 and to abandon involvement in Horus.35 Lacking other partners to share further financial burdens, and faced
with spiraling costs, France finally decided to cancel its large-scale Zenon SIGINT satellite program, whose capabilities
lagged behind current American technologies anyway.
As its initial approach floundered, France refocused its effort on achieving functional complementarity among the space
programs of France, Germany, and Italy as regards areas of shared geographic and security priority, and building from there.
In June 2000, Germany agreed to cooperate with France on a military satellite program; Italy was then invited to incorporate
its planned Italian military-civil satellite project, SkyMED COSMO, into the Franco-German initiative.36 So determined was
France to bring about this cooperative effort that the French government was
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even prepared to help share the cost of the SAR-Lupe satellites in order to encourage German participation. France considers
that such a tripartite European satellite intelligence system would represent a quantum leap forward in European global
intelligence capability. France's intelligence satellite effort also involved the creation of a worldwide network of ground
stations functioning around a central SIGINT processing site at DGSE headquarters at Noisy, in the Paris region, and a
control and interception complex at Domme, in the Dordogne Valley. Under the terms of the cooperation arrangement for
Helios-1, primary data reception stations were located in all three partner countries: at Colmar in France, Leece in Italy,
and Maspalomas on Spain's Canary Islands, while the main payload control facility was at Creil, France. Other stations in the
network include downlink and interception facilities located in the United Arab Emirates, which also provide IMINT=SIGINT
coverage of the Middle East; in New Caledonia, covering the Asia Pacific; and at Korou, covering the Americas.37 According to
available information, French SIGINT capabilities lack the global surveillance of Echelon, or even the reach of Britain's
GCHQ to collect and decypher massive intakes of signals intelligence from a diversity of communications modes--telephonic,
radio, and digital.38 But France is reported to have developed highly refined computer software capable of sifting through
massive volumes of intelligence throughput in order to identify items of political or commercial relevance.39
France's strategy of building intelligence alliances is complicated by a deeply ingrained ambivalence regarding the sharing
of intelligence. As the key operator and main contributor of resources to the IMINT=SIGINT enterprise, France has reserved
for itself the highest priority for tasking these satellites and has controlled access to the widest ``take.''40 Any
willingness to share has long depended on France's consideration of the target. Over time, France has cooperated more or less
fully with its partners, allies, and friends in intelligence efforts directed against the new global threats, such as
international terrorism, transnational crime, drug trafficking, and proliferation of weapons of mass destruction. But
considerable reticence remains about sharing information regarding geographic areas of historical or geo-strategic
significance to France, like the Levant, and even a reluctance to share intelligence concerning its most intimate spheres of
regional interest in the Maghreb and Francophone Africa.41
Projected tripartite French-German-Italian cooperation in satellite-based intelligence collection is to be based on France's
Helios-2 photoreconnaissance craft launched in 2003, operating together with Germany'sSAR-Lupe all-weather radar satellites
(four or possibly six craft scheduled for launching this year) and Italy's four radar and three optical SkyMED COSMO
satellites during the next several months. The tripartite approach
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intends to assign each of the satellite systems a more-or-less specific and complementary geographic role. Helios-2 is to
provide global coverage, as did the Helios-1 craft since their launch in 1995, while SAR-Lupe satellites are slated to
concentrate mainly on Central and Eastern Europe and SkyMED COSMOS on the Mediterranean region.42 Although the coverage is
likely to be somewhat less than comprehensive and seamless, France considers that this coordinated, tripartite satellite
system could achieve an extended capability and reach, and furthermore could set in motion a process of European
intelligence cooperation that might potentially rival the UKUSA. Other EU countries possessing significant SIGINT capability
are Denmark, Germany (which operates listening stations abroad in Spain, Lebanon, Taiwan, and at Pamir-Geburge, China, near
the sensitive Afghan border), Italy,43 and the Netherlands,44 as well as, of course, Great Britain.
In another initiative aimed at promoting European cooperation in spacebased technologies, the Western European Union
established in the 1990s a satellite imagery processing and interpretation facility at its Satellite Center at the Torrejon
Air Base near Madrid, Spain. This cooperative facility was designed for interoperability with Helios and other European
civilian imagery satellites, including Russia's.45 It concentrated mainly on crisis surveillance and environmental
monitoring, but its limited data processing capability seems to have been a severe constraint.
The French Helios-1A, launched in 1995, was a photo-imaging (IMINT) satellite whose purpose was to provide early warning of
threats and conflicts. Later disclosures revealed that the satellite piggybacked an experimental Ceris (Characterisation de
l' Environment Radio-e? lectrique par un Instrument Spatial Embarque? ) mini-satellite containing a Euracom SIGINT apparatus
designed to intercept Intelsat and Inmarsat satellite communication signals.46 But this device seems to have been deficient
in terms of its interception and relay capabilities. A second photo-imaging satellite, Helios-1B was launched in December
1999.
During the conflict in the former Yugoslavia, Helios-1A was used operationally for mission preparation and battle damage
assessments.47 Current French intelligence efforts are said to concentrate largely on IMINT and SIGINT, and are targeted
primarily at economic, industrial, technological-scientific, and financial intelligence,48 as well as counterterrorism.
Indeed, France is said to have institutionalized its approach to industrial espionage, with the DGSE responding to requests
from French firms to deploy its resources to obtain specific items of economic or corporate intelligence.49 French economic
intelligence operations are widely believed to involve not only SIGINT, human sources, and moles placed in foreign firms, but
the express targeting of foreign business visitors to France.50
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II. PLURILATERAL INTELLIGENCE NETWORKS
Intelligence is a game to be played against all comers, and no partnership on ``friendly relationship'' gives anyone total
immunity.--Bradley F. Smith51
Groups of countries, when confronted by a common security threat that transcends existing military or defense arrangements,
have demonstrated a propensity to form networks to facilitate intelligence cooperation. Rarely do these plurilateral
networks, which may constitute intelligence ``groups'' or ``clubs,'' extend beyond the sharing of information. To be sure,
actual intelligence collection, analysis, assessment, and dissemination remain privy to the partner agencies, so that the
sharing of information comes at the sovereign discretion of participating governments. Similarly, international organizations
like the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) and the United Nations do not have their own organic intelligence
capabilities, even for peace support and peacekeeping missions, so that their intelligence requirements likewise depend on
the degree of information sharing by participating countries. The parameters of plurilateral information sharing will
determine the effectiveness of the collective security provided by these informal ``clubs'' and international organizations.
CAZAB
In the late 1960s, the CAZAB club (as it later became known) was formed at the instigation of the then-head of Central
Intelligence Agency (CIA) Counterintelligence, James J. Angleton. Its goal was to promote the sharing of counterintelligence
information about Soviet espionage, tradecraft, and operations among the five UKUSA members. CAZAB (Canada, Australia,
[New]Zealand, `America', Britain) comprised a mechanism for annual consultations among the heads of the five intelligence
organizations responsible for security and counterintelligence, thereby facilitating cooperation and exchanges of security
intelligence parallel to the UKUSA alliance for signals intelligence. Yet, unlike the SIGINT arrangement, the sharing of
security intelligence within the CAZAB framework seems to have been rather more constrained and discretionary, both
institutionally and politically. Despite the tradition of close cooperation, each government and agency was at some point
constrained in responding to its partners' requests for intelligence sharing. Sometimes these constraints arose from
differing priorities in tasking or in allocating investigatory resources, or divergent national policies regarding the target
or security issue, or because of domestic statutory restrictions or privacy rules. Thus, the United States and Canada tended
to move slowly, if at all, in responding to British requests for action against Irish Republican Army and Provisional Irish
Republic Army fund-raising and
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other activities supportive of terrorism in Northern Ireland. More recently, Canada reportedly eschewed responding to certain
direct U.S. requests for security information on Arab and Muslim residents, out of respect for its own domestic principles of
law enforcement. The U.S. was asked to file its requests through Interpol, where they could be handled properly, albeit
slowly. In the event, the information flow may ultimately have been expedited through informal back channels.
