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Conference on "Intelligence and the
Threat from International Terrorism"

Zagreb, Croatia, November 30 - December 01, 2001
Participants

Section II

Old means for new tasks:
Humint and Covert Operations.
Merging police intelligence and
national intelligence

Smith:

Old means for new tasks. I would like to talk a little bit about HUMINT. It was unfortunate that we didn't have the kind of intelligence that would have enabled us to forestall the attack on the World Trade Center, but we didn't. The immediate task for all the intelligence services is to do their best to build their capability to penetrate terrorist organizations. First, start by identifying the terrorist organizations and second, identify persons, or a person either in or close to that terrorist organization so that they, or he, can get information on it. The only way you can protect yourself against terrorist organizations is having information. It's very hard to get because the people in terrorist organizations, as you know, are not very nice people, and are very hard to deal with. They would shun contact with, or kill, most people sitting around this table. Certainly the Bin Laden group wouldn't have anything to do with any of us, so you have to find intermediaries to do it for you. Something, for example, like the Pakistan Intelligence Service. You need lots of help from the liaison. They have to work very closely together. Intelligence services have done a remarkably good job with sharing intelligence on the World Trade Center attack. This is unusual, but it's going to become more and more routine, because without a global intelligence network these kinds of attacks will not be stopped. Unless you have world coverage, world services working together, you won't be able to deny the terrorists a place to operate, a safe haven. They need safe havens. They function only with great difficulty without a safe haven, it makes it much more difficult for them to operate. If we have active and effective intelligence and internal security services worldwide, the problem will start to go away. It will never go away entirely, but its threat will be greatly diminished. I was talking with General Wolf this morning about these problems, because he is one of the 20th century geniuses on human intelligence. I asked him if he would give his views about how to improve HUMINT on terrorist organizations and then I would like to ask Drago Ferš and our moderator the same question. You have all been chiefs of service and you have all had experience in doing this kind of thing. I think the number one issue facing intelligence services now is how to get better at recruiting HUMINT sources. A HUMINT service is the most effective weapon against terrorism.. Could you, General Wolf, comment on how you would go about improving human intelligence on terrorist targets?

Wolf:

You know I have been out of the service for 15 years. Of course, I have no right to speak about the reasons for the failure of the services to protect this important part of the United States. You said the most important thing, and I repeat: without information from inside the conspiracy, it would be very difficult, if not impossible, to prevent a repetition of those terrible events. I can say again what I said this morning. The services need a strategy, and if I were to share my personal experiences from Germany about the struggle between East and West, I would say we concentrated our efforts on specific aims. It was not easy to protect my strategy. I think one of the main problems is to define the objects against which the services have to work; to concentrate efforts on gaining human sources.
Certainly now, after analyzing the events of September 11, it is possible to stop Bin Laden and his organization, but what about the others? What about Hamas, Jihad and others in the Muslim world? They are not alone, and they can certainly count on - if Stevan is right - the poorest and least free people as a constant reservoir of terrorism. Americans of course know better than I what happened in Latin America. It is not my business to propose the objects against which you should concentrate the most effort. Of course what happens inside a nation is different, and the activities of organizations such as ETA or IRA are mainly a national problem. National services have to think about that and concentrate their efforts on it; nevertheless, it's necessary to follow the international connections between different terrorist organizations and those specific national organizations as well. We talked about that in the morning, and the next problem would be rules of communication. Todor talked about the finances, and that's a central question. I'm sure based on the analyses there will be a determination about what finances are needed to surveill the various organizations, and locate human-intelligence possibilities. Terrorist activities can only be prevented if services focus on their raison d'etre. Maybe a re-allocation of personal and material funds and radical new commitments should be considered. I assume the U.S. services will use the immense financial support given by the President of the United States to create some balance between the the amount of funding for technology and for HUMINT. One lesson to be learned from September 11 is that the scale, methods, and professionalism of those terrible attacks call for a redefining of priorities. Above all, in my opinion, it is necessary to increase the use of human intelligence.

Ćosić:

The title of this session is "old means for new tasks." I would like to talk more about new means. New means for old tasks for new challenges might be a good definition of this session. In that sense, the question is: What are the new means? I will cite a report published a couple of weeks ago by the Pentagon. The Pentagon issued a rush request for ideas and technologies for fighting terrorism, exotic new surveillance technologies that could be used against distant enemies as well as at American airports, shopping malls, etc. The Pentagon bypassed its own bureaucracy, requesting that proposals be submitted by December 27 so that products and projects could be in place in 12 to 18 months. This is a great opportunity for people in the high-tech business. They requested items such as computer systems for tracking those who purchase bomb-making materials, portable polygraph machines for questioning airline passengers, print software for automatically recognizing people speaking Middle East languages, and digital systems to more quickly recognize threats. So it is clear that part of the future budgeting is shifting from heavy jet fighters to the struggle against this type of warfare. Sophisticated tools for identifying people who have handled weapons of mass destruction, use of digital fingerprints by law enforcement, and faster identification of fingerprints. This means all potential technologies can improve the tracking of the people and the movements of terrorist groups. I fully agree that human intelligence should be most important, but the tools and technologies human intelligence has at its disposal are also very important. Additional funds can improve our potential. This is one aspect, the impact of technology. The other aspect is understanding society, what's going on in society today? A lot of research is being done on behavior modeling using techniques such as agent base modeling, which focus on social influences and cultural dynamics. This research helps us to better predict the behavior of terrorists in the future; in the past we were unable to do this. The theory of homogenous culture has definitely disappeared since it showed we were not, in fact, moving toward a common system of values, a common culture. My favorite topic, though, is related to the transition in our society. The transition to democracy creates potential threats. Why? Many states have been unable to manage the transition to democracy and a market economy successfully in a globalized world, where values have been imposed on us by the most successful economic power. Many states will fail in the process of globalization, so we have to be aware that with globalization we also have fragmentation. We should oppose the imposition of values upon states without the agreement of the states participating in the globalization process; otherwise, great frustration and insecurity will result . In short, we need more creativity and imagination to predict what was earlier unpredictable. Especially in a high-tech war. High-tech war means war without a single dead soldier on one side and all the casualties on the other side. This can lead to a decision, for example, to activate biological and nuclear weapons.

Tuđman:

