DOD
Attributable to: Senior Intelligence Officials
Subject: Intelligence Support to Operation JOINT ENDEAVOR
Thursday, January 18, 1996 - 8: 30 a.m.
Senior Intelligence Official #1: Good morning. First, I would like to say that I normally introduce my colleague, but today, we're anonymous defense officials or intelligence officials perhaps a better way to put it. I'm going to explain to you basically the intelligence system without much graphical representation. It's going to be a little difficult for you to follow but I'll go slow. I'll be glad to answer questions when we get to the question and answer period.
The intelligence system has been modified slightly, I guess, from what you might expect from the normal joint task force deployment because in this case, a U.S. Army unit, the 1st Armored Division, has taken on the role of the lead U.S. element in Bosnia. Inherent in each U.S. Army division, there are intelligence assets -- sensors and collectors and a management structure
-- internal to that division. The 5th Corps, which the 1st Armored Division is subordinate to, also has an intelligence structure and a military intelligence brigade of a substantial size, which has Army airborne intelligence assets, signals intelligence assets, and their counter-intelligence assets in it. And it also has a capability to process intelligence gathered in the tactical environment.
The 5th Corps' military intelligence brigade has in part been placed in direct support of the 1st Armored Division. So, the divisions intelligence capabilities augmented by the Corps intelligence capabilities are the substantial U.S. intelligence presence in Tuzla in support of the U.S. element of IFOR.
In addition, we have augmented the IFOR itself, and the Allied Rapid Reaction Corps headquarters in Sarajevo, by providing them with U.S. intelligence system connectivity and U.S. intelligence analysts and U.S. intelligence processing capabilities. The elements that we used to do this are referred to as National Intelligence Support Teams -- NIST.
National support -- National Intelligence Support Teams -- are composed of a Defense Intelligence Agency component, a National Security Agency component, and a Central Intelligence Agency component, which come together to form a team composed of analysts, communicators, and managers, who can go into an area, attach themselves to a unit directly -- and it could be U.S. or allied -- and provide direct intelligence support to them from the U.S. national level. My colleague will address national support in just a moment. But, the NIST -- the National Intelligence Support Team -- is the mechanism we use to translate support from the national-level down to the deployed force-level.
We also, of course, are participants of NATO, and as such, U.S. intelligence personnel have augmented the NATO intelligence structure throughout the area architecture of IFOR in Bosnia-Herzegovina, in Croatia, and elsewhere.
So, U.S. military intelligence and civilian intelligence agencies and support of military operations are acting together as a team to support not only a U.S. force deployment in Bosnia but also our allies and associates in the IFOR endeavor.
I'd like to say a few words about intelligence collection. Virtually, all of the intelligence sensor sources and methods that we have at our command have either been considered for, or deployed to the theater. In some cases, we have not deployed them because they don't apply to this operational environment or for other reasons they just weren't suitable for this mission.
In some cases, as you know -- and I'll specifically mention the Remotely Piloted Vehicles -- we have deployed UAVs, Unmanned Air Vehicles, or RPVs -- remotely powered vehicles -- during the air campaign previous to the IFOR deployment, and they were very successful. We withdrew them because of their limited numbers and because of the harsh environmental conditions during the Bosnian winter. We intend to reintroduce that system specifically into the theater at a later time. But, that's an example of a kind of a sensor asset that you may expect to be there that is not there now, but will be in the future when conditions allow it.
We have very sophisticated national centers at work air sensing the environment. We have very low-level kinds of sensors and sources at work in the tactical environment giving what I would call, "very close observed"- type information to the tactical elements that are acting in the IFOR mission environment -- such as physical observation, sensing of movement, sensing of thermal signatures, sensing of communications, and command and control activities by a variety of forces, and the sensing of ancillary activities by political authorities which have an affect upon tactical operations and military activities.
Last, but not least, I'll mention that the intelligence system is geared to provide support to the tactical fighter -- the soldier, sailor, airmen, and Marine -- who is deployed in harms way. We are exploiting a great many of the lessons we learned in the desert that we've learned in other deployments since that time.
I believe we have a great system in place today to support the individual American service member who is deployed and to support our allies. I'll be glad to answer any questions you have about disclosure of information to our allies. I'll be glad to answer any questions you have about the way in which the system works if you would like to get into that kind of detail. However, I'd like to defer all questions for me until my colleague makes his brief introductory comments. Thank you.