The hub-and-spokes flow of shared intelligence within CAZAB emanated mostly from the partners in the periphery toward the
center--the United States--which considered itself to be especially vulnerable, first to Soviet espionage, and now to Islamic
terrorism, as compared to the UKUSA where SIGINT flowed preponderantly from the NSA to its partner ``Eyes.'' Precisely
because of the delicate sensibilities associated with human source intelligence, this disparity in the direction of
information flows created a conundrum for CAZAB. Intelligence cooperation even among the closest international partner
countries was doubly vulnerable: to the urgency of some partners' national security requirements, and to other partners'
policy prescriptions and statutory obligations. As a result, intelligence cooperation through these secret, informal
networking arrangements was at once urgent operationally but sensitive politically, expeditious in security terms but
problematical for law enforcement. Whereas the failure to cooperate in the sharing of urgent intelligence may well jeopardize
a participating country's national security and discredit the entire network, any wholesale sharing of intelligence with
others could passi passu compromise the coherence and integrity of the accessory government's policies and laws.
NATO Special Committee
NATO does not possess a significant intelligence collection capability of its own, except in particular domains of military
intelligence. But the Alliance instituted a Special Committee, composed of representatives of member countries' security
services (not foreign intelligence services), with a mandate to encourage the sharing of security intelligence (as distinct
from military intelligence). Following the attacks of 11 September, the NATO Special Committee created an analytical unit to
provide the North Atlantic Council with regular assessments of threats to Alliance security and the national security of
member countries from militant Islamic organizations, based on intelligence received from member country security services.52
The Special Committee also considered more intensified cooperation with Russia to be directed against international
terrorism.53
The NATO Special Committee also organized meetings of the intelligence services of forty-six Euro-Atlantic Partnership
Council (EAPC) countries, as
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par t of the NATO EAPC Ac t i o n Pl an 2000-2002.5 4 These meetings facilitated joint consultations to assess international
terrorism and responses.
Intra-European Groupings
The Club of Berne, dating from 1971, is a forum for the heads of the security services of European Union (EU) member
countries.55 Highly secretive, th Club meets annually to consider specific agendas reflecting shared European security
concerns and interests. Thus, the agenda for 1999 related to terrorism, communications interception, encryption, and
cyberterrorism. For 2000, the agenda concentrated on the evolution of the various intelligence services in the context of the
ongoing European integration. The Club maintains its own dedicated communication system to disseminate situation reports and
share information. Informal contacts also take place between smaller sub-groupings. The Club has no statutory mandate;
neither does it report to any authority within the EU framework. Following the attacks of 11 September 2001, the EU Council
on Justice and the Interior tasked the Club of Berne with providing guidance to Europol on counterterrorism. Toward this end,
the Club established a consultation group, composed of directors of its component counterterrorism units, which meets four
times a year, to provide intelligence guidance to Europol's law enforcement effort against terrorism. During the 1970s, and
again in the mid-1980s, Western Europe was wracked by a firestorm of terrorist violence. Attacks, bombings, and
assassinations were carried out by revolutionary extremists in Germany, France, Italy, and Belgium, and by militant
separatists in Spain and Northern Ireland.56 Terrorism assaulted public and private institutions and prominent individuals,
and tore at the very fabric of democratic societies. Faced with an onslaught of terrorism which seemed to exploit open
friendly borders and sanctuaries in neighboring countries and in the Middle East, Western European countries became sharply
aware of the importance of intelligence-sharing for their respective counterterrorism efforts. The intuitive reticence of
national security intelligence services gave way to the formation of the Trevi [``Terrorisme, Radicalisme, Extre? misme et
Violence Internationale''] group, a plurilateral European networking arrangement for consultations and information
exchanges.57
In October 2001, in the aftermath of the attacks of 11 September, the security services of EU members, plus Norway and
Switzerland, moved to set up a dedicated grouping for cooperation against international terrorism: the Counter-Terrorism
Group.58 This group meets every three months, in order to improve operational cooperation with respect to intelligence
collection and the prevention of terrorism.
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Other Groups and Clubs
In 1977, an upsurge in Arab terrorism prompted the formation of the Kilowatt group, composed of Belgium, Canada, France,
(West) Germany, Ireland, Israel, Italy, Luxembourg, the Netherlands, Norway, South Africa, Switzerland, Sweden, the United
Kingdom, and the United States--an intelligence-sharing arrangement addressing the international dimensions of that threat.59
Today, the group reportedly consists of the services of twenty-four countries, including recent additions to the EU. A
similar group, Megaton, was set up to deal with other (non-Arab) threats from radical and anarchist terrorists. These highly
secretive groups--their names may have been changed following publication--were backed by integrated data banks on terrorist
organizations, operatives, methods, and links, which are accessible by participating security services. While these
plurilateral groups constitute, in essence, information and communication networks, they serve to facilitate intelligence
sharing on a nonreciprocal basis and thus enhance the counterterrorism capabilities of both the individual participating
countries and the group as a whole.
The Egmont group was established in 1995 as a consultative and networking framework for national financial intelligence
units, with a focus on money laundering. The group grew out of a process initiated by the Financial Action Task Force on
money laundering set up at the 1989 G-7 Economic Summit, which led in turn to the creation of financial intelligence units in
various countries to collect, analyze, and manage financial intelligence and information on the proceeds of crime and money
laundering. The formation of the Egmont group was intended to create an international mechanism for cooperation and
information sharing on money laundering and, more recently, terrorist financing.60 Currently, some sixty-nine financial
intelligence agencies participate in the group, which supports their efforts at expanding and systematizing the sharing of
financial intelligence, improving the expertise and capabilities of personnel engaged in financial intelligence, and
fostering improved communications among national financial intelligence units.61
Other regional level intelligence cooperation clubs include the Middle Europe Conference, bringing together the security and
intelligence services of several Western and Central European countries, which now addresses operational cooperation and
information sharing against terrorism;62 the new Southeast Asia Center for Counter-Terrorism set up under the aegis of the
ASEAN Regional Forum;63 and Trident, involving Israel, Turkey, and Iran (until the Islamic Revolution),64 now lapsed and
replaced by an emergent security and intelligence entente between Israel, Turkey, and India directed at ``world jihad,'' as
well as mutual intelligence and operational support against local terrorist threats.65
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III. BILATERAL INTELLIGENCE RELATIONS
The attacks of 11 September highlighted the danger of reticence in matters of intelligence-sharing. The ensuing war on global
terrorism witnessed a vastlyexpanded cooperation in intelligence about al-Qaeda and its affiliated militant Islamicist
organizations. Democracies were impelled by the international terrorist threat to accept a more extensive sharing of personal
data on terrorist suspects. This has prompted an extension of operational cooperation to intelligence services of countries
in the Middle East, Southern Asia, and elsewhere. By early 2003, some 100 countries were said to be cooperating with the
United States as part of its global coalition against international Islamicist terrorism and its networks and cells.66 Yet,
in this era of global terrorism, elements of insecurity in any one country can impinge upon the security of all others.
Terrorism is a threat to both public safety and the international interests of all open societies. U.S. uneasiness about
insecure borders in the aftermath of 9=11 resonated sharply northward to Canada and southward to Mexico, and to other
countries around the world. The notion of a secure perimeter is not just territorial, but extends further to the security of
those identifiers of personal status--official documents and processes--and to cargoes and movements of monies. Any perceived
insecurities in, for example, customs or immigration or banking procedures, could--and probably would-- redound against the
sense of security of the United States.