I also wanted to talk about new means for old tasks, but from an historical perspective. I want to point out that it's not only Americans who have problems with terrorism and terrorist activities; so do other countries. I would like to give some examples of Serbian terrorist activities in Croatia in the 1990s, data which are now more or less declassified and open, but not that well-known by the public. I think they illustrate the legal and ethical dimension of terrorism.
At the end of the 1980s, and especially after 1985 when it was clear that the communist system and the future of Yugoslavia was danger of disintegrating, Belgrade developed a parallel intelligence system under the control of communist hard-liners. Due to a lack of trust between Yugoslav and republic services, the parallel system was organized from Belgrade, and in Croatia located and run from the headquarters of the Central Committee of the Croatian Communist Party in Zagreb. Slavko Malobabić, who was formal counselor and/or Chief of staff of several presidents of the Croatian Communist Party between 1985-1990, was running at the same time a parallel intelligence center under the cover and sponsorship of the Communist Party. The service was formally organized as an analytical group working in the Central Committee. But it had official sources in Yugoslav military and Croatian civilian intelligence services. The analytical group had access to the intelligence products of existing services, and all citizens' dossiers from the Ministry of Internal Affairs. The group was preocupied with collecting all intelligence and personal data, and planning special operations and information warfare against "internal enemies". They had a budget, documentation, access to the documentation of other services, and a network of journalists to disseminate their "analytical products". That was the situation up until May, 1990, when the first democratic elections were held in Croatia. At that moment, the group and documentation were moved to the Military Counterintelligence Headquarters (KOS) in Zagreb. The same people continued planning operations now under the sponsorship of the Military Counterintelligence Service of the Yugoslav Army. The group organized number of terrorist activities in Croatia, and I will relate a few of them.
During the short war in Slovenia they planned and mined the power-transmission lines as revenge for the siege of the military barracks in Slovenia. On August 19, 1991, a bomb was planted in the Jewish municipality building in Zagreb at 4.15am. Ten minutes later, another bomb exploded in the Jewish graveyard. The man arrested and found responsible was Serbian and an agent of the Military Counterintelligence Service, working in the Ministry of Internal Affairs in Zagreb. After he planted those two bombs, he moved to Bosnia and was one of the organizers of Republic Srpska.
Another example is the rocket attack on the presidential residence on October 7, 1991. The presidential residence was hit with rockets during a meeting between Croatian President Franjo Tuđman, Stipe Mesic, President of Yugoslavia at that time, and Ante Markovic, President of the Federal Government. Nobody was killed inside the residence, but the residence was destroyed. Today, the names of the perpetrators are known. The pilot of the MIG was Ivan Dopuđa, and the navigator Eedomir Knežević, the head of counterintelligence in the Air Force. All the necessary intelligence data were obtained from Slavko Malobabić, who had been operating the parallel intelligence center from 1985-1990.
The Zagreb group was forced to leave Croatia in the summer of 1990. because some of their members were arrested and prosecuted. The group was relocated to Belgrade, and as a part of the military counterintelligence service continued the same activities, but under a new name. The code name for the new operation was "Opera". The objectives of "Opera" were to organize information warfare and covert operations, and to arm paramilitary units engaged in Serbian aggression on Croatia and Bosnia and Herzegovina. Just to give you some examples of their activities: the military counterintelligence service (KOS) gave approval for all the official statements of the JNA (Yugoslav Army). KOS also controlled press conferences and all press releases. "Opera" produced and prepared video information to combat reports of JNA aggression, first on Vukovar, and then in Dubrovnik, where they provided their interpretation of aggression on Dubrovnik. The point is that the first information about aggression on Croatia and the atrocities by the JNA were prepared by KOS - the JNA counter-intelligence service. "Opera" was responsible for fabrication of information from the Military Medical Academy in Belgrade as well. The objective was to produce disinformation and then blame others for the atrocities. The information, misinformation, and disinformation products were distributed to the international press center in Belgrade. KOS and their agents were very successful. Even today, some of their disinformation are still cited in the former Yugoslavia and European media.
For example, Jane's Intelligence published in 1994 an article about the Croatian Intelligence Service. We know today that the author of the article was close to an individual in the person Serbian service. And several years ago there was an affair in the British media connecting that same person with a member of British Parliament. But the article in 1994 offered a negative picture of the Croatian service and myself. The main thesis of the article was that the Croatian service is under the control of the German service. At that time we didn't even have a relationship with the German service. But the main message and context was the "Nazi" background of both the services.
"Opera" was organized to spin Serbian aggression, and the atrocities and terrorist activities committed. "Opera" thus promoted messages and disinformation such as: Herzegovinians are fighting for Croatia while people from Zagreb are skiing in Austria; the leaders of HDZ are former agents of the Yugoslav Military Counterintelligence Service (KOS), etc.
Operations run by (KOS) can be rightfully described as terrorist activities. The objective of the "Proboj" (Break through) operation was to plan acts of aggression and arm the Serbian population in Croatia and Bosnia (before the conflict had evenstarted). Just to illustrate, all the key actors in the Serbian aggression on Croatia were KOS agents: Milan Martić, Goran Hadžić, and Milan Babić.
A Yugoslav MIG caused a UN helicopter to crash in January 1992, near Podrute, and several EU monitors were killed. General Bajić gave the command for the operation and the MIG took off from the Bihać airport. The operation was coordinated by the Yugoslav Military Counterintelligence service.

Kerr:

I don't disagree at all with what has been said about the need for human intelligence and the nature of that problem. But it seems to me there are some other things worth addressing. Some of the restrictions, certainly in the United States, on activities that the government imposed on itself are going to change. For instance, intervention in financial transactions. There has been a reluctance in the United States to take action electronically by attacking financial accounts because of the concern about the disruption of financial institutions and intervention in global financial systems. But I think we're going to find that people are a little inclined with the appropriate authority to go after people's financial accounts electronically. There also is a real likelihood that in the United States, especially against non-US citizens, there is going to be more intrusive surveillance, whether it's electronic, telephonic or other. I think the ground rules for our intelligence involvement in activities it tended to stay away from in the past or be very careful about are going to change. That has some serious long term implications for legal and civil rights. On the other hand, it seems to me that those very capabilities also give opportunities to people for a different kind of terrorism. There will be opportunities for disruption of normal business activity, changing or bringing down stock markets, or affecting normal business transactions. The ability to create havoc in the financial system is very real.

Dedijer:

Like what Soros did in Tyron.

Kerr:

There are all kinds of things. Opportunities for disinformation are very great. Stevan mentions in his paper that there was a panic in the United States in part because people did not understand the reason for the attacks. They did not think the US was at war.

Wolf:

Speaking about targets and priorities, we only mentioned in passing the question of nuclear, biological, and chemical weapons and the possibility of uncontrolled production. I think after the events of September 11, this should be a high priority. We must prevent access to them by terrorists, and maintain very close, strict control over them. The first step is to analyze where and who, and to establish priorities about how to manage this problem.

Lacoster:

This subject is for me a very important one; as you know, I have not been in charge of secret affairs in my country since 1985, more than sixteen years. However, I still have a great interest in intelligence and security matters. I am teaching in a French university and writing articles and books on these subjects. Last June, I published a book with one of my friends, Secret Services and Geopolitics. Among other issues, we argue that in the present world, previous distinctions between foreign intelligence and domestic intelligence are much less relevant. The September 11th attacks in the US are an example of the new complexity of intelligence problems after the end of the Cold War and the opening of most state borders. For several years I have been studying that specific aspect, and I believe that just because we have new tasks, we do not have to discard old methods. We cannot get rid of the traditional "HUMINT" because of the remarkable performances of the new SIGINT and other scientific systems now at the disposal of intelligence services. We have to keep in mind basic stratetic principles, and classical knowledge about war and law and order enforcement. Military and police affairs have many points in common; both are fighting enemies or adversaries, and in both cases, you have to reveal and understand the intentions, capabilities, behavior, and logistical problems of your "enemy". It has always been the job of intelligence services to address those questions. When police officers are fighting against gangsters, it takes another form, but it is not much different than when the military fights its enemy on the battlefield.
In my country we have dealt for many years with various forms of terrorism. I remember during the Second World War, when I was young and the victorious German army was ruling my country, we were working to build and operate "resistance" networks to help our Anglo-Saxon allies in their fight for victory. But the German authorities considered members of those networks "terrorists"; for the allies they were "freedom fighters". You could say that when the Communist party ordered a German officer killed in the Paris Metro in 1941, it was an act of provocation intended to "radicalize" the situation. Nowadays, we see similar situations between Tsahal, the Israeli Army, and the Palestinian "intifada" fighters.
Many years later in the 1970s, when I was in charge of the Prime Minister's office, we had to deal with "Basque" terrorism. At that time, a conservative government was in power in France, and if our President had openly assisted the Spanish authorities in their struggle against the Spanish Basque terrorists who were "political refugees" in our country, he would have been fiercely attacked by the "French left" parties. However, a few years later there was a political change in France and Spain, making it easier for President Mitterand to cooperate with the Spanish police than it had been for President Giscard d'Estaing to work with Franco's police and justice system.
International cooperation against terrorism is politically difficult, even bilaterally. It is not only a question of good relations between intelligence and police systems; it is also necessary for judges to work hand in hand, which raises the problem of compatibility between two justice systems and procedures. When you arrest a terrorist in one country, that country's laws and procedures apply. The professional terrorists take advantage of the differences in procedures, and know how to profit from their " civil rights" in order to escape prosecution .
I had another experience with the Italian "Red Brigades" in the early 1980's. The Italian government and judges were very concerned about the political violence that had led to so many murders and terrorist actions in the 1970s. They knew some of the Red Brigades leaders were living in France as "political refugees". But President Mitterand and his socialist friends were convinced that those people were being punished for their political opinions, not for having committed crimes, and opposed all extradition requests from Italy. Today we have similar problems between Yemen, Saudi Arabia, and the US government, in regard to financial aspects of Islamic terrorism, money laundering, and so on.
We also had the case of terrorism in North Ireland, where the British have been fighting for many years against the IRA. In Germany, they had the " Red Army Faction". Through this, the European governments learned to improve cooperation between national services. You have heard of the "Schengeningen agreements." It demonstrates how difficult it is to achieve collaboration between different countries. It is possible to cooperate efficiently when different entities work within the same " task force" on a common task for a limited period of time. It is easier than creating permanent organizations or modifying laws through national Parliaments.