Senior Intelligence Official #2: I'd like to talk about the national agency intelligence support that's part of this team effort to the forces that ________ just talked about. First, let me say it's a team effort. Presidential Decision Directive 35 establishes the support to deployed military forces as the top U.S. priority for this country. The Director of Central Intelligence, John Deutch, has made it's clear that's his top priority and all of us in the national intelligence business are carrying that out.
The second thing, building on what my colleague said, the lessons learned from the previous operations, DESERT STORM, Somalia, Bosnia -- good things we did, the bad things we did -- are all being put together into what looks initially like the smoothest running most effective intelligence support that we've put out in an operation.
Let me tell you a few things about the overall plan. I'll give you some individual examples of what the national intelligence agencies are doing and then we can go from there. First thing that's notable is that technology is a real key to this effort. It's not only true in the execution -- some of those devices that the general mentioned -- but it's also true in the planning of it. Right now, once a week -- and a few weeks ago it was far much more often -- the senior intelligence leadership of this country got together by video teleconference to plan this Bosnia operation. On the net, were the commanders in Europe, who are actually there carrying it out, representatives of all the agencies here in Washington, and then, the senior intelligence officers from the Unified Commands, who are supporting it from as far away as Korea. At these VTCs, we hashed through the questions of what had to be put out there in Bosnia and solve the problems.
Let me give you an example of the kind of thing that this VTC is just so helpful in solving. A couple of weeks ago, there was an issue on foreign intelligence officers riding in U.S. reconnaissance aircraft -- the RC-135, the P-3 aircraft -- that are out there in theater. And it's always a delicate question as to bringing in coalition partners actually on board the airplanes. This kind of thing in the past would take weeks to resolve -- messages, phone calls. We had all the right people around the VTC and solved it in about three minutes and that kind of stuff is gold. It saves manpower time and allows you to do your job a lot faster.
Now, in intelligence these days, the old distinction between strategic intelligence up at the high-level, done by national policy makers, and tactical- level, down at the grubby low end, have all gone. National systems collect tactically important information. Tactical systems collect information that the people back in Washington need to know. And the key is getting all this information together and then par[cel]ing it out to the right person, no matter which source it came from.
A real key to that were these National Intelligence Support Teams that the general mentioned. Since there are representatives from the national agencies right there in-theater, they know exactly what the commander needs. They see him everyday. They get his requirements. They can reach back with their communications right into the experts here in Washington, pull out the information, and pass it directly.
Now, we have the intelligence process in which requirements come up and intelligence comes down again. But, because of the complexity of the places that information comes from and goes to these days, you need this flexibility of people who can sort of dance over the system, pull out the information, and get it back to the right person. And, these NIST teams are very important.
In addition, in these NIST teams, you get some of the country's experts on that region right there working for the general in the field. There's a young military analyst from CIA who about two or three weeks ago was sitting with ______ and me in the situation room briefing Tony Lake on the military situation in Bosnia. Right now, he's briefing General Nash on the military situation in Bosnia. One of this country's best military analysts doing both jobs within a couple of weeks of each other.
I'd also like to emphasize that these dozens of personnel, which national agencies have deployed forward into Bosnia, are all volunteers. Just like the military folks who are out there, they volunteered about 15th to the 20th of December of last year to go out to Bosnia, eat the MREs, sleep in the huts, and do the job that they thought was important. And there were about three times as many volunteers from the national agencies as there were slots to put them out there.
Let me tell you now about what some of the individual agencies are doing. First, the National Reconnaissance Organization: as you know, the NRO is the outfit that builds and operates this country's overhead surveillance systems. They're the experts in collecting and moving huge quantities of data around the world. They developed a tool called "Fact-Pack." One of the things that you always like to have when you're out there in an unfamiliar places is a picture of what's going on. And those of you who followed DESERT STORM knew that we were taking huge quantities of pictures around by helicopter out to ships in the Gulf around the desert. What "Fact-Pack" is is a hard disk that contains the latest imagery of the entire country of Bosnia. Matched with that is a software package that you can go in, take your mouse, make a little circle around an area of Bosnia that you want to have a picture of, hit a button, and out will come a tailored map of that area, taken from whatever viewpoint you want to have.