Recent expressions of Washington's concern about the entry into the U.S. of travelers from certain Middle Eastern and South
Asian countries conveyed this security dilemma clearly. Any perceived laxness on the part of neighboring or other congenial
countries is likely to be exploited by international terrorist networks to gain false documentation to infiltrate the United
States.67 Thus, Islamic extremists used forged Saudi Arabian passports to enter Canada, since no visas were required for
Saudi visitors prior to 2002, and were able to establish ``sleeper'' cells in Canada as part of the al-Qaeda network.68
Intensive cooperation has taken place between U.S. and Canadian security and intelligence authorities to identify these
sleeper cells and disrupt their operations.69 Yet, coalition partners have sometimes desisted from sharing intelligence on
individuals--where this would compromise domestic privacy legislation--or from extraditing suspected terrorists to countries
like the United States, where they could face the death penalty.70 As well, there could be concern that the sharing of
intelligence about nationals suspected of complicity with terrorist organizations, albeit without violating domestic law,
could possibly lead to their being arrested when traveling abroad under the more draconian antiterrorism legislation of some
other jurisdictions. To be effective, counterterrorism has to be not only robust but must also reflect the core
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values of the international comity of nations, so as to enlist international cooperation in intelligence and meet the ethical
standards of law enforcement.
Liaison
Countries engage in liaison relationships with others with which they share intelligence-related concerns. International
liaison relationships serve to facilitate a bilateral exchange of intelligence information regarding specific security
threats among the countries concerned. These days they tend to focus on international terrorism, transnational crime, drug
trafficking, money laundering, financial fraud, people smuggling, and the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction.
Canada, for example, has over 100 liaison arrangements in place, but many are considered to be dormant, i.e., inactive. In
Canada's case, much of its intelligence liaison is taken up with immigration matters and visa security screening.71 The
establishment of liaison relationships may have helped to curtail foreign intelligence activities in otherwise open
societies, at least on the part some protagonists. The UKUSA=CAZAB arrangements provide for the posting of allied liaison
representatives to their counterpart agencies in each country, in order to facilitate exchanges of information, assessments,
and products. Partners supply a substantial share of the foreign intelligence requirements of middle powers like Australia,
Canada, and New Zealand. Liaison relationships help shape the intelligence assessments that inform their respective foreign
and security policy perspectives. While liaison representatives can participate in partner-country intelligence assessment
deliberations, the U.S. and UK are somewhat more restrictive. Thus, the UK Joint Intelligence Committee may sometimes exclude
allied officers, even those from the U.S., from discussions of certain sensitive matters, particularly issues relating to
European affairs.72 Notably, allied involvement in intelligence assessments within the Alliance framework seems to be
remarkably asymmetric. The U.S. often responds to requests for comment on partners' intelligence assessment products, but
does not seek allied input into its own production. The UK gives feedback to its partners, and occasionally requests comment
on its assessment products. Australia rarely requests, but sometimes provides, feedback on partners' material. New Zealand
infrequently shares either assessments or feedback. Of course, there is a risk that intelligence cooperation may not merely
serve to inform allied and partner governments, but that the shared intelligence may be manipulated and tailored to shape and
influence the direction of policy. Nevertheless, when shared intelligence has, on occasion, seemed to be flawed, as
reportedly with regard to U.S. sources of information about prewar Iraqi weapons of mass destruction (WMD) capabilities,
allied agencies like Australia's Office of National Assessments have not shrunk
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from indicating their skepticism and communicating this to their government.73 Liaison relationships operate within the
framework of each partner's foreign and domestic policies and legal systems.74 Distinctions between intelligence and law
enforcement are nowhere more difficult to define than on urgent issues of national (or international) security, causing
liaison relations to be sorely tested. A country responds to foreign requests forcooperation in information sharing in
accordance with its national policies and legal precepts. Requests that imply violations of statutory principles, privacy
laws, or the bases on which target groups or activities are legitimate in the host country, will not be honored, even among
allies. Sometimes, the host country's intelligence and security services may notrespond to otherwise acceptable requests,
due to resource constraints or other operational priorities in the deployment of investigative personnel. This can complicate
intelligence cooperation.
Requests for information on emigre? dissidents or homeland communities can be especially sensitive. Thus, Egypt and Jordan
have complained thatthe UK has not acted on requests for intelligence cooperation against locally resident emigre? militants
whom they accuse of waging terrorist campaigns against them, while the British uphold their position in conformity with UK
law and policing principles. Different standards of human rights observance, even among democracies, can complicate bilateral
cooperation in counterterrorism: thus, allies like Britain, France, Germany, and Spain have refused to extradite suspected
al-Qaeda terrorists to the United States, where they might face capital punishment. The Canadian Security Intelligence
Service curtailed its liaison activities with two foreign counterpart agencies, in one case because of human rights concerns,
and in the other because of doubts about the organization's reliability and stability.75
In this age of global terrorism, elements of insecurity in any one country can impinge upon the security of all others. For
countries like Canada, dependent as they are on openness and international trade, terrorism represents a threat to their
global interests, as well as to domestic public safety. Immediately after 11 September, Washington's uneasiness about an
insecure perimeter resonated sharply in Ottawa and in Canada's border communities. Urgent remedial action was taken to
institute a ``smart border'' that would expedite cross-border traffic of vital importance to Canada's economy and to the
multi-faceted Canadian connectivity with the United States. Yet, the notion of a secure perimeter is not just territorial,
but extends further to the security of those identifiers of Canadian status--official documents and processes--that serve to
define Canada's presence even beyond its borders. Any perceived insecurities in, for example, the issuance of passports and
visas, or in immigration
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procedures, could--and probably would--redound against the security of Canadian status anywhere and everywhere in the world.
Whereas intelligence cooperation implies that partners desist from undertaking operations on one another's territories, the
insecurities associated with the threat of terrorism sometimes set aside that principle, which can complicate bilateral
relations, even between close friends and allies. U.S. doubts about the capacity of Norwegian police to infiltrate local
Muslim communities led to the granting of special permission for CIA personnel to operate in Norway against suspect Islamic
groups.76 U.S. operatives reportedly penetrated Muslim organizations, monitored activities, and investigated suspicious
individuals, with little, if any, control on the part of Norwegian authorities, and but limited accountability to the
National Police Security Service (PST). Norway's foreign intelligence service, the Norwegian Joint Defence Intelligence
Service (FOE), for its part was reported to have reacted most negatively to this rampant intervention into Norway's national
security affairs.
Recent expressions of Washington's concern about the entry into the United States of Canadian citizens and landed immigrants
from certain Middle Eastern and South Asian countries conveyed this security dilemma clearly. Any laxness in policies and
procedures are likely to be exploited by international criminals and terrorist networks to access a safe haven's
documentation and=or territory in order to infiltrate neighboring and friendly jurisdictions.77 Thus, Islamic extremists used
forged Saudi Arabian passports to enter Canada, since no visas were required for Saudi visitors prior to 2002, and were able
to establish ``sleeper'' cells as part of the al- Qaeda network.78 Intensive cooperation has taken place between U.S. and
Canadian security and intelligence authorities to identify these sleeper cells and disrupt their operations.79 A robust
approach to national security is warranted in order to effectively prosecute the campaign againstinternational terrorism
and, at the same time, to avoid compromising the secure status of legitimate travelers and traders.
Coalition-Building Against International Terrorism
The 9=11 attacks prompted a deepening and widening of international cooperation in the intelligence domain. Intelligence
cooperation with traditional friends and allies has intensified, leading to a more extensive reach, and a more global
approach to counterterrorism. Some of this cooperation has been simply synergetic--collaborating on operational matters,
sharing information, harmonizing law enforcement. But, the post-11 September mobilization against terrorism has prompted an
escalated effort at intelligence cooperation based more firmly on the respective comparative advantages of the participating
intelligence agencies, thus
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enhancing overall capabilities. All intelligence agencies enjoy certain comparative advantages. In some cases, these may
derive from functional, tradecraft, or technical attributes--largely based on specialized expertise, knowledge resources, or
technological solutions. In other instances, the comparative advantage of intelligence agencies may derive from geography,
where they enjoy a locational advantage, or from socio-cultural affinity. The dynamics of comparative advantage, coupled with
the synergy of cooperation, have since 9=11 led to the building of a coalition of unprecedented scope and interaction in the
intelligence domain, directed specifically against international Islamicist terrorism. So far, this coalition has not yet
ranged against other terrorist elements, at least not quite to the same extent--to the considerable consternation of affected
countries like Russia (over Chechnya) and India (over Kashmir).