Dedijer:

The Middle East policy of the United States is changing. Suddenly President Bush says Palestinian has to be independent, and then Colin Powell and Shimon Peres, the Minister of Foreign Affairs, say the same thing. Shimon Peres, who should be in The Hague himself for what he did to the refugees in 1978. I have a copy of a speech Powell delivered on November 21 in Kentucky, in which he says that the vision of the United States is to have a conference in the Middle East out of which will come two States, Palestinian and Israeli, both secure and with firm borders, both working to improve the lives of their people. If this policy is followed by the United States, I think we can solve the problem of Arab terrorism. If Bush follows the policy of giving the Palestinians independence, the main threat of terrorism will disappear. We have a lot of political experience; let's think how this problem can be solved. We have to treat Israel like any other country, like Macedonia, Croatia, or Serbia, no special privileges. That's the only way to solve the problem. Then Arab terrorism is going to disappear, because you'll disarm people. They'll say: "I've got country, Palestine. I can live in it, I can go to school in it, and I'm not terrorized by anybody. That is why I think the American policy of declaring war on Bin Laden is ridiculous. How many Afghans have been killed so far? OK, 4500 people were lost in New York and the Pentagon. How many Afghanshave died so far? It's a pure eye for an eye policy being followe by the United States, but at the same time the idea of independence for Palestine is being promoted to rout this kind of terrorism.

Kerr:

The US has tried to solve this problem. A great deal of energy, time, emotion, money, investment, and even a good deal of Presidential prestige has been put into the solution. But I would also argue that solving the Israeli-Palestinian problem will not solve all the problems the Arab world has with the US. Bin Laden's hatred of the US and a good deal of the Arab hostility toward the US is not necessarily because of the Palestinian problem. It's also the forward presence of the United States in the Persian Gulf and elsewhere in the Middle East which is seen as an intrusive foreign presence in an area that they presume is their area of dominance. You quote Susan Sontag, who I think is an idiot. Her argument about the September 11 event is like telling the wife of someone whose husband has been shot in a robbery that if she understood the motives of the killer, she would have more sympathy for the killers. I find that a very illogical and fallacious argument.

Dedijer:

But look, this is the first time you have been at war in your own country. But we've experienced all kinds of wars.

Smith:

But we are going to work to prevent it from ever happening again. We don't sit there and say "I wonder why they did that?" There are some people, a very small segment of the population, who said "I wonder why they did that, let's study and see why they did that'. That is a foolish reaction. It's crazy. When someone hits you, you hit him back. You don't say "I wonder why they did that." Maybe after you beat them, you say it. But in this case, the first duty of the president is to defend his country, and when you're attacked, you attack back, you defend, you find the person that did it, and you get them. That is what we are doing. This is a very rational reaction from Bush.

Ferš:

You said in the beginning that the only way to protect ourselves is to have the information. I agree. What will happen after September 11 is a new challenge, as you mentioned earlier. There are different ways of gathering information. During my career I didn't have these different means at my disposal, because when I started out in Slovenia, we didn't have the technical equipment; we started from scratch and had only human resources. I am sure my American colleagues could push a button and have half of Afghanistan and the world on the screen. If I want to see this, I have to get on the Internet. But ten years ago we didn't have the Internet, we didn't have anything, we had to find human resources to engage. How much energy needs to be expended for people to understand why the former Yugoslavia collapsed? Who in 1989-1990 and later understood what former Yugoslavia's real problems were? A very small group of people. Maybe they didn't have information or inaccurate information. I am sure people abroad had all the information they needed, but they didn't understand the situation because they didn't understand the issues. How could you understand the events that Miro mentioned earlier in Zagreb and in Croatia. It was very hard. Also my experience fighting the Yugoslav Army in 1991 showed that we couldn't finish our job using only technical equipment; we needed human resources. But without without technical support, we also wouldn't have been able to do anything. A combination of both is the optimal way to perform a HUMINT covert operation. Each case is unique, in each area we have a different situation, and each case must be prepared using several different actions and reactions. We heard earlier that the Mujahedeen and the Afghans are poor people and have nothing but their lives to give. But those who organized these criminal acts are still alive and will be alive in the future. They will not give their lives for a concrete action. That is a different issue.

Smith:

Their belief, their grievance, is that Islam, which was once the great civilization, has fallen behind the upstart, infidel, and corrupt West. They are angry and terribly resentful.

Ferš:

I think the real question is: How much power are we prepared to give to the ones fighting against the terrorists? I agree that if you have a big problem, you ask the Government to allow new measures to be introduced. But are there any governments anywhere prepared to open the door and say: "OK, services, you now have a new measure, so you can do what you want because in Europe and Washington, three buildings collapsed and a lot of people were killed.

Smith:

I think even now if we press the Europeans and ask them for help, engage and work with them, I think their governments will help. I think they're all concerned. European governments realize that this can happen anywhere, because the more developed the world, the better the targets, the easier they are to hit. The big targets are in the United States, Europe, and certain countries in Asia, and if we have decent liaison relationships with services, those services will be responsive to our arguments that they have to do something. We can't do it all ourselves, and that is why it is so important to have close, continuous, and harmonious liaison relations.

Lange:

I would like to comment on Mr. Dedijer's remarks. I agree with him, but only 50%. We must clearly differentiate between two types of terrorists. There are the guys walking out of the camps with bags of dynamite, and underprivileged and frustrated people linking themselves up with the Israeli or American policy in the Middle East, but the people who enacted the September 11 attack are a different breed. If you look at their biographies, you will find they have above average qualifications, are very introverted and rational, not very socially integrated, but not unpleasant people. They're not the lunatic fringe type, and this makes human intelligence a very different task, because it's difficult to infiltrate the groups, develop a pattern, and search for these people. This is a task that cannot be solved by individual psychology. What we need is to approach it as an organizational problem and develop search patterns for certain types of organizations, money flow, and so on; forget about psychology, because that takes us nowhere. There's a big difference between suicide bombers wearing dynamite belts and the WTC pilots.