Now, this stuff is gold to a commander. When the Army forces deployed from Germany down into Tuzla, using the "Fact-Pack" technology, one of the intelligence outfits in-theater built "Trip Tiks" just like you would get on the "Triple A," and they reach up and they pull their things off the wall. These intelligence analysts can now mouse through their route going down to Tuzla and print out a strip map, give that to the company commander down to the platoon commander who's doing it and he's got a flip chart of what he's going through. This stuff is great. It's good for helicopter pilots. It's good for air pilots. It's great for people on the ground. And again, this is an NRO initiative, which has been put out in-theater and they're doing a bunch of the other high-tech things like that.
National Security Agency: also dozens of people forward in Bosnia. As I say, it's probably the most -- agency that is the most advanced in terms of developing both the technology and the concepts for getting all the data in one central database and then allowing the customer to pull out what he needs for his Area of Operations.
To an operational commander, again, this is gold. If you can pull out all the electronic signals within 10, 20, 100 miles of you, whatever you choose, then this really gives you an idea of the environment, and this is what our commanders can do in Bosnia, now.
You remember when Captain O'Grady was shot down, a threat warning information reached him about a minute late. I have to tell you that in historical terms the 12 or 13 minutes that it took to get him is pretty good. But, it wasn't good enough because the missile got there first.
Improvements have been made since this summer, so that kind of warning information will get there faster, and it would have gotten to a pilot in time. The same kind of support is available to the ground forces that we now have in-theater and it's tailored and it's good.
CIA and the Defense HUMINT Service: the Central Intelligence Agency's Directorate of Operations and the Defense HUMINT Service have deployed into Bosnia a unified integrated HUMINT service. Their job is to gather that all important information on the intent of all the people around the area where we have forces deployed. What are the leaders thinking? What are the plans of the group? What are they going to do? Again, if you're an operational commander, this stuff is gold to you.
There's an integrated office there in Tuzla so that the human intelligence requirements coming down to DHS and CIA case officers are the same, so that the assignments are coordinated and that when the reports come back in, they get to the commander quickly so that he knows them. And it's working well.
Let me give you an example. One of the things that we're really worried about in Bosnia is mines. And it happened to be a CIA case officer who was recently able to get a hold of the exact procedures that one of the warring parties had used to put in the minefields in that area. Now, as you know, the armies there have turned over to us information on minefields and specific maps, as they were suppose to do in accordance with the Dayton treaty, but it's always nice to have the other guy's manual to know how his people were instructed to lay the mines as you go into those fields and want to check them out for yourself. And, this is the kind of stuff that we're getting to human intelligence. That is just very valuable.
The general mentioned the coalition nature of IFOR. Early on, the entire Intelligence Community came together and put together for the Director of Central Intelligence to sign a concept of operations for coalition OPS, or "CONOPS." This is laid out -- and it's a big matrix -- across the top by the kinds of intelligence you have; down the side are the different countries, and the countries range -- everything from the UK, one of our closest partners that we share an awful lot of intelligence, through with new partners like Russia. It actually lays out the different kinds of intelligence, how it can be either sanitized or directly released.
Now, the idea here is that the -- if you go into the Russian brigade commander's tactical plot and you compare it right to the American brigade commander's plot whose up the road, it ought to be the same information. But, on the American brigade commander's plot, you'll have a lot more detail because the sources and methods will be -- we can share. On the Russian commander's plot, it will a lot more of "here's the fact without the source." But, they would be the same plot. And, a lot of work has been going on to make that happen and it's working. It's working pretty smoothly.
Another example of how communications are helping has to do with the sharing of imagery intelligence. When you're sitting down there with a picture that says, "Only for use with the U.S.," and you've got a coalition partner who needs the information, in the past, it would have been a long torturous process to get that thing released. We've reduced that now to -- just yesterday, that kind of a request was satisfied in an hour and a half. We'd like to make it faster, but, I can tell you, that's pretty damn good compared to what we've had in the past -- to be able to walk over to your colleague, without getting in trouble, and say, "Hey, you need to see this picture, it affects the forces in your theater."
