In 2010 the post-9/11 counter-terrorism apparatus in the US came under scrutiny from the Washington Post, when a team of journalists set out to calculate and locate all the institutions involved. The resulting report, Top Secret America, indicated that the apparatus included at least 1271 government units and 1931 private organisations, with around 845,000 people – 0.7% of the total population – working in the intelligence and security field. The Post‘s image of a world out of control – where government and business have merged to form a security-industry-complex – was palpable.

Today the Dutch security and intelligence service, the AIVD, issued its annual report for 2010. In some ways it was a tough year for the service. The Post‘s revelations did trigger a critical assessment of the apparatus in the Netherlands, in particular from Bob de Graaff, who severely questioned counter-terrorist working methods that effectively made every citizen suspect before proven otherwise and required the collection and storage of more and more personal details. Two cases exemplified the AIVD’s presence in Dutch public life in 2010. One was the dropped case against Telegraaf journalist Jolande van der Graaf and two AIVD officers for leaking classified information. The other was the disastrous arrest of twelve Somaliers on 24 December under the assumption that they were about to launch a rocket attack against Apache helicopters at Gilze-Rijen air base.

The Somali incident gets a paragraph in the report, on page 8, which states that the service had indications that the Al Shabaab network were planning an imminent attack, and took the threat seriously enough to issue a direct warning that led to the arrests. This is hardly a fair assessment of the facts. While initial media reports went along with the official account, it soon emerged that the AIVD based their assessment on only one unreliable source, another Somali, who was apparently blackmailing the others by spreading false information. The result was a series of strong-arm night-time raids (Operation Achilles) on 24 December by the DSI (Special Intervention Service), including coming through the ceiling (shades of the movie Brazil here, in more ways than one) of a cellphone shop in Rotterdam. Nine of the arrested twelve were soon released without charge, complete with sizeable financial compensation (how much was never disclosed). By 20 February the remaining three were also free. The picture that emerges from this is of a very jittery AIVD that is unable to separate circumstantial evidence and petty criminality from international terrorist subterfuge. 

Not good. Neither is the Telegraaf incident, which has been revived now that one of the accused, former AIVD’er Heleen ‘de Waal’ (known as ‘Heleen S.’ up till now), will publish her book Halve Lucht tomorrow about her 12 years of working in the service and her experience of 2010. One issue in its pages that has immediately been taken up by the press is ‘de Waal’s’ account of how the AIVD made a serious mistake in misjudging the threat to Theo van Gogh’s life in 2004. The AIVD officer responsible for the van Gogh dossier was inexperienced and unable to judge the situation correctly, even though there were enough facts available that pointed to an acute danger. ’De Waal’ is embittered enough to suggest in an interview with the NRC today that incriminating documents were planted in her home by the AIVD to undermine her credibility and strengthen the accusation that she was the source of the leaked material to the Telegraaf.

In January the Home Affairs Minister Piet Hein Donner presented the AIVD’s outlook for 2011 to parliament. The two principal interlocking concerns it focused on were the highly dynamic and unforeseeable internationalisation of (terrorist) threats and the rapid development of digital technologies and services by both friend and foe. The result was that “the AIVD must be innovative, it must strengthen its intelligence-gathering capabilities (both internationally and technologically), and it must develop its (international, technological) counter-strategies….Therefore I conclude that it is necessary for the service to strengthen its (technological and IT) capacity and effectiveness.” Things may occasionally get rough, but it looks like there will be one corner of government thats going to escape the public spending cuts.

Lawyer Inez Weski: The Davids Report II? 

Not much to say on the coalition talks.

After the end of the first round, the signals are that Job Cohen is trying to block a right-leaning cabinet by refusing to share power with the Christian Democrats, as a result forcing the VVD to either go for broke with Wilders and the PVV or take a centre-left coalition seriously. The CDA almost unconsciously seems to go along with this by insisting that their heavy defeat at the polls means they can’t take a leading role in any discussions. “Ons past bescheidenheid” – we need to be humble – is their new, attractive party slogan.

Cohen has also suggested that another attempt should be made to form a right-wing dream cabinet VVD-CDA-PVV. While this might be awfully decent of him in terms of democratic principle, one wonders if he’s not playing games with CDA and VVD supporters and their willingness to support such a move. Cohen is after all pretty good with some sharp moves – just take a look at this.