Dedijer:

You said you agree with me 50%. I've been in this field for 30 years, and since the 1970s, I've been saying that spying is dying out. I also published a lot of articles saying that spying was not necessary, and that it's just a way to get information. Now that is supported by others. You can find everything on the Internet. But human intelligence is extremely important. We have here the man who made better use of it than anybody else. Used it to penetrate the entire German government. Lord Johnson is a very respected writer on intelligence and he says now that human intelligence and espionage were Cold War techniques which are no longer useful. I think that's wrong. Because if the FBI, CIA, and 13 agencies were clever enough to have had one Bin Laden, they would have shot down those planes before they struck. That means you didn't have the knowledge to find these people. Technical intelligence can't supplant human intelligence. Most terrorist groups are working conspiratively, using the skill of keeping their mouths shut and knowing how to keep secrets, not giving out information, and so forth. What will human intelligence and espionage consist of in the future, what's terrorism and what is not terrorism?

Wolf:

Let me say just one word. I am absolutely sure that there is no group or organization that cannot be infiltrated. To use an example, though this was long ago: the Chancellor's office in Germany, where it was almost impossible to recruit agents. But it was possible to infiltrate that office by using a long-term strategy, by choosing the right people. It is hard for me to understand why the services did not have sources in the Al-Qaeda organization.

Kerr:

I wouldn't assume they had no sources. They had no sources on this operation but they had a number of sources. It is true on this operation they did not have good enough sources.

Boyadjiev:

I want to ask something. First of all, do we agree that terrorism is not a war between Islam and Christianity? I think this is one of the aims of Al-Qaeda, to show it as confrontation between religions. Are we going to agree that it's not a war between civilizations? If we agree - because terrorism doesn't have anything to do with civilization - then I agree with General Wolf. If it's not a religious or civilizational conflict, then we have a common denominator with people from other religions. We have common ground to fight a common evil, terrorism. Because it's working against Islam, it's working against Christianity, it's working against humanity and civilization.
I can give the example of the Branch Davidian sect in the States - a Christian sect that committed mass suicide which can also be characterized as mass murder. Let's agree on two major things. It's not a religious war, it's not Islam against Christianity, and it's not one civilization against another. I think if we accept that position, then one of the main aims for the intelligence people and HUMINT operatives is to locate sources in the Islamic world ready to cooperate and help fight terrorism. They will then more easily understand that terrorists are radicals working against Islam and Islam interests.

Smith:

But this is about Christianity; it's in the minds of the people who attacked the World Trade Center. Bin Laden. It's a fight against Christianity. We're the infidels, but we should not present it that way. We should not say yes, it is. Bush has been good at this. He has been trying to isolate the extremists in the Islamic world by being careful to say nothing critical about Islam and to describe the terrorists as persons who have gone against the teachings of Islam. He has tried to make it clear to the Islamic world that it is not Christianity versus Islam. He realizes that it is important to frame the issue as the terrorists being against both Islam and Christianity. We want to isolate the terrorists and we do that by not saying it is Christianity against Islam.

Kerr:

There is fundamental tension between the Islamic and western worlds. Islam has not changed since the 8th century, while the Christian world has gone through several reformations and changes necessary to adapt to a changing world. To say that there is no difference and that there is no conflict there is to ignore a very important issue. I don't agree with Huntington that conflict is inevitable. But I think there is a very important schism that needs to be healed.

Boyadjiev:

But this is not the basis for a general confrontation. This is a difference that ought to be overcome but it should not become a basis for confrontation. Otherwise, we all lose.

Smith:

I think we're talking about two different things. Our tactics should be to not say that there is a clash between the West and the East, between Christianity and Islam, because that would be very counterproductive. We have singled out the terrorists and distinguished them from the vast majority in the Muslin world who are moderate and non-violent.

Lučić:

I want to again refer to terms, definitions, and names. Are you aware of any terrorist organization having the word Christianity in its name? There are Western terrorist organisations such as ETA, IRA, etc., but they are fighting for their national interests, not for Christianity! So I would use the term western world, not Christianity. On the other hand, the majority of terrorist organisations from the Islamic world include Islam in the organization name, and in their agendas they clearly state that they are fighting for Islam and Allah. This form of terrorism is becoming stronger and growing in numbers, and we can define it as "green socialism".

Kerr:

There are some extreme right-wing people in the United States that are activists willing to kill to support their views. Some of these are Christians. I don't think you can find a movement whose primary objective is Christian domination, though.

Lacoster:

May I make a practical comment? The leaders of radical Islamic terrorism must find and train recruits. The best way is to take young, uneducated people, because they are easy to influence and inculcate with radical ideas. We know what is happening in the "Koran schools" and the "military" camps in Afghanistan and Yemen, where future "Mujahedeens" are being trained. In the Sierra-Leone civil war, teenagers have been the most ferocious and merciless fighters.
However, in the September 11 attacks we saw something new: the arrival of a new generation of terrorists. They are very clever, well-educated people who have been living for years in western countries - Germany, France, Great Britain, Spain, and even in the USA, as "normal" citizens. But they are also fanatics. It is a strange psychological condition, similar to that in the so-called "religious" sects, when some apparently sane people fall under the influence of a " guru", oblivious to the fact that he is a common thief and so on. You might recall the collective suicides in Guyana, and in Switzerland a few years ago.
A third point is that the terrorist groups have a remarkable ability to impose strong discipline and strict rules of secrecy on their members. Professional police and Secret Services in charge of collecting intelligence find it very difficult, and sometimes impossible, to penetrate terrorist organizations.
The task of "counterintelligence" is hard because the terrorist networks apply perfectly all the basic principles. I remember a specific experience during the civil war in Lebanon, when we were confronted with clandestine and terrorist organizations, bombings of our barracks, assassination of our diplomats, and even terrorism on French territory. My Service, DGSE, succeeding in introducing an agent into one of the groups which was preparing an action in France. I was then confronted with the problem of confidentiality vis a vis my colleagues in French domestic counterintelligence; if they caught the man they would deprive us of an important asset. Was it better to tell them or to keep the secret ? When you are dealing with terrorist networks, it can often be more dangerous than conventional espionage.
A fourth point is what I call "the mafia syndrome". I believe the most dangerous criminal organzations are those organized like the traditional mafias. The mafia system is much more subtle than "ordinary crime" gangs. Their leaders are more clever; they have friends and agents in different parts of society, and they strictly observe the "omerta", the rule of silence. Law enforcement forces seldom infiltrate agents into those organizations; the knowledge we have of the members and structure was not gained by infiltration operations but from the revelations of former "mafiosi" who had been threatened by their former compatriots (in Italian, the "pentiti"). When former members of terrorist groups feel remorse for their crimes and agree to help us eradicate terrorism, we will have similar successes here.

Dedijer:

I read a book recently called Fight against God. It is a book about three kinds of extremists: Christian, Jewish and Muslim. The author appeared a week ago on CNN. There are extremists in every religion. In my article you will find a wonderful scene from the National Cathedral. All the presidents were there, Bush and son, everybody. Then a beautiful man dressed in red with a little red cap appeared, got up, and said only this: "The Gospel of Matthew says to be modest. Be humble in spirit." It was a beautiful lecture to Bush and the others; take it easy, don't go crazy. There's no need to pass a resolution here. We are all against extremists of any religion.