So, those are the sorts of things that the national intelligence agencies are doing in support of the IFOR forces. Earlier reports are that its working very well. There are some of those initial glitches that have to be worked out that you always have. But, the feedback that we're getting here, so far, is that all the planning is paying off and that those, like the general, who are the veterans of the DESERT STORM intelligence outfit and many others, I'm thinking that this is probably the -- we probably learned the right lessons and are doing it right.
If we want to join me, here, we can take any questions that they may have.
Sir?
Q: Would you say the U.S. effort in this is the backbone of the intelligence operation? And how much are other countries contributing? And what was the decision on allowing other officers from other units to fly on the RC-135s?
A: The decision was "yes," some officers would be allowed to fly on U.S. reconnaissance aircraft. As far as the overall....
Senior Intelligence Official #1: We would say the answer is that the U.S. is certainly the major intelligence source for U.S. forces. Each nation has its own responsibility to provide intelligence support to its own forces within the coalition. It's a shared arrangement. Other countries are making a substantial contribution such as the British, the French, and others. And, I believe, the Russians will make a substantial contribution in their own sector of operations. I would probably characterize the U.S. as being the primary supporting agency for a good deal of IFOR to the degree that we can do so.
Q: What officers are allowed to fly? All officers? Will Russian officers fly on these RC-135s?
Senior Intelligence Official #2: [Inaudible] details, that's more done at a theater-level. But, the basic concept was worked out in the VTC.
Q: You said, "some." You mean, not "all?"
A: [Inaudible]
Q: Concerning tactical and national intelligence support to those people who are trying to resolve war crime issues or mass graves, that sort of thing, what is the intelligence support? How does that flow up to, for example, HUMINT, and then over to The Hague? Can that be used in any type of Tribunal?
A: The way that system works is that the Tribunal has asked the U.S. government for support on war crimes issues, and there are a number of sources. Some of them are intelligence sources -- pictures we take from satellites and so on. Others of them are, for instance, the debriefings that are done by State Department personnel in Bosnia. When a request comes in from the Tribunal, it's farmed out through the government to the intelligence agencies as well as to the State Department. The information they can bear on that question is collated. The State Department gives it back to the Tribunal.
You know, you don't convict somebody based on a satellite photograph. So, intelligence is, basically, an indicator, steering them in different directions ruling things out giving pointers. Then, the Tribunal itself gathers the data in terms of the judicial quality data that they use actually to make those indictments of the 40 some odd people that they have.
I do need to say though that if there's any smoking gun -- if we get intelligence that somebody in Bosnia has, in fact, committed a crime against humanity, I mean, clear, we've got him on intelligence -- that information is passed to the Tribunal. But, the majority of the stuff we do has to do with responding to Tribunal requests and steering them in the right direction -- and they do the final gathering of the evidence that they need for their purposes.
Q: Another point. Can you describe a little bit more the, I guess, the CIA and DHS teams that are out there -- how many are there? How many personnel? Are they doing pathfinder work? Or what kind of human collection are they doing?
A: I don't think I'm going to get into specifics of how many and where and what they're doing. But, basically, their job, their number one priority, is force protection. Find out if there's anything that the people in the area are going to do against -- that poses a danger to U.S. forces. And, second, their job is to support the mission of the forces in gathering intelligence on the things that the IFOR is doing. They're requirement is to go out -- the case officers go out -- gather the information and pass it back. And I just -- it's irresponsible to really talk in much more detail than that.
Q: You're giving us an impression of unprecedented use of intelligence forces in a small area. Can you compare what -- how on the ground after DESERT STORM intelligence -- do you have more intelligence effort on the ground per fighting units than ever before? Or is it the jointness that you have? Or is it the quickness that you have? What is new here?
A: I think it's a combination of all the characteristics that you mentioned except for size relative to the size of the force. We don't have a lot of intelligence gathering capabilities at work here that we did have in the desert because we have a much different situation. This is not war. This is peace and peace enforcement. This is not large maneuver forces in active conflict. These are formerly warring forces who are now engaged in separating themselves along the lines of the zones of separation and maintaining that status, hopefully, throughout the IFOR deployment.
