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.

The AIVD – via its forerunners the BNV (1945-46), CV (1946-49), BVD (1949-2002) and IDB/BID (1946-94) – celebrates its 65th birthday this year. The AIVD was formed to provide intelligence and security functions both domestically and internationally: investigating threats to the state, checking those who enter positions of responsibility, protecting business and state from espionage, gathering intelligence abroad, and producing risk analyses. Yesterday it issued its report for 2009. How does it see the world?

The director, Gerard Bouman, is largely optimistic. The service has expanded rapidly since 2002 in response to the perceived terrorist threat. Bouman emphasised in his presentation that radicalism within the Netherlands has declined, but the threat from abroad remains active. This is either from Dutch citizens going abroad to training camps, or other nationalities using the Netherlands as transit point or ‘sleeper’ location. Examples in 2009 were the four from The Hague who turned up on the Kenya-Somalia border as ‘tourists’, and the Christmas ‘underpants’ bomber on the Amsterdam-Detroit flight. Other notable incidents included the prevention of five American men, suspected of following a jihadi training course, from travelling from Somalia via the Netherlands to the US. Nevertheless, the report notes that “in 2009 the AIVD had no indication of a concrete threat to the Netherlands from outside” (p. 13). This opinion led to the National Coordinator for Counter-terrorism to lower its terrorist threat level from ‘substantial’ to ‘limited’ at the end of last year.

With the terrorist threat declining and local jihadi radicals at least ‘disengaging’ (if not de-radicalising), the AIVD has started to look elsewhere - right- and left-extremists, and animal rights activists – but it is difficult to produce a picture of these incoherent groups that poses a threat to the state beyond what the police can deal with. More important are developing threats from foreign organisations: the report refers explicitly to Chinese interest in the defence and technical industries, a Russian focus on ”Dutch individuals who (will) play a role in policy and decision-making processes that realte to Russian interests,” and Iranian intelligence operations against dissident groups. ‘Cyber security’ is a growing concern.

What does this add up to? The focus of the AIVD is shifting from domestic to international activities. There’s not much to do at home any more. There is now talk of ‘forward defence’ – the gathering of information and intelligence beyond outside Dutch borders to ensure awareness of developing threats before they reach north-western Europe. This also involved the service being called in to provide ‘quick-response’ analyses on foreign situations at the request of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. Since 2008 much of this activity has been focused on nuclear proliferation, with special attention on Iran, North Korea, Pakistan, and Syria.

The one development that has fuelled this more than anything is the Davids report on Iraq, mentioned briefly on page 53 but present in spirit throughout this report. The AIVD states boldly that both they and the MIVD were more cautious in their reporting on Iraqi WMD than “the then political leaders in the information they provided to the parliament.” Neither service possessed sufficient sources abroad themselves and this left them unable to counter the more alarming information being provided by the US and the UK. The message from Davids, taken up by the cabinet in February, was – get your own house in order and don’t be dependent on others for such vital information. Even if they are supposed to be your closest allies. This 2009 report emphasises cooperation – the AIVD has ‘relations’ with no less than 180 other services (p. 61) – but it also expresses a determination to answer that call. The added element to this, of course, is the wish to be more of a major player in the intelligence field, a nation to be taken seriously.

The AIVD cannot call on new funds for this global expansion – its current budget of 175 million Euro will more or less remain the same. But the service is looking – not surprisingly, given the ‘go global’ message – to expand its staff, and this will be interesting in a time of government cut-backs. Where are these extra foreign agents going to come from? Let us expect a “we can’t fulfil our mandate without extra funds” call in the not so distant future.