Boyadjiev:

Continuing with what you said, I was working in the States during the Teheran story, the kidnapping of Americans at the Embassy. In regard to extremism, I recall a popular country western song from that time that became very famous in the States. I liked it, too, but it was a good example of extremism. I do not recall the name of the singer but he was singing to the ayatollahs: "Let our people go or we'll turn your country into a parking lot". It was very nationalistic with a lot of extremism. I wouldn't be surprised if some small group appears claiming to be the new prophets working for Christianity and planning terrorist acts against Islam. I do not think this can be excluded.

Međimorec:

I would like to raise an important question. In Croatia, terrorism has been examined from political, economical, sociological, cultural, and religious perspectives. But the arguments are simplistic and the conclusions reached are always predictable. "Black and white" explanations are given. The roots are not explored; faults, misconceptions and erroneous political characterizations (towards countries and societies inclined toward terrorism) are not analyzed. An intellectual doesn't dare risk public attack to praise Huntington's thesis about the clash of civilizations. It is almost considered offensive to study the violent streams of Islamic fundamentalism, or current Islamic ideas and movements. An intellectual has to follow the governing school of thought and repeat ideas until they become "mantras". The world is based on multicultural, multireligious, multiracial dogmas, on intercultural understanding and tolerance. But there are religious, cultural, and historical schisms and tensions. Such differences are obvious to people living within these schisms; for instance, the nations along the boundary (the old Roman lines in former Yugoslavia) which divides the West from the East. This is a fact that cannot be ignored and must be taken into account in any serious political analysis. It is not possible to understand the problems in Bosnia and Herzegovina, Kosovo, or Macedonia, and act accordingly if you don't take into account differences between the two major religions - Islam and Christianity. Two philosophies, two cultures, two civilizations. If you do not understand the depth of the roots of those two different civilizations, you will not be able to understand the real nature of terrorism. The Admiral links different kinds of terrorism to different politics. I would like you to focus on what I call the "asymmetrical flow of history". We have been observing the process of national liberation and homogenization in Albania, Kosovo, and Macedonia. Ten years ago, Slovenia, Croatia and Bosnia and Herzegovina went through the same turbulence. These countries are undergoing a historical process which occurred 150 years ago in the rest of Europe. The historical framework was not the same for the nations in the West and those in southeastern Europe. The historical discrepancies are obvious. The means for achieving a national state, freedom, and liberation from an oppressing hegemony vary in every country. Is the Albanian national movement in Kosovo terrorist or is it waging a legitimate struggle for independence? Is this "terrorism" the same as Al Qaeda's? Terrorism in one country is not the same or identical in another. There are many variations and forms. One should be able to differentiate between the various situations, roots, and causes of terrorism. Today, Bin Laden's and Al Qaeda's terrorism is the most dangerous and obvious, and should be neutralized by all posisble means. Future conflicts in Somalia, Philippines, Iraq, and Yemen depend on the outcome of this struggle. Different means and methods must be devised. In the fight against terrorism, different tools should be used according to individual characteristics. Reformation was mentioned. A few days ago an article appeared in The Times dealing with the period of reformation. The author is a professor at York University, and his thesis is that we should return to the pre-reformation period in which differences between religions were normal and acceptable. His idea is that we should accept differences between Islam and Christianity in their purest form, which would enable us to better understand modern tensions between the two major civilizations. A short remark on HUMINT. All these technological "miracles" are helpful, but only intelligence officers on the ground can obtain vital information and accurately assess the dangers. In my experience, cooperation, exchange of data, and joint operations are the best means to counter terrorism.

Boyadjiev:

If we do not agree that all forms of terrorism - left, right, religious, national, minority, majority terrorism are crimes against humanity, we are going to have double standards. With double standards we cannot fight any form of terrorism, because there will always be someone supporting some type of terrorism. Terrorism is a crime against humanity and that ought to be accepted totally, without any differentiation between the different kinds of terrorism. It's a crime.

Lacoster:

I agree. It is different because in addition to terrorist actions against the USA, it also creates a dangerous threat for moderate Muslim and Arab states. There is the possiblity of destabilization of Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Jordan, the Gulf Emirates and so on. It is more a new kind of revolution than a "crusade" of the Muslim against the Christian world. We have been confronted for decades with the political revolutions of Marxism and Fascism. Now we have another challenge, another revolution involving two billion people. We have to watch this problem very carefully.

Lacoster:

I agree it is different, because it is not just a terrorist act against the USA. It is even more dangerous for many Muslim, Arab states. It could destabilize Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Jordan, and so on. It is not a crusade of the Muslim world against the Christian world, but a new kind of revolution. We know about the political revolutions of Marxism, but this is another type of revolution because it affects more than one or two billion people. So we have to consider this issue very carefully.

Tuđman:

To return to what Boyadjiev said: terrorism is a crime. Any kind of violence is unacceptable. Any threat against a life is a crime. What I would like to ask is: do we accept distinctions or not? Do we acknowledge nations' differences in politics, cultural identities, society, cultures and interests in the world? How do we deal with differences we do not like and that are unacceptable to us because they are conflict with our interests? That's the problem. Obviously, history is replete with the struggles of nations to survive and achieve a better position in the world. Throughout history, there are periods of war and periods of peace, when nations or states are able to achieve better positions without military conflict or loss of life. Theoretically, it is easy to agree on what constitutes terrorism. How to evaluate the different types of terrorism is not so easy. Some governments or individuals classify certain activities as terrorist, while others disagree. Are there universal or international legal criteria or standards on terrorist activity? Perhaps on a theoretical and philosophical level, but I doubt something like that can formulated among countries with different political, cultural, economic, and developmental disparities.

Gömbös:

I'd like to quote The Economist that terrorism is not only a religious but a complex, overall problem. "The truth is, America is despised mainly for its success; for the appealing and, critics would say, corrupting alternative it presents to a traditional Islamic way of life; and for the humiliation which many Muslims feel when they consider the comparative failure, in material terms, of their once-mighty civilization. It helps Arab governments, no doubt, to blame that failure on outsiders."

Wolf:

You asked about Albanian terrorism. I read that during the time the KLA was preparing for terror attacks, hundreds of fighters of the "holy war", recruited from different Islamic countries, came into Albania to plan terrorist activities with the locals. I don't intend now to discuss the war in Kosovo, the KLA, and terror activities, but just wanted to say how difficult it is to define terrorists and terrorist organizations.

Ćosić:

There is no doubt that we need a revolution in intelligence affairs, but a revolution which will define and design a new strategy to prevent terrorism and provide a clear vision of potential terrorist threats! That's why I have stressed technology as a new tool. I agree that the most valuable resource is human intuition, expertise, and knowledge. But human intelligence failed on September 11th.

