BodewinTheSilent
04-02-2005, 03:58 AM
By JOHN LEICESTER, Associated Press Writer
PARIS - Napoleon is said to have once remarked that having a spy in the right place is worth 20,000 troops on the battlefield. But the trick, even in these days of high-tech surveillance, is finding that secret agent.
Countries from Russia to France and China grapple with the issue — and some, like Israel, have scored high-profile successes. But experts say espionage is by nature an inexact science — and U.S. agencies are still tops despite this week's report finding them "dead wrong" on Iraqi weapons of mass destruction.
The CIA and others aren't the first to have fallen flat: Israeli intelligence did not foresee Egyptian and Syrian attacks in the weeks leading up to the 1973 Middle East war. And China regularly fails to correctly anticipate political developments in its own backyard in Taiwan and Hong Kong — such as the protest by hundreds of thousands of people last year pressing for faster democratic change in the former British colony.
Nor, experts say, is the United States the only country that knows "disturbingly little" about the threats posed by such nations as North Korea and Iran — another of the findings in Thursday's report by a presidential commission.
Iran, for instance, long managed to keep some of its nuclear facilities secret from the entire world, and North Korea is something of an intelligence black hole — except, perhaps, for neighbors China and Russia.
And, when it comes to bucks and high-tech bang, experts agree the CIA, the eavesdropping National Security Agency and other agencies are way ahead of their foreign counterparts — especially since the demise of the Soviet Union.
Russian agencies that succeeded the infamous KGB have been plagued by low morale and a shortage of funds. Russian intelligence officers have quit for private companies, and the number of spy satellites in orbit has plunged because Moscow can't afford replacements for Soviet-built craft.
"Even if they have problems today, American intelligence agencies certainly remain a formidable machine. Definitely one of the best in the world. Not many elsewhere in the world can compete — or even play on the same team," said Claude Moniquet, president of the European Strategic Intelligence and Security Center, a private think-tank in Brussels, Belgium.
But some say U.S. agencies' reliance on satellites, spy planes and other technology is also their Achilles heel. Cameras in orbit could, for example, have spotted Saddam Hussein's tanks and troops massing on the border with Kuwait in 1990. But a spy on the inside, even in Saddam's entourage, could have given advance confirmation that he was invading.
In spy lingo, such sources are known as HUMINT — human intelligence. It's an area some experts say the United States has neglected, but that others, like the Israelis, do well in.
Many Israeli operatives are fluent Arabic-speakers and well versed in the customs of the Middle East, allowing them to cultivate sources without having to overly depend on telephone intercepts and similar techniques, said Yossi Alpher, who used to work for Israel's Mossad foreign spy agency.
He and others say that approach has paid off since the outbreak of Israeli-Palestinian violence in 2000, with many would-be suicide bombers intercepted and Palestinian militant leaders arrested or killed.
The Mossad, the Shin Bet security agency and Israeli military intelligence also coordinate better than their U.S. counterparts, who often undercut each other, Israeli experts say.
"Clearly, they have problems that we don't have," Alpher said.
The gumshoe approach has also worked for Russia.
Before the Sept. 11, 2001, terror attacks, Russia already "had a fabulous understanding" of the al-Qaida terror network and the Taliban regime in Afghanistan, thanks to the network of sources and agents that it cultivated there during the Soviet occupation of that country in the 1980s, said Alex Standish, editor of Jane's Intelligence Digest.
But recruiting agents, and training linguists and analysts takes time and patience — especially when the punishment for those caught giving information to the other side can be prison or death. And information from defectors and political emigres is notoriously unreliable, experts say.
"Human intelligence has its errors and weaknesses, just like surveillance technologies," said Andrew Yang, head of the Council of Advanced Political Studies in Taiwan.
And while good intelligence can prevent politicians and others in power from getting caught off guard, there's always a potential surprise lurking around the corner.
"That is the whole paradox," said Chris Aaron, editor of Jane's Intelligence Review. "The whole idea is to eliminate surprises, but how do you do that when the very next surprise is something that you're not expecting?"
___
Associated Press Writers Peter Enav in Jerusalem, Vladimir Isachenkov in Moscow, Annie Huang in Taipei and Stephanie Hoo and Joe McDonald in Beijing contributed to this report.
http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&cid=518&ncid=732&e=10&u=/ap/20050402/ap_on_re_eu/spotlight_on_spies
PARIS - Napoleon is said to have once remarked that having a spy in the right place is worth 20,000 troops on the battlefield. But the trick, even in these days of high-tech surveillance, is finding that secret agent.