But with the regular media already searching for something new to say on the negotiations, there is little point in this blog doing the same. So lets switch topic and go back to one of the more interesting curiosity items of news in 2009, the Telegraaf-AIVD case [An Intelligence Affair, 31 January 2010, and subsequent reports]. The reason that the case has re-appeared on the media radar screen is that the court case against AIVD officer Heleen S. and her partner, for allegedly leaking an internal report and other information to Telegraaf reporter Jolande van der Graaf, begins in Haarlem next Monday. Van de Graaf, who made good capital out of being bugged and harrassed by the Dutch state last year, has since fallen totally from any position of respect thanks to her highly inappropriate move to gain an interview with the 9 year old survivor of the Tripoli plane crash last month. But the case has since moved way beyond the ethics (or not) of journalism.

In an interview with Vrij Nederland, S.’s lawyer Inez Weski has stated that she intends to call Jan Peter Balkenende as a witness for the defence. The reason is that she suspects the leaked information – which was critical of the AIVD’s role in assessing intelligence on the Iraqi threat in 2003 – came not from the AIVD itself but from the Ministry of General Affairs, the administrative apparatus behind the Minister President. Why? As the Davids report showed, Balkenende, via the Secretary General of the Ministry R.K. Visser, in late 2002 received two British intelligence reports which were not to be circulated elsewhere. The usual channel for this exchange of information would be via the AIVD itself to allow the Dutch service to assess the material. Both the AIVD and MIVD leadership were offended at being bypassed in this way. In the interview Weski referred to Balkenende running a “private secret service”.

The relevance of this is that the coming court case could take an interesting turn. The Telegraaf article exactly claimed that the AIVD had failed to correctly assess Iraqi possession of WMD. Weski is suggesting that the Ministry of General Affairs is the source of the article because it was exactly the Ministry that swallowed the faulty British intelligence whole, not the Dutch intelligence services. Weski: “That Telegraaf article therefore looks like it served as a lightning rod to attract attention away from the failure of the private secret service of Balkenende.”

This is no small matter. In an article on the Davids report back in April, intelligence expert Bob de Graaff pointed out that up till now the Ministry for General Affairs had largely been ignored in the whole Iraq story, with most attention going to Jaap de Hoop Scheffer and Foreign Affairs. The for-your-eyes-only documents were not the only ones that passed from London via Visser to Balkenende, and all these items – which were not disclosed to the Davids committee – were of crucial importance for setting out Dutch policy. De Graaff’s conclusion is that “a small club of civil servants without legal justification played intelligence analysts under the protection of the Minister President.” Not good.

The possibility now is that even if Balkenende doesn’t testify, the case will break open this aspect of the Iraq story a little more. Weski’s move could bring some late justice for the misused and abused intelligence services. But what looks certain is that Balkenende began his first premiership back in 2002 with the Iraq storm-clouds looming, and he’s going to end his last premiership with those same clouds still chasing him.

Cüneyt Ciftci and the German Taliban

Recently growing attention has been given to US citizens who have joined the jihad in Pakistan. But the phenomenon is not limited to Americans. The story of the men from The Hague who turned up as ‘tourists’ on the Kenya-Somalia border in July 2009 is well known. Now stories are emerging of Dutch involvement in military action against NATO forces in Afghanistan.

 The Telegraaf today includes an article on a 21-year-old Dutch-German citizen, Danny R., who has recently been killed in Pakistan. The paper is quoting Der Spiegel, which itself received the information from the German BVD. Danny had chosen the path of radical Islam in Berlin and together with a group from the city travelled to Pakistan last September. So far six known Germans have been killed in fighting in the region, and there has been a lot of attention given to the online exploits of (presumed killed) Eric Breininger / Abdulgaffar El Almani. As the Telegraaf notes, Westerners are ideal not just as reinforcements but as propaganda material for online video clips, proof that the holy war is supported by the very same nationalities as the enemy NATO forces themselves. As yet, no Dutch citizens have appeared, but it may only be a matter of time.

The Telegraaf quotes an AIVD source that there are around 15 known Dutch jihadis in the region. Alongside this and the Kenya-Somalia case, there have been two Dutch killed in fighting in Kashmir and the arrest of Wesam al-D by US forces for his involvement in IED operations. In total, several tens of Dutch citizens are involved in jihadi activities in various locations. The chosen route for going abroad appears to be via Morocco, and from their to Somalia, Yemen, Iraq, or Pakistan. Others go to attend a madrassa in Egypt.

The concern of the security services is often not just related to what these individuals do in Afghanistan-Pakistan. Following training, they can as Dutch citizens return to the Netherlands, ready to answer the call for further action. However, the AIVD source claims that these Dutch jihadis cannot easily return to the Netherlands because “they have been away too long and on return will be immediately arrested or put under permanent surveillance.”