Dedijer:

The theme here is merging police intelligence and national intelligence. Since 1945, every country has worked on building up an intelligence community consisting of different agencies. The English were the pioneers. They established the Central Intelligence Board in 1936, which is in Downing Street 11. And that National Intelligence Board deals with all intelligence issues, all threats to the British Empire. Then other countries after the Second World War started developing intelligence communities for intelligence: security, FBI, police and so forth. Now the world is changing so rapidly that you can't comprehend it, you can't measure it; still we have to monitor all these organizations and determine how they function. Recently I quoted Robert Gates, former head of CIA, and four Presidents who said that the CIA is the most closed organization possible, and that they don't tolerate the anyone's opinion but their own. You've had intelligence failures; intelligence failures occur everywhere, but my question concerns the role of bureaucracy. What is meant by bureaucracy? I think that we have to consider the issue of bureaucratization of intelligence communities. How did the NY operation escape the 13 United States intelligence organizations? Another favorite case of mine is Aldrich Ames. The New York Times wrote that he was totally incompetent but was nonetheless promoted. He lived like a king and nobody saw it or had the courage to speak out. What happened with Ames applies to all intelligence organizations. I'm not picking on the United States. So the question is how to motivate people? During the Cold War everybody was a hero in intelligence, they were all 007s, and felt proud about it. In "Foreign Affairs" the CIA still advertises, inviting young people to apply to the CIA. But they are all bureaucratic organizations; you don't measure the output. You don't know what you get for the money you put in. How are you going to evaluate what you get from the money you invest in all this different groups and how can you coordinate them? I don't know how bureaucratic Croatian intelligence is, but I suspect it is at a high level.
Intelligence is effectiveness, how you use your brain, what ideas you produce, how you create ideas, and so forth. I would like to raise the question of how to fight bureaucracy in the intelligence communities. How can we make them more efficient, so that they produce measurable results and do not miss problems or fail to predict events? So I am going conclude with this, the theme of bureaucracy, bureaucratization of intelligence organizations. I think this should be on the agenda of every community, regardless of specific problems of intelligence or acts of terrorism act in New York.
I just want to add this. IBM has estimated that business intelligence investment is 70 billion dollars, and I think it's bigger now than the national intelligence community of all countries put together. I think it is going to grow, and business intelligence investment is going to be much larger than for national security.

Tuđman:

I believe in the future the intelligence community will grow more than the military. The intelligence community will be more important, in order to protect a country or society from the threat of terrorism. Someone mentioned that terrorist groups of less than 100 or 200 people can present a serious threat, and that there is no need to activate brigades or divisions against such groups. On the other hand, because of the growth of business intelligence, the role of national intelligence services is now only one segment of intelligence activities. That means the role of business intelligence will grow, and maybe we can't address the issue of bureaucratization of systems because the system will soon be organized on a completely different basis. But to answer your question: if our intelligence community were bureaucratized, how would that occur? My answer is very simple. We were too small and too busy to be bureaucratized. The size of our services is not a secret. We have fewer officers than journalists in a typical daily or weekly paper. That means that we were not big enough to have become a bureaucratic organization. In Croatia, we developed an intelligence community from four services; three were established during the last ten years. They did not exist previously because Croatia was not an independent and sovereign state, so everything started from scratch. We established an intelligence community, but it was not easy to establish cooperation among various services in the beginning. After a couple years, the other services realized that cooperation was advantageous for them. Croatia was at war and none of the services wanted to take the risk or responsibility for possible failure, and that was the main rationale for cooperation among the services. On the other hand, we were in a position to cooperate closely with police and law enforcement services; that is, customs, financial police, and criminal police. We achieved a lot of success here.

Kerr:

I think you have to look at why that bureaucracy exists. Fundamentally, it's a accretion of various functional organizations that were brought together primarily during the Cold War. There was a compelling need to understand Soviet strategic forces. Out of that grew this very complex organization, very bureaucratic, but capable of meeting the Soviet strategic military threat. In some ways, it is not well adjusted to the problems of today. At the same time you can't scrap it all, you can't say "well, we'll start out again", for a variety of reasons. Some of it is very valuable. The problem is how do you take what you have and focus on a new set of problems with new eyes? It is very difficult for organizations to recreate themselves. Concerning the likelihood of significant changes in the intelligence community, I think it will become more effective in dealing with current problems, and this doesn't mean that because its bureaucratic it isn't effective.

Lacoster:

I would like to raise another point: the connection between the decision-making and information systems. It is a major problem. Every country has its own governmental traditions. There are many common features between the American and the British intelligence communities, but they are not the same. The differences are based on history and national cultures. In British society, we see several centuries of merchant, naval, and imperial tradition. The British had to learn how to deal with the complexities of managing a worldwide empire, to take responsibility and, at the same time, handle internal political issues (i.e., in India, Malaysia, and Africa), and foreign policy in and outside Europe. Their culture on intelligence issues is very different from the French. Their military traditions are in many aspects not comparable with ours, and their political institutions are also very different.

Kerr:

To be frank, though, you have to be very careful, because the British live off US information. They don't have to do all of the hard stuff. They can step in at the top and look at the big issues.

Lacoster:

Yes, we know that everything doesn't originate in England.

Kerr:

And if you want to look at failures, you might look at the history of British failure to anticipate change. I wouldn't give the British too much credit for brilliance in predicting the future. The years 1930, 1940, 1941, the Far East, and the Middle East are replete with examples of poor intelligence. Everybody has a problem predicting the future. The US is not unique in its failure at times to predict the future.

Lacoster:

But unlike us they are not confronted with frequent elections, political change, and so forth. There is more continuity than in other democracies, which is good.

Dedijer:

I want to raise an issue that's extremely important, and that is democracy and intelligence. Bill Colby and I developed a list of the main traits of the current intelligence revolution. One was insight and control; a country has to know what intelligence is doing. Miro, you said about two years ago that you were going to expose what's going on in Croatian intelligence, and you wrote a long article about it. But there is no publicity in Croatia about what they are doing. All you hear about is that the President is fighting about whose is going to be the chief of intelligence, but you don't see anything about what in fact intelligence is. Why do we need it? Why do the businessmen need it? Why does the whole country need it, and why should books be published about it? I think Europe is much more conservative in publishing material about intelligence issues. England publishes quite a lot. I think that in the smaller countries like Croatia, they think everything should be kept secret, away from the public, but in a democracy you must publish and talk about it.

Tuđman:

Here everything is going in the opposite direction. This government is so democratic that they concluded it's better to eradicate the services; unfortunately, they are dealing with the Americans, and the Americans want to preserve cooperation. Because of that, the services still exist. I'm joking, but the real problem here is… Unfortunately my opinion about the current situation here is that we are not capable of discussing the role of intelligence and because of that, they don't want to even know intelligence can be used. You see this in the media, the President of the Republic said the same thing, and so did the government. So when you don't even know how or want to do that, control of the services is even less important. From that point of view, the situation is bad. But the issue of multilateral and bilateral cooperation is very important.

Dedijer:

I was at a meeting two weeks ago attended by six heads of Croatian firms: Pliva, Podravka, and so on, and I asked them: "Tell me, where do you get your information in the office? When you come to the office, what is the first thing you read? Who do you talk to? Do you have a system for doing that? Do your people supply you with information?" It was very interesting. How does an individual businessman acquire the necessary knowledge to make a profit? That is what intelligence is, information.

Kerr:

There is a fundamental difference between information and intelligence. I think that we often confuse the two. Information is all kinds of stuff; intelligence is putting it together in a relevant way to support national policy. I've had considerable experience with business intelligence, and I'm not impressed. I think they're amateurs at best, and are focused on a specific problem- their product relative to other people's products. If you can't figure that out, you are in deep trouble in business. It differs so dramatically from a problem of a country, let alone a country like the United States, that sees itself as having interests everywhere. Everything involves its business, so I don't think they're comparable kind of issues.

Dedijer:

A big cooperation has to know what's going on in the world.

Smith:

Not the same way the government does.

Dedijer:

They have to know exactly what's going on in the world. That's global intelligence. A big cooperation has to have intelligence about the competitors and customers. What do the customers want? Why did they decide to buy my product and not other products? They've got to have intelligence about their colleagues. Croatia is about 400 on the list of world economies, with 20 billion dollars. If you think of Croatia as a corporation, what do I have to know about the world? How am I going to use that information? How am I going to get this information cheaply and act upon it? That applies to everything, so I don't think there is a big difference between them; some are more effective than others.

