especially effective disinformation effort waged by the Bosnian Muslims during the April 1994 siege of Gorazde (which is credited with securing UN authorization for NATO air strikes) is illustrative of the dangers of manipulation (Cohen: A3 and Pomfret: A18).

Supporting the Field: Indications and Warning

The intelligence needs of preventive diplomacy and preventive deployment illustrate how field requirements can only be met by the Secretariat or the Department of Peacekeeping Operations. All peacekeeping operations deployments require a strategic overview of the environment in which they are operating-information on the situation in neighboring countries and their attitudes toward the mission. Actions or events in surrounding states can decisively influence the success or safety of a peace operation. For example, Croatian incursions into the UN Protected Areas during January 1993 took the lives of UN peacekeepers and ultimately derailed ongoing peace negotiations. Major General MacKenzie recounts how the UNPROFOR Headquarters in Sarajevo, responsible for the peacekeeping mission in Croatia, was adversely affected by the eruption of the Bosnian civil war. With no ability to assess the likely results of Bosnian independence, the UN "assigned a couple of local employees to listen to the radio and watch television and keep [them] briefed" (MacKenzie: 135-136). A UN indications and warning capability would have minimized casualties and perhaps permitted diplomatic pressure to forestall the offensive (Bair: 12). In the case of a preventive deployment like Macedonia, intelligence on events within potentially unstable (Kosovo) or hostile (Serbia) neighboring regions is crucial to the security of the lightly-armed force.

Planning

Mission planning by the Department of Peacekeeping Operations (DPKO) is the one area where detailed intelligence is required by the Secretariat. Background information on a conflict, military capabilities of the belligerent, the population, politics, and culture of the area of operations would better prepare national contingent commanders for the challenges of their mission than the cursory briefs they now receive from the DPKO. Extensive information on infrastructure, available host-nation support, geography, economic, and health factors could aid DPKO planners in

alleviating many of the deployment difficulties that peacekeeping missions experience. For example, Matts Berdal asserts that proper integration of intelligence in predeployment planning would have alleviated the logistics difficulties encountered by UNTAC in Cambodia (Berdal b: 45). At present, the necessary information is available only from the small technical survey team which is dispatched to the area of operations to formulate the mission concept for the Security Council. The pitfalls of relying on this source in Cambodia were noted in a General Accounting Office report:

[M]uch of that information [collected by the survey team in 198990] was outdated by the time UNTAC began operations in 1992. Several UNTAC officials said the condition of roads and bridges had deteriorated in the 2 years between the survey and the beginning of UNTAC operations, and some roads initially thought usable were barely passable when UNTAC deployed (U.S. GAO: 34).

Despite an increasing need for intelligence in support of peace operations, the UN organization is still not committed to providing it. An aversion to intelligence collection is still present within some quarters of the UN (Best: 12). The U.S. has been instrumental in prodding the UN toward adoption of a more robust intelligence infrastructure to support the organization both in the field and at the Secretariat. The U.S. is the only nation yet to establish a formal intelligence-sharing relationship with the UN. Support to the UN's highly visible peace operations is a primary focus of U.S. intelligence sharing with the world body. Policy has been established, hardware procured and organizations put in place by both the U.S. and the UN to support this endeavor. Problems encountered by the intelligence system that presently supports the Department of Peacekeeping Operations (DPKO) and the obstacles it faces as its functions expand in accordance with U.S. policy and UN desires will now be considered.

U.S. INTELLIGENCE SUPPORT

During the Cold War, U.S. intelligence support to UN peace operations was provided on an ad hoc basis, as exemplified by the occasional U-2 flights which commenced in 1973 to support the UN Disengagement Observer Force (UNDOF) on the Golan Heights (Durch b: 69). The end of superpower competition and the expanded use of the UN to promote U.S. national security interests during the Gulf War led to an increased U.S. willingness to share information with the organization. U.S. U-2 reconnaissance

aircraft have been dedicated to the UN since August 1991 to aid the UN Special Commission (UNSCOM) in monitoring the elimination of Iraq's weapons of mass destruction. The International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), the UN special agency charged with dismantling Iraq's nuclear weapons program and policing the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, also received U.S. intelligence support. IAEA Director Hans Blix has acknowledged "the satellite pictures that we get from the United States" are used by the North Korean government to question the agency's impartiality (“IAEA Director": 2; R. Smith d: A1).

The growing intelligence relationship between the U.S. and the UN was extended to include the organization's expanding peace responsibilities during 1992. Accordingly, then-Director of Central Intelligence Robert M. Gates designated the Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA) as the Executive Agent for U.S. intelligence support to UN peace operations. Within the DIA, the Joint Staff J2 (Intelligence Directorate) was assigned the task of providing the intelligence support approved on a case-by-case basis by the U.S. Intelligence Community for specific UN peace operations (U.S. DoD 1). The UN peacekeeping mission in Cambodia (UNTAC) was the first to receive support under this arrangement beginning in May 1992. During his September 1992 address to the UN General Assembly, President Bush pledged to further "broaden American support for monitoring, verification, reconnaissance and other requirements of UN peacekeeping or humanitarian assistance operations" (Bush c: 1699). The policy was codified in National Security Directive 74 (November 1992) which sought to strengthen all aspects of UN management and operations (U.S. DoD k).

Arrival of the Clinton administration brought further impetus to efforts to enhance intelligence sharing with the UN. A Senate Foreign Relations Committee report evaluated UN operations underway in early 1993 and found:

[T]here was little systematic recovery and dissemination of order of battle information between units in the field and [their] headquarters. There [was] also limited sharing of information between UN Headquarters in New York and the field. Although many believed that Western intelligence agencies were monitoring closely crisis areas through a variety of electronic and imagery intelligence methods, there appeared to be no system for disseminating this information to operational field commanders and unit commanders (U.S. Cong e: 39-40).

Clinton's policy of assertive multilateralism—relying upon the UN to deal with regional conflicts-clearly demanded a more effective intelligence capability for peace operations. A key element in rectifying the identified deficiencies was seen in the development of a watch center or situation room at UN Headquarters with dedicated U.S. intelligence support. With the UN set to assume control of the humanitarian relief operation in Somalia, the Joint Staff J2 obtained UN approval and cooperation in March 1992 to establish a communications network and watch center to support peace operations. The UN Situation Center began operations in April 1993, with an initial mandate to serve as a 24-hour monitoring and communications center for UN field operations.

Procedures and Organization

Deployed JDISS
Workstation.

photo used with permission

The U.S. provides intelligence to UN operations according to U.S. Intelligence Community concepts of operation (CONOPS) which delineate sanitization and release procedures for each approved peace mission. The CONOPS permit two levels of intelligence sharing with the UN. Level I information is sensitive and must remain under U.S. control, but can be shown to key UN officials. Level II information encompasses all other intelligence sanitized for release to the UN. Level II information can be given directly to the UN and is labeled "UN RESTRICTED" (U.S. DoD b: VIII-2). The U.S. uses the term "information" rather than "intelligence" to conform to UN practices.

The Joint Staff intelligence staff has provided the UN Department of Peacekeeping Operations (DPKO) with an intelligence dissemination network designed to be compatible with, and to emulate that of the Department of Defense. The thrust of the U.S. system, known as the Joint