At the core of this coalition-building effort has been the strengthening of existing frameworks for intelligence and security
cooperation among the United States and its closest allies. The U.S. and Canada reinforced their existing liaison and
intelligence sharing arrangements, bolstered by the 2001 Smart Border Accord, and by the establishment in December 2002 of a
new bi-national Planning Group on Security Cooperation. A 2002 agreement between the U.S. and the EU allowed the American
authorities access to personal data from Europol law enforcement agencies on terrorist suspects, and facilitated the setting
up of joint investigatory teams and interrogations.80 In April 2003, the United States and Great Britain formed a bilateral
working and contact group on international terrorism, intended to facilitate sharing and to develop effective practices in
counterterrorism, including border controls, passport controls, cybersecurity, and the tracing of chemical, biological, and
nuclear weapons.
Branching Out with Mixed Results
International cooperation in countering terrorism has also embraced the active involvement of countries other than close
allies. Sensing its own vulnerability, even the U.S. found itself impelled toward the augmentation of intelligence
cooperation with countries with which such security relationships and information-sharing would hitherto have been
unthinkable.81 In part, this reliance on international cooperation was driven by the dynamics of comparative advantage. This
stemmed from Washington's predilection for technical means of intelligence collection at the expense of clandestine
operations with human sources, compounded by an acute lack of culturally attuned operatives, analysts, and linguists to deal
with the emergent threat from hitherto unfamiliar origins. U.S. intelligence experienced considerable difficulty penetrating
the tightly knit cells and amorphous networks built up by militant Islamicist organizations.82
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By contrast, the security and intelligence services of countries like Egypt, Jordan, Morocco, Syria, and Pakistan have
demonstrated some success in infiltrating these terror networks and accessing sources. U.S. intelligence cooperation with
Morocco has reportedly been highly effective, based on intelligence and law enforcement exchanges between the two countries,
even prior to the May 2003 terror attacks on Casablanca.83 Reports surfaced that ``rogue'' regimes like Iran, Libya, and
Syria were also prepared to exchange intelligence on terrorist targets, thereby ingratiating themselves with a vulnerable but
infuriated United States.84 Syrian intelligence was said to have alerted Canada to an al-Qaeda cell planning spectacular
assaults on Canadian and U.S. government institutions.85 No less a personage than Syrian president Bashir Assad claimed
publicly that his country's security services have made valuable contributions to intelligence cooperation with the United
States against al-Qaeda networks across the Middle East and elsewhere.86 Responding to criticism of ongoing Saudi financing
of Islamic terrorism, Saudi Arabia agreed in August 2003 to the setting up in that country of an unprecedented joint task
force with the U.S. to combat fund-raising and money transfers to suspected terrorist organizations.87
This ``excessive'' U.S. dependence on foreign partners--and most particularly the security and intelligence services of Arab
and Muslim countries--to overcome its own operational deficiencies has come in for criticism by a congressional joint inquiry
into 9=11, among others.88 Bilateral intelligence cooperation within the coalition framework has extended beyond mere
information-sharing. Countries, other than traditional alliance partners, are now cooperating operationally with the United
States in joint investigations, interrogations, analysis, and threat assessments. Yet, for all the emphasis placed on
international cooperation, the actual yield in terms of actionable intelligence was said to be decidedly ``mixed,'' at least
prior to 11 September.89 Though willing to trade information, foreign intelligence services were previously somewhat less
commited to counterterrorism generally, and to targeting the al-Qaeda network in particular. But when terrorist threats
became imminent, even countries that had hitherto been complacent responded by suddenly and sharply reenergizing their
counterterorrism efforts. However, disparities in capabilities and tradecraft have tended to militate against the real
effectiveness of cooperation with some foreign services' contributions. Nevertheless, according to congressional critics,
this heavy reliance on cooperative efforts in counterterrorism has served, paradoxically, to alleviate some of the persistent
pressures on the U.S. Intelligence Community to refocus itself more on the development of its own unilateral HUMINT
capabilities.
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The sheer scale and complexity of the terrorist threat has impelled most targeted countries to seek external assistance from
specifically skilled, better equipped, and experienced counterpart agencies from friendly governments. Following the October
2002 terrorist attack in Bali, which caused high casualties among Australian and other tourists, as well as among
Indonesians, Jakarta's law enforcement and intelligence agencies invited Australian assistance and cooperation into the
investigation of suspected Jemaah Islamiah and al-Qaeda culpability.90 Police specialists from Britain's Scotland Yard,
Germany, Japan, New Zealand, Sweden, and the U.S. Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) were also called in.91 Subsequently,
Australian Federal Police forensic specialists were dispatched to the Philippines to help in the investigation of a terrorist
bomb attack in Davao City.92 Likewise, the United States assigned FBI specialists to assist Saudi Arabia's investigation of
the al-Qaeda terror attacks on residential compounds in Riyadh in May 2003.93 Shared vulnerabilities have generated a renewed
impetus for cooperation, based on the comparative advantage of utilizing the various countries' intelligence and law
enforcement services.
The propensity of al-Qaeda and its regional affiliates, like Jemaah Islamiah in Southeast Asia, to strike at ``soft'' targets
in hitherto complacent countries, like Indonesia or Morocco, has impelled greater cooperation among security intelligence and
law enforcement agencies across various regions. In the surveillance and investigation of suspect groups and individuals, the
U.S. intelligence services have provided much of the coordination and leadership. Yet, some countries, like Malaysia, have
remained steadfastly opposed to any external intervention in regional and national counterterrorism matters, largely because
of domestic sensitivities, coupled with ambivalence about the coalition campaign and its perceived implications for the
Muslim world.94 Most Southeast Asian intelligence services, even of countries whose geographic location or social composition
rendered them particulary exposed to Islamic terrorist threats, have seemed to lack operational capacity or political will
for sustained counterterrorist efforts. Only Singapore is considered to have an efficient and capable security intelligence
service.95 Yet, faced with a globalized terrorism, vulnerable governments now seem prepared to set aside narrow
considerations of sovereignty in order to seek the comparative advantages of international cooperation to help deal with the
threat.
Tracking Terrorists
In prosecuting the war on international Islamicist terrorism, the U.S.-led intelligence coalition has demonstrated
considerable agility in identifying, monitoring, and tracking terrorist suspects. This was amply demonstrated
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by the capture of Riduan bin Isamuddin, known as ``Hambali,'' an al-Qaeda leader and Jemaah Islamiya commander considered
culpable of plotting terrorist attacks across Southeast Asia. Extensive cooperation and information-sharing among the
Indonesian, Malaysian, Philippine, Singaporan, and Thai security intelligence services and their U.S. counterparts resulted
in Hambali being arrested in a joint U.S.-Thai operation in Ayutthaya, Thailand in August 2003, and his transfer for
interrogation under United States auspices.96 In this instance, at least, the globalization of terror was countered by the
globalization of intelligence cooperation.
Whereas the U.S. has sought coalition cooperation in the monitoring, tracking, and apprehension of terrorist suspects, the
American intelligence services have not been disposed to allow their parners to participate directly in the ensuing
interrogations, even when they have participated operationally in the capture. Thus, following his capture Hambali was
transfered to a secret location for interrogation by the Americans. Their Australian and Southeast Asian partners were
refused direct access to the interrogation, despite their interest in the information being sought, though they could submit
lists of questions to be put.97
The American counterterrorism effort has taken advantage of certain ambiguities in U.S. law, and in relations among the
intelligence coalition to pursue more aggressive methods of interrogating terrorist suspects. Indeed, to allow itself such
latitude, the United States established a detention center for captured al-Qaeda and Taliban combatants at Guantanamo Bay,
Cuba, and the CIA reportedly set up secret interrogation facilities abroad at Bagram (Afghanistan), Diego Garcia, and at
other undisclosed locations for similar purposes. Whereas the administration of justice in countries like the United States
and Canada imposes strict rules on detention and interrogation of suspects, and precludes the use of coercive techniques to
extract information, these extraterritorial bailiwicks allow more rigorous detention and interrogation procedures, conducted
wholly in camera, subject only to the exingencies of the intelligence war against international terrorism. Even if the
information extracted is considered tainted from a judicial evidential perspective, it still constitutes value-added
intelligence for counterterrorism purposes. The sophisticated data bases available to the counterterrorism coalition make it
possible to acquire intelligence insights by cross-checking leads obtained from interrogations in one country against
information divulged by captives in another.