If that condition changes, we'll have to adjust the intelligence gathering system to meet the demand. We don't expect that. So, to try to compare this to DESERT STORM, we are faster, in my view. We are better. We do have some technology at work here that we did not have at work in DESERT STORM. It would probably not be very applicable to a DESERT STORM environment, frankly. It is somewhat unique to this environment. But, the fact is that the two are vastly different circumstances and the comparison is both misleading and probably inappropriate.
Q: General Joulwan said that he wanted to give real-time intelligence, to the Russians in particular. Has that happened? And, if not, how close is he to that goal?
A: We're in the process of making it happen through intelligence connectivity and a cell of U.S. persons who will be stationed with the Russians to afford that kind of connectivity and a direct link from this small cell of U.S. persons to the Russian command headquarters.
Q: When do you think that will happen?
A: I would say in a few days. It depends on the Russian deployment structure itself and when they are actually in the field in a status that they can receive this kind of information.
Q: And what kind of information will they receive in real time and what will they not receive?
A: I can read you the concept of operations which Director Deutch signed? They are going to receive textual messages -- text over a digital data system -- that will give intelligence updates and intelligence data on real time situations that are unfolding or evolving. They will get some imagery- derived products. And the images will actually be sent by this automation mechanism, or by a direct transfer of imagery, in some cases, which will be more practical than sending via automation. And, last but not least, they will receive analytic products, that apply to the area of operation at their end, giving our expectations of the future.
Q: I have a question. The Predator is supposed to be back in Bosnia on March 1st, as I understand it. Will they be given that, as a good deal of flexibility? Will the Russians be able to tap into that kind of real time imagery, which would seem to be very useful and very timely.
A: Yes, they will receive the benefits of UAV imagery and UAV surveillance data. The date that the Predator will be introduced in the theater again is not necessarily March 1st. That is a planning date merely. Nothing else.
Q: Two questions. What lessons from experience, both good and bad, over the last five years, do you find most applicable to this particular theater?
A: I think the two I would point to, in the interest of time -- although, I can talk about this for a long time -- would be the dissemination of imagery and more broadly, the dissemination of intelligence information to the lowest possible level as rapidly as possible. And that's been facilitated by the event of network automation system, referred to as JDISS, the Joint Distributive Intelligence Support System. The acronym we use JDISS. And it is merely an automation system with a very high volume capacity to transfer any kind of digitized information to include maps, graphics, imagery, text, and a full motion video in many cases, over a network system referred to as JWICS, the Joint Worldwide Intelligence Communication System, which has been extended into the theater and deployed with the U.S. force in Tuzla and with the Allied Rapid Reaction Corps/IFOR headquarters elements in Sarajevo. There are also extensions of this network among the NATO forces, using a system method that NATO using a system called LOCE -- L-O-C-E -- which stands for Localized Operational Capability-Europe. The acronym doesn't really mean much in this case. Anyway, this network automation system, which is extended not only to the U.S. deployed force, but into the NATO force, is a key change and there has not been anything like that before.
Senior Intelligence Official #2: One cultural thing which I think is the way the national agencies are leaning forward in this case. I saw a message from one of these CIA teams about ten days ago after they had provided a, or satisfied an intelligence requirement from General Nash that said, "You call, We haul." And you know, for the CIA to be in that sort of a support frame of mind, I think, is a change from the past, which is pretty good.
Senior Intelligence Official #1: In fact, I need to give you my second issue, which is precisely this. The concept of support to military operations by all appropriate elements of the U.S. government. That's a key cultural change exactly what the admiral is referring to here. And the point is, yesterday afternoon, the Community in quote, came together in virtual form, just as the admiral has described earlier -- I was part of the discussion -- on very detailed analytic issues. There were a number of agencies represented down to the theater-level and using interactive television. This is unprecedented and is a true cultural, progressive change for the better.
Q: Follow up please, if I can. You're doing an unusual amount of liaison here with foreign forces and foreign intelligence services. A liaison can be penetration. You mentioned a counter-intelligence aspect of this. Can you talk a little about that, if you can?
A: The counter-intelligence elements that I mentioned, are part of the deployed force, and their primary mission is force protection. They engage in the sensing and surveilling the local areas around the deployed force in order to ensure they have a direct observation and human intelligence-derived knowledge about activities in the zone of operation.
What you were referring to is the counter-intelligence threat posed by our association with allies and other foreign elements in this environment. We are aware of this threat and taking appropriate action about it.