Countries from Russia to France and China grapple with the issue — and some, like Israel, have scored high-profile successes. But experts say espionage is by nature an inexact science — and U.S. agencies are still tops despite this week's report finding them "dead wrong" on Iraqi weapons of mass destruction.
The CIA and others aren't the first to have fallen flat: Israeli intelligence did not foresee Egyptian and Syrian attacks in the weeks leading up to the 1973 Middle East war. And China regularly fails to correctly anticipate political developments in its own backyard in Taiwan and Hong Kong — such as the protest by hundreds of thousands of people last year pressing for faster democratic change in the former British colony.
Nor, experts say, is the United States the only country that knows "disturbingly little" about the threats posed by such nations as North Korea and Iran — another of the findings in Thursday's report by a presidential commission.
Iran, for instance, long managed to keep some of its nuclear facilities secret from the entire world, and North Korea is something of an intelligence black hole — except, perhaps, for neighbors China and Russia.
And, when it comes to bucks and high-tech bang, experts agree the CIA, the eavesdropping National Security Agency and other agencies are way ahead of their foreign counterparts — especially since the demise of the Soviet Union.
Russian agencies that succeeded the infamous KGB have been plagued by low morale and a shortage of funds. Russian intelligence officers have quit for private companies, and the number of spy satellites in orbit has plunged because Moscow can't afford replacements for Soviet-built craft.
"Even if they have problems today, American intelligence agencies certainly remain a formidable machine. Definitely one of the best in the world. Not many elsewhere in the world can compete — or even play on the same team," said Claude Moniquet, president of the European Strategic Intelligence and Security Center, a private think-tank in Brussels, Belgium.
But some say U.S. agencies' reliance on satellites, spy planes and other technology is also their Achilles heel. Cameras in orbit could, for example, have spotted Saddam Hussein's tanks and troops massing on the border with Kuwait in 1990. But a spy on the inside, even in Saddam's entourage, could have given advance confirmation that he was invading.
In spy lingo, such sources are known as HUMINT — human intelligence. It's an area some experts say the United States has neglected, but that others, like the Israelis, do well in.
Many Israeli operatives are fluent Arabic-speakers and well versed in the customs of the Middle East, allowing them to cultivate sources without having to overly depend on telephone intercepts and similar techniques, said Yossi Alpher, who used to work for Israel's Mossad foreign spy agency.
He and others say that approach has paid off since the outbreak of Israeli-Palestinian violence in 2000, with many would-be suicide bombers intercepted and Palestinian militant leaders arrested or killed.
The Mossad, the Shin Bet security agency and Israeli military intelligence also coordinate better than their U.S. counterparts, who often undercut each other, Israeli experts say.
"Clearly, they have problems that we don't have," Alpher said.
The gumshoe approach has also worked for Russia.
Before the Sept. 11, 2001, terror attacks, Russia already "had a fabulous understanding" of the al-Qaida terror network and the Taliban regime in Afghanistan, thanks to the network of sources and agents that it cultivated there during the Soviet occupation of that country in the 1980s, said Alex Standish, editor of Jane's Intelligence Digest.
But recruiting agents, and training linguists and analysts takes time and patience — especially when the punishment for those caught giving information to the other side can be prison or death. And information from defectors and political emigres is notoriously unreliable, experts say.
"Human intelligence has its errors and weaknesses, just like surveillance technologies," said Andrew Yang, head of the Council of Advanced Political Studies in Taiwan.
And while good intelligence can prevent politicians and others in power from getting caught off guard, there's always a potential surprise lurking around the corner.
"That is the whole paradox," said Chris Aaron, editor of Jane's Intelligence Review. "The whole idea is to eliminate surprises, but how do you do that when the very next surprise is something that you're not expecting?"
___
Associated Press Writers Peter Enav in Jerusalem, Vladimir Isachenkov in Moscow, Annie Huang in Taipei and Stephanie Hoo and Joe McDonald in Beijing contributed to this report.
http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&cid=518&ncid=732&e=10&u=/ap/20050402/ap_on_re_eu/spotlight_on_spies