The United States has also turned to the intelligence and security services of coalition partners to interrogate suspected
al-Qaeda operatives. In one such case, a Canadian citizen of Syrian descent, Maher Arar, was reportedly detained on arrival
at an airport in New York and transferred
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to Syria for close interrogation of suspected connections to al-Qaeda.98 According to reports, Syrian counterterrorism
efforts and interrogations have yielded valuable intelligence, which has been shared with other governments.99 Some countries
like Iran and Indonesia have likewise transferred suspected al-Qaeda operatives for interrogation in Afghanistan, Egypt,
Jordan, Morocco, Saudi Arabia, and Syria, doubtless aware that the information obtained would be readily shared with the U.S.
Intelligence Community and others in the counterterrorism coalition.100
The Question of Probity
Occasionally, hardened terrorist suspects have been given over to ``extraordinary renditions,'' through which they are
transferred from the jurisdiction where they were caught, usually with U.S. assistance but without resort to the process of
law, to a third country--typically one with a reputation for harsh detentions and interrogations. In practice, the terrorist
suspects are handed over to these other security services, along with a list of questions to which answers are wanted.101
Syria, one of the destinations for extraordinary renditions, is certainly notorious for the brutality of its security
apparatus, and torture is reportedly used in interrogations of al-Qaeda suspects.102 Syria has reportedly provided the U.S.
and Canada with the products of interrogations of numerous al- Qaeda suspects, helping to defeat several planned terrorist
plots.103 Yet, according to U.S. intelligence officials, captured terrorists were rendered over to coalition partners for
interrogation, not so much for their coercive techniques as for the cultural affinities that enable them to reach out and
induce, or goad, the captives into talking.104
Be that as it may, in a world where security trumps most other policy principles, the intelligence obtained through
extraordinary renditions can come at a high cost in terms of probity. In return for sharing the results of interrogations,
tough-minded regimes might demand reciprocity in the form of sensitive information about political exiles or dissident groups
resident abroad, or intelligence snippets about third countries.105 Faced with non-state or asymmetric ``threats,''
intelligence cooperation with authoritarian regimes could lead to woefully compromising transactions. In one notorious
instance revealed by captured Iraqi documents, France colluded with Iraq's intelligence service by helping to disrupt a Paris
conference of the prominent human rights organization Indict in April 2000.106 In the charged atmosphere of counterterrorism,
intelligence relationships, even among democracies, could sometimes run afoul of government liaison and foreign policy.107
The imperative for intelligence cooperation that can sometimes make strange international bedfellows, could also foster
bizarre trade-offs.
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THE COALITION WAR ON TERRORISM
The counterterrorism effort of a coalition implies a somewhat different, more offensively proactive and globalized role for
intelligence in the asymmetric kind of warfare being waged against al-Qaeda and its affiliated Islamic terrorist networks.
Precisely because their consuming hatred of the West and its values, their asymmetric deployment of weaponry of mass
destruction, their obscure command structure and embedded cellular network, their widespread transnational linkages and
self-sacrificing ethos, al-Qaeda and its affiliates present a security threat of exceptional complexity, resilience, and
peril to open and democratic societies in Europe and North America,107 to ethnically plural developing countries in East
Africa and Asia, and to the established authorities in the Arab and Muslim lands.108 To be sure, countries like Great
Britain, Israel, Spain, and Turkey, among others, have had considerable experience combatting terrorism, with some measure of
success. While there may be lessons to be learned from those essentially internal struggles with terrorism, the international
Islamicist terrorist threat is far more expansive, more stealthy and furtive, and potentially more devastating than anything
hitherto encountered.109 The globalization of terrorism and the catastrophic escalation of threats place a dual onus on
coalition intelligence. Offensively, the function of the coalition intelligence effort is to supply information and
assessments that enable each nation's civil and military authorities to effectively counteract and defeat the terrorist
menace. From a defensive perspective, the role of coalition intelligence services is to support government and law
enforcement agencies in protecting persons, institutions, lawful activities, and political cultural ideals of democratic
communities. Clearly, not all countries participating in the antiterrorism coalition are democracies, but the ethos of the
counterterrorism effort is ultimately the protection of democratic, secular values. In responding to the international
Islamicist threat to these principles, intelligence must play the role of hunter as well as gatherer.
Some Preventive Interventions
Public reports point to the success of the coalition's intelligence-led counterterrorism effort in dismantling many of the
al-Qaeda networks and sleeper cells, capturing and interrogating their leaders and operatives, disabling their
communications, undoing their financing, and disrupting their operations in various countries and continents. Enhanced
vigilance by intelligence and law enforcement agencies, coupled with the ongoing coalition effort to hunt down al-Qaeda
adherents and supporters, appeared to have weakened, but not eliminated, its capacity to undertake large-scale terror
attacks. Since 11 September 2001, a string of potentially deadly
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AND COUNTERINTELLIGENCE VOLUME 17, NUMBER 2
terror attacks was reportedly averted, among them an attempted radiological attack in the United States; a major assault on
Canadian and U.S. government institutions; a hijacked aircraft strike at a Parisian target; truck bombings aimed at U.S.,
Australian, British, and Israeli diplomatic and other facilities in Singapore; maritime assaults on shipping in the Gibraltar
straits; a missile attack on flights at London's Heathrow airport; a cyanide gas attack on the London Underground; chemical
attacks on water supplies in Italy; and an aerial attack on the U.S. consultate in Karachi. The general failure of al-Qaeda
to launch retaliatory terror attacks on the United States and United Kingdom or their allies during the war in Iraq, despite
the audiotaped threats made by Osama bin Laden, seemed indicative of the effectiveness of worldwide counterterrorism efforts
in crippling its networks and operations.110 But bombings in Indonesia and India, and, in August 2003, at the United Nations
headquarters in Baghdad, Iraq, demonstrated that al-Qaeda or its allies remained capable of significant assaults and
lifetaking. Nevertheless, international efforts to curtail terrorist fund-raising, money-laundering, and financing activities
were reported to have resulted in a 90 percent reduction in al-Qaeda's income, as compared to before 11 September.111
Transparency and Other Issues
International intelligence cooperation presents a delicate quandary as between secrecy and transparency, sovereignty and
cooperative security, especially in relation to collaboration among democracies. Admitedly, the imperative for secrecy in the
intelligence domain, as regards sources, methods, technical capabilities, and operational procedures, remains strong. Yet,
international intelligence cooperation, as a facet of statecraft and national security policy, has generally been shrouded in
the highest levels of secrecy in nearly every instance, at most times, by virtually all governments. This propensity for
secrecy in international intelligence cooperation militates against the principles of transparency and accountability in
governance. Transparency and accountability are also vital for intelligence policy, in as much as they contribute to the
building of public confidence in national security policies and institutions, help curb transgressions of policy and law, and
help to elicit positive responses and support from legislators and civil society for the national security agenda. The
secrecy that cloaks intelligence cooperation can also pose dilemmas for national sovereignty and cooperative security. While
cooperation might mean a lessening of the risk that ``friendly'' intelligence services operate in one's country, the sharing
of intelligence information and collaboration in intelligence operations may imply compromises in certain attributes of
sovereignty in the interest of cooperative security. Secrecy detracts from accountability in crafting and managing these
compromises, and can thus
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taint the lawful authority of intelligence cooperation. Intelligence cooperation in democracies should not only come under
lawful authority, but should be seen to be conducted with lawful authority.