Q: Could you go back to when you were talking about NSA before. Have they actually developed some capability that would make you think that something like O'Grady would be more difficult to happen again or, in fact, could not happen again? Have the timelines -- I was unclear what has developed to shorten those timelines.
Senior Intelligence Official #2: The communications connectivity between those who receive and process the information and those who are in harms way that they need to get it have been made faster and clearer. As you recall General Shalikashvili played that tape -- those of you who listened to it heard that it was sort of a garbled satellite circuit. It was really hard to pick out the warning information. Those circuits have been changed out and replaced, tested, so that the information gets there faster and they've been practiced more. So, we're talking about shaving seconds and minutes off of a short timeline. But, that's the time-of-flight of a missile and, so, we're working on a very tough area. And those improvements are being made.
Q: Can I just follow up with two real quick questions. Is that just in Bosnia or is that the kind of capability that you've got...?
Senior Intelligence Official #1: Everybody is dying for that information. We'll put it where -- I mean, it's not going to die because of that information. And we'll put it where we need it.
Q: Just one very quick question. Was "Fact-Pack" developed specifically for Bosnia or was NRO doing that anyhow?
A: The NRO passed that around to -- an ongoing program. It will be used in other places as well as Bosnia.
Q: Human intelligence that's been described as kind of a chronic weakness for the United States, but I get the impression that you're saying it's much better now. What's changed and how good does it compare to previous recent operations?
A: I mean, chronic weakness compared to what? I don't -- it's hard to judge in this stuff. I'd say that human intelligence is the toughest to predict and a lot of it has -- it's just hard to -- signals intelligence you can sort of quantify and put numbers on it; it's done with machines. Human intelligence is done with the skill of individual people. A lot of resources are being put into it. It's providing some individual nuggets of information which are good. The commanders out there are satisfied with it and I think the level of effort is pretty high.
Senior Intelligence Official #2: I'll just add onto that two issues. That first, this is a unique, as is frequently the case, a unique cultural environment, much different from previous environments that we've worked in. I think it's premature to judge the success of our human intelligence endeavors. We're trying to do a better job than we've done in the past. But the key is, I do believe, we have made progress in working together.
Somalia was probably the precursor to what we're doing in Bosnia. In terms of interaction between Defense, Central Intelligence, and perhaps other agencies involved in gathering human intelligence and intelligence derived from human interaction.
Q: Can you tell us, in connection with the war crimes, exactly what is going on at the Ljubija mines that the New York Times wrote about last week?
Senior Intelligence Official #1: No, I don't think I want to talk about the exact information that's gone on there. The Tribunal has asked us questions. I mean, that area, in the Spring of `92, is known to have been an area in which a lot of ethnic cleansing has occurred. The Tribunal is focusing on it now, especially with the fact that there can be access there very soon and the U.S. Government has been asked to work that problem with them and we're doing it.
Q: Are you watching vehicles being brought there, possibly, with corpses? I mean, is there something going on....
A: I'm just not going to talk in detail about it.
Q: Secondly, another issue for Tribunal. Are you actually sharing intercepts, with the Tribunal, of conversations between let's say the Yugoslav general staff and the Bosnian Serbs military leaders like Mladic?
A: We're looking at all the intelligence that we have on the area and then we make a decision about sources and methods as to how we can sanitize that information and share it. And, clearly, signals intelligence is one in which that decision is the toughest and we're working those problems. I'm not going to tell you whether we've done it yet or not.
Q: Can you say what all of this is costing, number one? And number two, can you say, where on the spectrum of tasks that you have assigned first,as force protection, I think that's what you identified? And second, is to look on the surrounding neighborhood. Where in that spectrum of tasks -- I don't know how many there are, the total that you have given to the intelligence components there -- is the analysis or search for evidence of crimes against humanity?
A: The tactical force is not working on that as a specified issue. If information comes to them incidental to the IFOR mission, which that is not specifically a part of, then they will process that information and deliver it to the appropriate parties. It is not a specified task or function at this time. I think the answer to the question of the nature of that information, the circumstances involved there, is going to evolve over time and things will probably change as IFOR's presence pervades the countryside, sites become accessible, and the circumstances become clearer.