This last comment is of course the most interesting, because it suggests an all-knowing intelligence and security service that has already identified the right suspects. It is above all a good confidence-building measure to show that the threat is completely covered and will be dealt with should that be necessary. The recent declarations that the AIVD needs to expand its operations abroad to track developments that may affect Dutch national security is not entirely at odds with this comment, but it does come close. For if the service is already so effective in tracking the main threats, it does raise a question why there is a need to expand its operations.

In this context it is interesting to read the AIVD’s report for 2009 next to the equivalent report from the Military Intelligence and Security Service, the MIVD. As well as support for Dutch military operations abroad, the MIVD also produces threat analyses and “investigates potential threats and the military forces from nations that could form a threat to the security of the Netherlands and the NATO area” (p. 11). In terms of the kind of war that is going on in South Asia, where the distinction between military and civilian forces ranged against NATO is not very clear, and the international range of these forces (from training camp to terrorist) is proven, it looks as if the MIVD already presents itself as the best prepared for tracking these developments. Whereas the AIVD report talks of cooperation with around 180 other services abroad, and close cooperation with around 30 of them, the MIVD report chronicles the activities of the service across all regions of the world, including Yemen and Somalia. In his recent critique of the AIVD’s intention to expand its presence abroad, Bob de Graaff commented that competition between services can be useful for keeping each “sharp” and “services don’t always have a monopoly in knowledge.” Of course, the resources of the AIVD outstrip the MIVD. But one does end up wondering where one service might end and the other might begin.

Villa Maarheeze, the former home of the Inlichtingen Dienst Buitenland (1946-94) [Photo from here]

The 2009 annual report of the Dutch Intelligence and Security Service has caused quite some reaction in the press [see 'AIVD: Go forth and discover', 21 April, below]. The general response was positive, mixed with cynicism from some quarters. Liaison with other intelligence services abroad is vital, says Edwin Bakker of Clingendael. But you can’t liaise unless you’ve got info to trade, said Beatrice de Graaf of Leiden University, so get the agents out there. But there are limits. Liaison is one thing, running secret operations something else entirely. But even the the CIA is moving in the same direction.

Meanwhile one area of the AIVD’s domestic activities has come under increasing scrutiny. Under pressure from parliamentary questions, the Ministry for Home Affairs sent a letter to parliament on 19 April outlining that the AIVD conducted 1078 taps (telephones, internet, and hidden microphones) in 2009. The military intelligence MIVD conducted only 53. Considering the previously released figures of tapping undertaken by the police, these figures seem low. And they also involve fewer people than the figures suggest, because some people are obviously using more than one number and being surveilled in more than one way.

All the more reason to send the intelligence boys overseas to find out whats going on abroad, since the Netherlands is relatively quiet these days. But its not so simple. Bob de Graaff, Prof. in Intelligence and National Security in Utrecht, has pointed out a major flaw. The AIVD is intelligence (foreign) and security (domestic) merged into one organisation. The two parts of the service operate according to different codes: domestic security according to the rules of the democratic state, foreign intelligence according to….well, according to whatever may be necessary, says de Graaff. The two don’t necessarily fit.

The AIVD was formed in 2002 with an emphasis on domestic security. The threat of islamic radicalism at the time seemed to justify this. The Inlichtingen Diesnt Buitenland, the forerunner for foreign intelligence, had been dissolved in 1994 and was hardly resuscitated in the AIVD structure. Until last month.

De Graaff is not happy with the AIVD’s new turn. The term ‘forward defense’ used by AIVD chief Gerard Bouman to describe the greater activity of the AIVD abroad suggests to de Graaff that no thought is being given to the difference in the codes  of behaviour for domestic and intelligence operations. They are just being collapsed into one, and its offensive, not defensive. Its also way too ambitious. 

De Graaff wonders why the AIVD comes with this shift in emphasis now, and speculates that it might well have to do with concerns over government cutbacks. I agree. Producing reports that say the AIVD has contributed to the neutralising of domestic threats also raises questions as to why the service, which has greatly expanded in personnel in recent years, should hang on to that position. Re-directing its attention to the great boundless abroad is a good solution, and all in the name of national security. The 9/11 Commission said that the world is a US domestic security issue. It looks like the AIVD is trying to play that game too. But as de Graaff concludes – this isn’t for the service to decide alone, its for the politicians. Yet in a time when The Hague seems to be going provincial, the AIVD is going global.