An Element of Risk
The propensity for intelligence cooperation and coalition-building demonstrates many of the attributes of risk management.
Intelligence and law enforcement services allocate their scarce resources as between selfmanaged or cooperative approaches to
security in accordance with their respective assessments of risk, and their inherent interest in minimizing potentially
catastrophic consequences. International terrorism poses grave risks to the national security of vulnerable countries. Three
analytically distinct paradigms apply to security risk management: (1) the insurable risk paradigm, which assesses actuarial
risks and cost ramifications; (2) the materiality risk paradigm, which assumes actuarial risks to be low, but any damage as
potentially catastrophic; and (3) the asymmetric warfare risk paradigm, which deems actuarial risk irrelevant, but assesses
probabilities to be high, and consequences catastrophic.
Whereas the insurable risk paradigm could be appropriate for dealing with criminal and natural perils, and the materiality
risk paradigm can guide security responses to a remote or outlying menace, the probability of attacks by international
Islamic terrorists resembles an asymmetric warfare situation, which thus implies an Asymmetric Warfare Risk Paradigm (AWRP).
This paradigm is especially conducive to international cooperation, since the sharing of information and operational
collaboration not only foster burden-sharing, but also reduce or minimize the risk of failure in trying to prevent attacks
from elusive, embedded Islamicist terrorist networks.
REFERENCES
1 Security Intelligence Review Committee, SIRC Report 2000-2001 (Ottawa: SIRC 2001); CSIS Public Report 2000=01, op. cit.
2 Christopher Andrew, ``The Making of the Anglo-American SIGINT Alliance,'' Hayden Peake and Samuel Halpern, eds., In the
Name of Intelligence: Essays in Honor of Walter Pforzheimer (Washington, DC: NIBC Press, 1994) and For the President's Eyes
Only: Secret Intelligence and the American Presidency from Washington to Bush (New York: HarperPerennial, 1996), see p. 163.;
Jeffrey T. Richelson and Desmond Ball, The Ties That Bind: Intelligence Cooperation Between the UKUSA Countries (London:
Allen & Unwin, 1985); James Bamford, Body of Secrets: Anatomy of the Ultra-Secret National Security Agency from the Cold War
Through the Dawn of a New Century (New York: Doubleday, 2001).
223 HUNTERS AND GATHERERS: THE INTELLIGENCE COALITION
AND COUNTERINTELLIGENCE VOLUME 17, NUMBER 2
3 Stephen Dorril, MI6: Inside the Covert World of Her Majesty's Secret Intelligence Service (New York: The Free Press, 2000),
pp. 54-55. Australia likewise consented to being represented in the alliance by Great Britain, while New Zealand was treated
initially as a SIGINT adjunct to Australia. See also Christopher Andrew, For the President's Eyes Only, pp. 162-163, and his
more detailed study of ``The Growth of the Australian Intelligence Community and the Anglo-American Connection,''
Intelligence and National Security, Vol. 4, No. 2, 1989, pp. 223-224.
4 On the origins and structure of the UKUSA agreement see Andrew, ``The Making of the Anglo-American SIGINT Alliance'';
Jeffrey T. Richelson and Desmond Ball, The Ties that Bind, pp. 142-143 et passim. Jeffrey T. Richelson, The US Intelligence
Community (New York: Ballinger, 1989), esp. chapter 12.
5 ``Third party'' countries are listed in Jelle van Buuren, Making Up the Rules: Interception versus Privacy (Amsterdam: Buro
Jansen and Jannsen Stichtung Eurowatch, August 2000)[URL: http:==www.xs4all.nl=respub=crypto=english=]. See also Steve
James, ``Revelations about Echelon Spy Network Intensify US-European Tensions,'' World Socialist Website, 12 April 2000
[http:==www.wsws.org=articles=2000=apr2000=spy-a12.shtml]. Among the other countries said to have had some affiliation to
UKUSA or bilateral arrangement with the NSA are China and Japan. It seems that the U.S. and UK divided responsibility for
managing bilateral relations in the COMINT domain with Scandinavian countries: Olav Riste, The Norwegian Intelligence
Service, 1945-1970 (London: Frank Cass, 1999), p. 227.
6 One of the rare explicit official references to the UKUSA agreements was made by the Deputy Clerk, Security and
Intelligence, Privy Council Office, in testimony before the Canadian House of Commons Standing Committee on National Defence
and Veterans Affairs, 2 May 1995.
7 Duncan Campbell, Interception Capabilities 2000, The Report to the Director- General for Research of the European
Parliament (Brussels: European Parliament, Scientific and Technical Options Assessment Program Office, 1999), paragraphs
39-40.
8 Jelle van Buuren, Making Up the Rules, chap. 4.
9 Duncan Campbell, Interception Capabilities 2000, paragraphs 41.
10 Very little has been disclosed about these activities. For some insights into known operations see Interception
Capabilities 2000, paras 49-52. A rare glimpse into U.S. submarine tapping internal communications cables in the Sea of
Okhotsk, Barents Sea, and the Mediterranean is provided by Sherry Sontag and Christopher Drew, Blind Man's Bluff: The Untold
Story of American Submarine Espionage (New York: PublicAffairs, 1998).
11 For one of the earliest descriptions of the UKUSA satellite communications interception network and its expansion during
the 1980s and early 1990s, see Nick Hager, Secret Power: New Zealand's Role in the International Spy Network (Nelson, NZ:
Craig Potton Publishing, 1996), chap. 2.
12 Mark Urban, UK Eyes Alpha, chap. 5.
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13 Ibid., esp. chap. 5.
14 Ibid., pp. 63-64.
15 For an account of the British experience in persuading the U.S. to reposition its SIGINT satellite to provide intelligence
coverage at the time of the Falklands war see Mark Urban, UK Eyes Alpha, p. 57.
16 Very little has been revealed officially about Echelon by any of the UKUSA signatories. Much of the available information
is derived from Interception Capabilities 2000 and the disclosures in Nick Hager, Secret Power, esp. chap. 2 and ``Exposing
the Global Surveillance System,'' Covert Action Quarterly, Winter 1997.
17 Michael Smith, The Spying Game: The Secret History of British Espionage
(London: Politico's, 2003), esp. pp. 318-319.
18 Nick Hager, ``Exposing the Global Surveillance System.''
19 Nick Hager, Secret Power, chap. 2.
20 One of the rare descriptions of contemporary SIGINT equipment is provided in the Technical Annex to Interception
Technologies 2000.
21 For an indication of GCHQ capabilities in the design and production of SIGINT-related technologies see the official GCHQ
Website and the descriptions of the attainments on the ``Technology'' page at the URL:
http:==www.gchq.gov.uk=about=technology.html.
22 Mark Urban, UK Eyes Alpha, p. 243.
23 ``NSA System Inoperative for Four Days.''
24 Cf. Duncan Campbell, ``How the Plotters Slipped the U.S. Net,'' The Guardian UIK, 27 September 2001; J. Michael Waller,
``A Wartime Window of Opportunity,'' Insight on the News, London, 2 April 2002; Andrew Buncombe, ``Intercepted Call Linked
Saddam to al-Qa'ida Terror cell,'' The Independent, London, 7 February 2003.
25 Cf. Robert Fisk, ``With Runners and Whispers, al-Qa'ida Outfoxes U.S. Forces,'' The Independent, London, 6 December 2002.
26 Final Report of the Joint Congressional Inquiry into 9=11 (Washington, DC: U.S. Government Printing Office, 10 December
2002), Part 1: Findings an Conclusions, paras. 5, 7, 8.