So, the information that I'm giving you now about our procedures and intelligence focus with regard to this matter may change over time. It's possible depending upon circumstances.
Senior Intelligence Official #2: Within the national -- overall national priorities that the national intelligence agencies are working, as I said that immediate threat to U.S. forces is number one. Support to the IFOR mission, which is carrying out the Dayton Accord, is number two. And I would say international crimes against humanity is in the third tier right there.
Q: A few days ago, Ken Bacon told us that there were 15 or 20 mass grave sites. Can you be more specific since we're on background here and tell us where they are?
Senior Intelligence Official #1: No, I'm not going to be specific about that.
Q: Can you give us some examples of how the intelligence assets are being used to A) monitor compliance with the Dayton Agreement? And B), counter any terrorist threat against U.S. forces? And to what extent they might be used to locate indicted war criminals?
A: The first issue is with regard to the terrorist threat or any threat, that's our first priority against specifically U.S. and then IFOR forces.
Q: But, how can you do that?
A: I can't explain that to you. It's a matter of sensor sources methods. I can give you an example. That if a terrorist individual were discovered in a planning phase of an operation and we were able to gather information about the plan, we would alert the force to the plan and we'd try to interdict the operation if we believed it was underway, obviously. I mean, beyond that, I'd have to engage in detailed explanation to you of exactly how we engage in intelligence gathering and intelligence activities. It would divulge sensor sources methods and that's something we are loath to do.
Q: Can you talk about that in a sense of what kind of assets are used to monitor compliance in the agreement?
A: No, sir. If we do that, we give away the sensor sources method. We disclose it to the public and compromise it. We can't do that.
Q: Can you talk about the issue of --
Unknown Speaker: We have time for one more. These gentlemen have to get back to getting intelligence....
Senior Intelligence Official #1: I think we have one more answer to give besides this last question, because I know that a question was asked about the cost and we owe that answer to him. And the answer is, standing here before you today, I do not know. [Laughter] The total cost for intelligence gathering and intelligence-related activities. At some time in the future, I think we will know that. It's in the millions of dollars, of course, and perhaps, the many millions. Yes. I don't know the exact figure. But, I think we ought to say that its a cost which we anticipate in these kinds of deployments, it's a cost directly related to the operational requirement to protect Americans and our allies and to engage in the processes that we engage in d whatever our mission is, and we have to bear this particular cost. It's a requirement.
Unknown Speaker: Sir, in the very back.
Q: Real quickly, in addition to what you've already mentioned, are there any other technological advances, let's say, from the Gulf War, that are being leveraged in Bosnia that are helping the mission? Either specific systems or....
A: Yes, I would say that the JSTARs system was used in the Gulf War, of course, to great effect in a different environment. It is now been introduced in the Bosnia theater and is being used in a different environment to some significant effect. Its ability -- give you one example. Its ability to sense a large object on the surface of the earth and to verify, over time, whether that object has moved or not or is moving is of critical importance to us in monitoring the movement of heavy weapons out of the zones of separation and it has a compliance -- contributes to compliance monitoring in that way.
I'll give you another example and that would be the long range surveillance capabilities of electro-optic systems which allow us to see both in the day and at night, an electro-optic forum over longer distances against the ambient background and to be able to sense heat and other signature forms and change in terms of movement or activity. And that's been technologically possible for some time. It was first used to great extent in the desert war. It has been refined since and is on the ground in Bosnia and works well.
Q: Is this the kind of imagery that was used to --
A: Electro-optic imagery is not really imagery. It is actually a video form.
Q: Well, I mean, is this the pictures that we eventually saw released in the Mogadishu firefight? Is that the kind of thing we're talking about?
A: Yes. Some of those were electro-optic guns.
Q: Given the differences in language here, are the Russians for instance getting their text messages in Cyrillic?
A: They're getting them in English and they'll have to decipher them into Cyrillic alphabet if they want to. Many of the people in these kind of international deployments, by the way, use English as the lingua franca for their operations, particularly, in information passage.
Q: Are the Russians seeing overhead imagery, national system imagery?
A: Well, they -- we can display it to them, not provide it to them, but display it to them and discuss with them, in a given situation when it affects their security or our operational interest.
Q: Are they having input from their own imagery?
A: Yes.
Press: Thank you very much.
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