Ćosić:

I would like to make some comments on the business intelligence conference, which took place here a few weeks ago. I was very disappointed that it was just a discussion about business intelligence, without clear definition, goals, and objectives. First of all, there were no relevant discussions. There were no intelligent questions asked regarding business intelligence. Each company somehow has to define its strategy. Everyone was saying strategy, strategy, but no one never explained how to devise a strategy. There was no discussion regarding business intelligence. There were no points of intersection with well-organized national security. The conference lacked clear vision and that's why there were no results. This year the number of participants compared with last year was two times less.

Smith:

How did we get into business intelligence from police intelligence and national intelligence? This is a very important question: merging police intelligence and national intelligence. It has to be done, but it is difficult. You are dealing with two organizations that probably don't like each other very much, have different types of sources and handle them differently, and finally have not had much experience exchanging intelligence with each other. We in the States have that problem with the FBI. I would like to think that we are both mature and experienced, but we still have the problem, and the FBI has that problem with the police forces.

Kerr:

One is fundamentally a police force without any analytic capability, whose purpose is to convict people and throw them in jail, and the other is an organization that takes information and makes it relevant to national security issues.

Ferš:

In this session we heard that the intelligence and police systems in the United States have not radically changed, if I've understood well. It's possible to change something with new people and new ideas, but this is not the new vision of intelligence. Do you think the system you have now in your country is capable of using new methods to confront the new challenges that emerged after September 11?

Kerr:

I don't think there's any question that it's not adequate. They have a long way to go to begin to even speak to each other on common terms. There are certainly things that can and will be done to improve that, there is going to be an improvement in the connections between those organizations and an improvement in the flow of information across the organization. But I think there are some very fundamental problems that are going to be hard to overcome. One is the American population's concern with a national police force and more intrusive law enforcement. Those are going to be major obstacles. Then, as Stevan mentioned, if you think there's bureaucracy in the intelligence community, you have not seen anything yet until you look at the bureaucracy in the domestic organization. There are 20 or 30 of them that probably need to talk to each other, each one in a different part of the department in the government, and there are major problems of connectivity. While things can be done to improve things, it is a major undertaking.

Ferš:

I am not talking about inside the United States, but about cooperation with other services in the world; for instance, cooperation on one side and partnership on the other side. There need to be changes in all the intelligence communities in the world.

Tuđman:

If I can raise a similar question. You just mentioned that intelligence is for collecting information for national security, and the police force task is to put people in jail, but when we are discussing a need for international cooperation, what happens when national security intelligence is collected in one country, appears in the police files in another, and is used as evidence to jail someone to limit or prohibit his activities? That means a source giving information is free to travel in this country but in another country is limited in his activities, which was certainly not the intention. We need to resolve this issue, because it also creates a major problem between police and intelligence services.

Lacoster:

It is not just a professional problem for police and intelligence services, or a question of internal and external security. This is about the real democratization of society, which includes judicial issues and the role of lawyers. You probably know that we captured the well- known international terrorist, Carlos. He is responsible for many actions in my country in which several people lost their lives. His trial took place a few years ago, and he is now in jail in Paris. Two months ago, I was summoned by a French judge because he had received a complaint from Carlos charging me, as well as several other French officials, with plotting to murder him. Isn't this an excessive use of "civil rights" ? The "mafiosis" do the same thing. The mafia bosses are experts in taking advantage of the subtleties of law and judicial procedures to escape conviction. Many terrorists do this as well. In the case of Islamic terrorism, we are confronted with another problem existing in modern societies: the "gray areas". Gray areas are areas which are lawless or outside the control of the law; for example, certain suburbs of major cities, and parts of poor, under-developed countries. The police is not allowed to enter. Other laws are in effect, the laws of the most violent, the laws of the drug dealers.

Wolf:

There is one issue I suppose we have to discuss. I'm not sure whether we can establish an international convention on legal rules for intelligence services, but perhaps we should do our best to prepare something like it.
I think in cases of terrorist actions prepared and executed within one country, the legal aspects should be in harmony with the national law in terms of criminal prosecution and punishment. The fight against internationally directed and externally planned operations must comply with international law. The use of international law in cases of terrorist acts is, I think, an issue that comes up often.
There are many other questions, and I will ask some of them just to be provocative. Do services have the right to kill or torture if they are able lay their hands on terrorists or suspected terrorists? There has been a lot of discussion about this subject recently. I get a lot of interview requests on this specific question: what should services be permitted to do under circumstances such as occurred last year?

Tuđman:

What kind of legal consequences will the government face if it shoots down civilian airplanes, for example?

Wolf:

We spoke a lot yesterday about the necessity for more human intelligence inside terror organizations, but if you have such an agent, what is he allowed to do? In the past there were examples of agents in organizations like the Red Army Faction. In one case, one of these agents participated in the organization of an explosion in a prison, and there are many other such examples. This is a very sensitive and difficult question.

Dedijer:

I would like to start. The issue of the legal basis for or constraints on intelligence is much broader than these two terrorist incidents. What happens when intelligence changes occur is that it has to be decided which earlier methods and activities can be legalized. I know, for example, that civilian airlines have been used for intelligence purposes. I think there should be an international convention forbidding this. The first one caught would have his head chopped off. I think we should be examining all intelligence activity today, including business intelligence and other forms from the legal point of view. What can be done internationally to advance cooperation and obtain information from all kinds of sources, but within legal boundaries? This will never be a gentlemen's game. That question I will leave to the lawyers. We agree that there are international laws forbidding certain acts, but I think we should look beyond this horrible act in New York; the discussion should be broader.

Kerr:

My first reaction is to argue that the United States would be reluctant to embark upon a set of rules that would limit the actions of the US intelligence community. I think that would begin a very slippery slope, a process which, at least from my perspective, would not only be dangerous but also difficult to enforce. The issue of torture is very interesting. I think torture dehumanizes the torturer. The implications of torture for those who are doing the torturing are significant. If I were responsible for the intelligence organizations, I would not allow it or condone its use by countries supporting us. I think you have to be very careful about the words used and their precise meaning. I think political assassination aimed at an individual is unacceptable. This action could set in motion a train of events and retaliation that you cannot control. Just from a US perspective, I think we're more vulnerable than the people we go after. On the other hand, I would differentiate political assassination from a preemptive attempt to stop a terrorist operation. I would have no compunction whatsoever about that. A preemption for self-protection is quite different than an attack on an individual.

Smith:

I would like to address the question of whether agents should be allowed to participate in terrorism. I start from the fact that a penetration agent in a terrorist organization is a very valuable agent, and is in the position to save lives and prevent great physical damage. It is very difficult to recruit a penetration of a terrorist organization. Because of their potential for saving lives and the difficultly in acquiring a penetration it is of great importance to preserve and extend their operational life. This often comes down to the issue of whether the agent should be allowed to participate in the terrorist act he has warned about, and in which his organization has directed him to participate. If he refuses to participate, he may be punished by the leadership of the terrorist organization [this might mean his death or that he is marginalized in the organization]. Neither outcome is good for the service running the agent because he will have lost his access and hence be unable to warn of future terrorist operations planned by his group. Therefore, it would seem necessary to occasionally permit an agent to participate in a terrorist act so that his ability to continue to report is preserved. The information he provides regarding the planned terrorist operation should allow the authorities to thwart the operation in a way that prevents loss of life but protects the source.

Kerr:

I'm not sure I agree with Doug. I wouldn't like to be the person who had to stand up before oversight committees and the press and explain why he allowed an agent to knowingly commit a major terrorist attack. Now it is a matter of scale. Can you belong to a terrorist organization? Can you participate at a certain level? But if they were actually involved in the killing of other people, innocent people, I find that indefensible, so I think Doug and I will probably have a little disagreement.