27 Cf. Patrick Tyler, ``Intelligence Break Led U.S. to Tie Envoy Killing to Iraqi Qaeda Call,'' The New York Times, 6
February 2003; Mark Husband and Mark Odell, ``Rise in Terrorist `Chatter' Led to Troop Deployment,'' Financial Times, London,
12 February 2003; Desmond Butler and Don Van Natta, Jr., ``Qaeda Informant Helps Trace Group's Trail,'' The New York Times,
17 February 2003.
28 Peter Beaumont in Amman and Gaby Hinsliff, ``The Spies and the Spinner,'' The Guardian, UK, 8 March 2003.
29 Cf. A European Intelligence Policy, a report submitted on behalf of the Defence Committee, Assembly of the Western
European Union, Doc. 1517, 13 May 1996. Initiatives for European cooperation in intelligence are reviewed in
225 HUNTERS AND GATHERERS: THE INTELLIGENCE COALITION
AND COUNTERINTELLIGENCE VOLUME 17, NUMBER 2
Klaus Becher et al., Toward a European Intelligence Policy (Paris: WEU, 1997); Charles Grant, Intimate Relations: Can Britain
Play a Leading Role in European Defence--And Keep its Special Links to US Intelligence?, Centre for Policy Reform Working
Paper, London, 2000, esp. pp. 13-18 [URL: www.cer.org.uk]; John Nomikos, Intelligence Policy for the European Union: Dilemmas
and Challenges, Research Institute for European and American Studies, Athens, Greece, 1 June 2000 [URL: www.itel.gr=rieas].
30 France's determination to enhance its intelligence capabilities was triggered by the undoubtable frustration experienced
as a result of its near total dependence on U.S. technical and satellite sources during the first Gulf crisis and war; see
Percy Kemp, ``The Fall and Rise of France's Spymasters,'' Intelligence and National Security, Vol. 9, No. 1, 1994, p.16; see
also Charles Grant, Intimate Relations, p. 9.
31 Francois Roussely, Chief of Staff at the French Ministry of Defense, cited in Le Point, 20 June 1998.
32 Kenneth N. Cukier, ``Frenchelon: France's Alleged Global Surveillance Network and Its Implications on International
Intelligence Cooperation,'' Communications Week International; Jack Nelson, ``FBI Warns Companies to Beware of Espionage,''
International Herald Tribune, 13 January 1998; U.S. National Intelligence Center, Annual Report to Congress on Foreign
Economic Collection and Industrial Espionage, Washington, DC, July 1995.
33 ``Espionage, Comment la France e? coute le monde,'' Le Nouvel Observateur,
5 April 2001, No. 1900.
34 Mark Urban, UK Eyes Alpha, p. 65.
35 See Senator Nicolas About, in the Journal Officiel de la Re?publique Franc aise, 31 October 1996, cited in Kenneth N.
Cukier, ``Frenchelon.'' See also Jean Guisnel, Les pires amis dans le monde (Paris: Editions Stock, 1999); Charles Grant,
Intimate Relations, p. 11.
36 J.A.C. Lewis, ``France, Germany and Italy Set to Make Space Pact,'' Jane's Defence Weekly, 19 June 2000.
37 Jerome Thorell, ``Frenchelon--France has Nothing to Envy in Echelon.'' Echelon Special, ZDNET, 30 June 2000 [URL:
www.zdnet.com]
38 Jacques Isnard, ``Le Royaume-Uni au coeur dispositif en Europe,'' Le Monde, 22 February 2000; Jerome Thorell,
``Frenchelon--France has Nothing to Envy in Echelon.''
39 Jean Guisnel, ``Espionnage: Les Franc ais Aussi Content Leurs Allie? s,'' Le Point, 8 June 1998.
40 World Space Guide, Space Policy Project, Helios, Federation of American Scientists website, updated 10 December 1999, p. 2
[URL: www.fas.org=spp=guide=france=military=imint=index.html)
41 Percy Kemp, ``The Fall and Rise of France's Spymasters,'' pp. 16-17.
42 J. A. C. Lewis, ``France, Germany and Italy Set to Make Space Pact.''
43 Report of the Parliamentary Committee on Information and Security Services and Official Secrets, The Role of the
Information and Security Services in the
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`Echelon' Affair, Chamber of Deputies and Senate, 13th Parliamentary Term, 19 December 2000, submitted to the European
Parliament, Temporary Committee on the Echelon Interception System, 22 January 2001 (PE 294.998), pp. 8-9.
44 Duncan Campbell and Paul Lashmar, ``Revealed: 30 More Nations with Spy Stations,'' The Independent, London, 9 July 2000.
An official memorandum from the Dutch Minister of Defense, acknowledging that UKUSA and other countries engage in SIGINT
interceptions, was cited in the Rotterdam newspaper NRC Handelsblad, 20 January 2001.
45 World Space Guide, Space Policy Project, Europe and Image Intelligence, Federation of American Scientists Website [URL:
www.fas.org=spp=guide=europe=military=imint=index.html]
46 Le Point, 20 June 1998. See also Jerome Thorell, ``Frenchelon--France Has Nothing to Envy in Echelon,'' Echelon Special,
ZDNET, 30 June 2000 [URL: www.zdnet.com]
47 World Space Guide, Space Policy Project, Helios, p. 3.
48 Mark Urban, UK Eyes Alpha, p. 234; Kenneth N. Cuiker, ``Frenchelon''; Jerome Thorell, ``Frenchelon--France has Nothing to
Envy in Echelon.''
49 ``The New Cold War. Industrial Espionage'' and ``The French Connection,'' Info-Security Magazine, April, 1998 [URL:
www.westcoast.com= securecomputing=1998_04=cover=cover.html]. John Fialka, War by Other Means: Economic Espionage in America
(New York: W.W. Norton, 1997) describes French espionage against American firms, such as IBM, Corning,and Texas Instruments,
including the insertion of moles in IBM headquarters. For an assessment of the utility of industrial espionage see Melvin
Goodman, ``The Market for Spies,'' Issues in Science and Technology Online, 1996, [URL: www.nap.edu=issues=13.2=goodma.htm].
50 Jean Guisnel, ``Espionnage''; Joseph Fitchett, ``Eavesdropping by the French Is Worldwide, Magazine Says,'' International
Herald Tribune, Paris, 16 June 1998.
51 Bradley F. Smith, Sharing Secrets with Stalin: How the Allies Traded Intelligence, 1941-1945. (Lawrence: University Press
of Kansas, 1996) p. 235.
52 BVD--(Dutch) General Intelligence and Security Service, Annual Report 2001 (The Hague: General Intelligence and Security
Service, July 2002), para 9.3.2.
53 Ibid.
54 Ste? phane Lefebvre, ``International Intelligence Cooperation: Difficulties and Dilemmas,'' paper presented to the
Colloquium on Intelligence and International Security, Universite? Laval, Institut que? be? cois des relations
internationales, Que? bec City, 20 March 2003 [mimeo.] p. 11.
55 BVD, Annual Report 1999 (The Hague: General Intelligence and Security Service, July 2000); see also Ste? phane Lefebvre,
``International Intelligence Cooperation,'' pp. 8-9.
56 On the upsurge of European revolutionary terrorism in the 1970s and 1980s, see Christopher Dobson and D. Dobson Payne, War
Without End (London and
New York: Hyperion, 1986), pp. 67-133. European revolutionary terrorists
227 HUNTERS AND GATHERERS: THE INTELLIGENCE COALITION
AND COUNTERINTELLIGENCE VOLUME 17, NUMBER 2
like the (German) Red Army Faction, (French) Action Directe, and (Italian) Red Brigades drew on the earlier experience of and
links with Palestinian terrorists, and many of their combatants received training at Palestinian camps in Lebanon.
57 BVD--(Dutch) General Intelligence and Security Service, Annual Report 2001,
op. cit.
58 Ibid., para 9.3.1.
59 Richard Friedman and David Miller, The Intelligence War: Penetrating the World of Today's Advanced Technology Conflict
(London: Salamander Books, 1983).
60 Ste? phane Lefebvre, ``International Intelligence Cooperation,'' pp. 11-12.
61 ``The Egmont Group of Financial Intelligence Units,'' URL: [http:==www1.oecd.org=fatf=ctry-orgpages=org-egmont_en.htm].
62 BVD, Annual Report 2001, para. 9.3.1
63 ``KL To Go Ahead with Anti-Terrorism Centre,'' Straits Times, Singapore, 3 April 2003.
64 Shlomo Shpiro, ``Intelligence, Peacekeeping and Peacemaking in the MiddleEast,'' in Ben de Jong, Wies Platje, and Robert
David Steele, eds., Peacekeeping Intelligence: Emergent Concepts for the Future (Oakton, VA: OSS International Press, 2003),
pp. 106-107. Dr. Shpiro suggests that Sudan was also party to the Trident arrangement. See also Yossi Melman and Dan Raviv, A
Hostile Partnership: The Secret Relations Between Israel and Jordan (Tel-Aviv: Meitam, 1987), pp. 28-37.
65 Amos Harel, ``Israel, Turkey Sign Joint Anti-Terror Accord,'' Ha-Aretz, Tel-Aviv, 27 May 2003; Ilan Berman, ``Israel,
India and Turkey: Triple Entente?,'' The Middle East Quarterly, Vol. 9, Fall 2002.
66 Bob Woodward, ``50 Countries Detain 360 Suspects at CIA's Behest,'' The Washington Post, 22 November 2001.
67 Tom Blackwell, ``More Criminals Allowed into Canada,'' The National Post, 5 November 2002.
68 Dana Priest and DeNeen Brown, ```Sleeper Cell' Contacts Are Revealed by Canada,'' Washington Post, 25 December 2002.
69 Ibid.
70 ``Blunkett: No Extradition in Capital Cases,'' Daily Telegraph, London, 5 April 2003.
71 Security Intelligence Review Committee (SIRC), SIRC Report 2000-2001.
72 Mark Urban, UK Eyes Alpha.
73 Tom Allard, ``Canberra Was Warned on Spy Reports, Says Analyst,'' Sydney Morning Herald, 27 May 2003.
74 The Netherlands is probably unique in having a clause, Article 59 of its Intelligence and Security Services Act 2002,
providing a statutory basis for the conduct of ``relations with the appropriate intelligence and security services of other
countries.''
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75 SIRC Report 2000-2001.
76 Hanne Dankertsen and Geir Selvik, ``US Agents Spying on Norwegians,'' Nettavisen, Norway, 22 May 2003.
77 Tom Blackwell, ``More Criminals Allowed into Canada,'' The National Post, 5 November 2002.
78 Ibid.
79 Dana Priest and DeNeen Brown, ```Sleeper Cell' Contacts Are Revealed by Canada.''
80 Ian Black, ``EU Agrees to Pass on Intelligence to FBI,'' The Guardian, Manchester, 20 December 2002.
81 James Risen and Tim Weiner, ``3 New Allies Help CIA in Its Fight Against Terror,'' The New York Times, 30 October 2001;
Fouad Ajami, ``The Sentry's Solitude,'' Foreign Affairs, Vol. 80, No. 6, 2001; Malcolm Rifkind, ``Why the US Must Rely on
Arab Intelligence,'' The Times, London, 8 November 2001. Malcolm Rifkind was formerly Foreign Secretary in the British
Government. See also Nicholas Nasif, ``Tenet Given Assurances that No al-Qa'ida Cells Infiltrated Lebanon,'' Al-Nahar,
Beirut, 28 November 2002.
82 Final Report of the Joint Congressional Inquiry into 9=11, Part 1: Findings and Conclusions, para. 11.
83 Dana Priest and Susan Schmidt, ``Al Qaeda Figure Tied to Riyadh Bombings: U.S. Officials Say Leader Is in Iran with Other
Terrorists,'' The Washington Post, 18 May 2003.
84 Bob Woodward, ``50 Countries Detain 360 Suspects at CIA's Behest.''
85 Alan Sipress, ``Syrian Reforms Gain Momentum in Wake of War: US Pressure Forces Changes in Foreign, Domestic Policy,''
TheWashington Post, 12May 2003.
86 Neil MacFarquhar, ``Syria Repackages Its Repression of Muslim Militants as Antiterror Lesson,'' The New York Times, 14
January 2002.
87 Douglas Farah, ``US-Saudi Anti-Terror Operation Planned,'' The Washington Post, 26 August 2003.
88 Final Report of the Joint Congressional Inquiry into 9=11, Part 1: Findings and Conclusions, paras 11, 15. See also
William Odom, Fixing Intelligence: For a More Secure America (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2003).
89 Final Report of the Joint Congressional Inquiry into 9=11, Part 1: Findings and Conclusions, para. 15.
90 Matthew Moore, ``Australia Leads the Way in Hunt for Bombers,'' Sydney Morning Herald, 17 October 2002; Anna Fifield,
``War on Terror Creates Unlikely Allies,'' Financial Times, London, 18 August 2003.
91 ``Number Helped to Unravel Bali Plot,'' The Australian, 9 May 2003.
92 ``Aussie Role in Bomb Case,'' The Australian, 6 April 2003.
93 Steven Weisman and Neil MacFarquhar, ``US Agents Arrive to Join Saudi Bombing Investigation,'' The NewYork Times, 16 May
2003.
94 ``Mahathir Says `No' to Australia's Anti-Terror Squad,'' Straits Times, Singapore, 21 May 2003.
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95 ``Friends Like These,'' Foreign Report, 20 August 2003.
96 Alan Dawson, ``Caught! The Man Who Wasn't Here--Analysis=War on Terrorism,'' Bangkok Post, 16 August 2003.
97 Kimina Lyall, ``Australia Denied Access to Hambali,'' The Australian, 22 August 2003.
98 Daniel Wakin, ``Tempers Flare After US Sends a Canadian Citizen back to Syria on Terrorism Suspicions,'' The New York
Times, 11 November 2002.
99 Alan Sipress, ``Syrian Reforms Gain Momentum in Wake of War.''
100 Jon Ungoed-Thomas, ``Beating the Terrorists: Egypt Used Torture to Crack Network,'' The Times, London, 25 November 2001;
Walter Pincus, ``CIA Touts Success in Fighting Terrorism,'' The Washington Post, 1 November 2002; Guy Dinmore and Mark
Huband, ``Iran Tells US It Has Detained Terror Suspects,'' Financial Times, London, 23 May 2003.
101 Dana Priest and Barton Gellman, ``US Decries Abuses but Defends Interrogations,'' The Washington Post, 26 December 2002.
102 Peter Finn, ``Al Qaeda Recruiter Reportedly Tortured,'' The Washington Post, 31 January 2003.
103 Alan Sipress, ``Syrian Reforms Gain Monentum in Wake of War.''
104 Dana Priest and Barton Gellman, ``US Decries Abuse but Defends Interrogations.''
105 Cf. Bob Woodward, ``50 Countries Detain 360 Suspects at CIA's Behest.''
106 Alex Spillius and Andrew Sparrow, ``French Helped Iraq to Stifle Dissent,'' Daily Telegraph, London, 28 April 2003.
107 Final Report of the Joint Congressional Inquiry into 9=11, Part 1: Findings and Conclusions, para. 15.
108 Cf. Ahmed Rashid, ``Al Qa'eda Has Learned to adapt to Adversity,'' Daily Telegraph, London, 16 October 2002; David
Johnston, Don Van Natta Jr., and Judith Miller, ``Qaeda's New Links Increase Threats From Global Sites,'' The New York Times,
15 June 2002.
109 Paul Wilkinson, Terrorism and Liberal Democracy (London: Macmillan, 1999).
110 Walter Pincus and Dana Priest, ``Spy Agencies' Optimism on al-Qaeda is Growing. Lack of Attacks Thought to Show Group Is
Nearly Crippled,'' The Washington Post, 6 May 2003.
111 ``Al-Qaeda Income Cut, Says Foreign Office,'' Daily Telegraph, London, 7 April 2003.
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