Dedijer:

I'll just point out that the two gentlemen who just spoke were speaking as representatives of the US intelligence community, but there are other entitities in the United States. For example, Book 5 of the Church Committee on Intelligence in 1977 speaks about assassination, and there are all kinds of arguments opposing this idea. This is the most interesting discussion we've had these past two days, on this legal question. Can the international community, not the United States but the international community starting with Europe, introduce an initiative to examine the legality of intelligence procedures and methods, and what should be legalized?

Boyadjiev:

While doing my homework, I tried to summarize the existing treaties, European and UN, which consider terrorism a crime. Maybe it would be helpful to cite some of the laws so we can see what is missing. I started on the basis that terrorism as a crime is connected to other crimes such as arms trafficking, drug dealing, racketeering, trafficking of human beings, smuggling, and money laundering. All those crimes exist, and all or part of them are committed during the preparation of a terrorist act. The legal framework of the European Union thus far consists of the Convention on the suppression of terrorism; Convention on mutual assistance in criminal matters; Convention on extradition; Convention of laundering, search, seizure and confiscation of the proceeds from crime; and Convention on the international validity of criminal judgments. The United Nations instrumentation consists of Convention for the suppression of financing of terrorism; Convention against the taking of hostages; Convention for the suppression of unlawful seizure of aircraft; Convention for the suppression of terrorist bombing; Measures to eliminate international terrorism. There are a lot of documents that provide a legal basis for fighting terrorism. I am referring to Europe and the UN, not to national laws. And two more things. I'll try to summarize the parts about sharing international experience on terrorist crime and criminal procedures against terrorism. Here we find procedures related to the collection of evidence and proofs of the existence of a terrorist organization; governmental decisions about terrorist activities; investigative tools; intelligence analysis; punishment standards; confiscation of property; specialized branches for investigation and justice. The final thing to summarize is how I envision a model law on antiterrorism, and what is needed to harmonize the relevant legislation. First of all we have to describe all forms of terrorism as criminal acts with penalties that must be enforced. We must have investigative tools for detection of explosives, chemicals, nuclear materials and so on; definition of modus operandi - kidnapping, bombing, threats and other forms of terrorism or methods used in a terrorist operation; the uncovering of logistical support - operational, financial and personnel; and regulations concerning people under immunity and international protection. How can we ensure that the diplomatic pouches of a certain country do not contain materials which will be used to assist a terrorist operation? And then there is introduction of evidence; examination of witnesses and victim protection; and international cooperation and exchange of information. I think we are still lacking some legal instruments, but we are on the right path to creating an acceptable legal basis for fighting terrorism.

Tuđman:

International and national security policy requires an understanding and definition of terrorism which reflect the principles and philosophy of international and national security policy. Everything is related. We have already agreed there are many definitions of terror and terrorism. Basically, it always involves illegal use of force or violence against people. It's easy to reach agreement that destruction, killing, and violence are unacceptable, and that human life holds the highest value. But how do we classify political activities and the legal or illegal use of force applied not to destroy lives, but to eradicate identity, values, and interests? For example: one of the basic legal principles of international political behavior is the use of pressure. We are continually faced with the one government using pressure against another government or country. There are so many different ways to apply pressure. From an ethical and philosophical point of view, how can we condone force used against national interests and values, forcing people to change their values? Let's agree, for example, that Talibans do not behave appropriately towards women. We can agree that that behavior is not acceptable, but from a moral point of view there is always a set of values which belongs to a certain cultural, political, and social identity. From a philosophical point of view, is it acceptable to destroy the cultural, political, or social identity of a nation or social entity? From that point of view, I believe we are talking nowadays about terrorism and terrorist operations only in a narrow sense. There are so many ways to use and abuse force. So I believe that it's possible to make a distinction between hard terror and soft terror. Hard terror accompanied by killing, violence, and destruction is not easy to accept, but it is easier to recognize and define. Soft terror is oriented to subverting national interests and values by using pressure, political force, or other means to change the identity of a nation or political group against its will. Intelligence activities, covert operations, disinformation, information warfare, etc., play an important role in soft terror. So I think we need to recognize and define all kind of terrorism in order to develop the basic principles on which international and national security policy can be organized.

Dedijer:

In 1980 I was invited to attend a conference in Turin by the Democracia pro Italija. They were holding lectures for members of Parliament in Italy, and I discovered most of the members of Democracija pro Italija were policemen. They invited me and a lot of interesting people from all over the world. People who were not free and who wanted to be free. Your father, Miro, was in prison because he wanted to make Croatia independent from Communism. At that conference I started talking to an Italian and told him that the Palestinians are a people without a country. They can't live in their own country. He asked me if I would like to meet the Palestinians. I said yes. So I flew to Tunis and met up with one of the leaders of the Palestinians at that time. He said that Arafat wanted to meet me. They wanted to know in what way I could help. I suggested we call a conference of people who are not free in the world. I made a list: the Irish, the Kurds, and a lot of others. I met Abu Jihad, one of those who organized the Munich attack on the Israelis. I contacted a member of the United States Social Sciences Council, who is a Mexican, and he said "what a wonderful idea, let's get together." So imagine if we had instead of us sitting here representatives of all the people who do not feel free. How would they view terrorism? Terrorism is a poor man's war, which is a definition that is very hard to swallow in the United States. I have always been pro-Irish and I am glad that they have discussed revolution. Let's look at things in broader terms than this incident in the United States. I think that if the Arabs had succeeded in organizing this conference, your father would have come to the conference, Miro; most Croatians would have come. I read this morning in the Herald Tribune that the prince is advocating free elections in Saudi Arabia.

Lacoster:

I believe there is a legal framework. For example, in most countries peace and wartime laws are different. The legal powers of various institutions in the United States are different. But I have said for many years that the traditional distinction between wartime and peacetime is becoming less and less relevant. The Gulf War was legitimized because Saddam Hussein was foolish enough to attack his neighbor, Kuwait, enabling the US to obtain a positive vote in the United Nations Security Council. After September 11, they did not receive formal approval to launch military operations in Afghanistan in order to kill or capture Bin Laden. It is not "war-time.
Let us consider the history of Israel since 1948. When it was created, the founders behaved like violent terrorists (i.e., in the bombing of the King David Hotel in Jerusalem). But since they were fighting to survive and not to be destroyed by the surrounding Arab countries which were threatening to wipe Israel off the map, their terrorism was "morally authorized" for self-protection and self-defense. Nowadays the situation is not the same. Tsahal is not in the same situation as before the "Six Day War" or the "Yom Kippur War". They are now engaged in a different kind of war, an asymetrical war waged against individual terrorists. Their huge military assets, tanks, highly sophisticated planes and attack helicopters, are being used against civilian objectives, to kill individuals, one man after another. Is this "war" , a confrontation between two armies fighting in true military tradition?
I remember how Israel's Prime Minister Golda Meir reacted after the terrorist action at the Olympic games in Munich. She ordered the Mossad to go throughout Europe to search and kill the terrorists. When Mossad agents made a mistake in Norway, killing an innocent citizen of Morocco, there was a scandal in the world press and the public was outraged. But she bravely assumed responsibility. Other Chiefs of State have not acted the same way in similar circumstances. Today, we need to endorse unilateral definitions for crimes and illegal actions within a new global framework, so that the United Nations can adopt international rules allowing governments and the international community to act against terrorism and international crime. However, the principle of self-defense would remain unchanged. It's in the United Nations Charter.