Title: Romanian Government To Revamp Intelligence Services Structures Document Number: FBIS-EEU-2001-1116 Document Date: 16 Nov 2001 Sourceline: EUP20011116000143 Bucharest Ziua in Romanian 16 Nov 01 p 3 Language: Romanian Subslug: Report by Radu Tudor: "The Country's Supreme Defense Council Has Given the Green Light for a Historic Initiative -- Nastase To Control the Intelligence Services" [FBIS Translated Text] In the Form of an Inter-Ministry Cooperation Protocol, the Managers of the Intelligence Structures Will Be Periodically Summoned to Victoria Palace [headquarters of the Romanian Government], for the First Time What was once just a rumor in the corridors of the intelligence services has become reality. Prime Minister Adrian Nastase, through a remarkable political coup, has succeeded in a very important project -- the prime minister can now control the intelligence services. According to post-December 1989 tradition, the prime minister was merely a consumer of notes, analyses, and reports from the intelligence services. The SRI [Romanian Intelligence Service], SIE [Foreign Intelligence Service], and SPP [Guard and Protection Service] have been controlled by Cotroceni Palace [headquarters of the Romanian presidency] for the last 11 years. Other intelligence services -- the MI (UM [Military Unit] 0962) and the army's DGIA [Army Intelligence General Directorate] -- reported to the prime minister, because they are part of the functioning scheme of ministries (the MI [Interior Ministry] and the MApN [Ministry of National Defense]). Government Control After 11 Years Without considering this master move as a new phase in a virtual competition with the president [Ion Iliescu], we must note the absolute novelty in establishing Victoria Palace control over the intelligence services. This is a first for the post-December 1989 period. For these past 11 years the prime minister's office has had overwhelming economic and political control. Now this power gets what it lacked: intelligence power. In a meeting yesterday, the Country's Supreme Defense Council [CSAT] approved the inter-ministry cooperation protocol for managing crisis situations by creating the necessary functional framework to achieve intelligence exchanges and joint conduct of missions and tasks incumbent in institutions that have a role in crisis management. This elegant phrasing means Victoria Palace will control the intelligence services whenever there is a crisis to manage, be it political, economic, or social. There will be opportunities for the prime minister to summon the managers of the intelligence services to Victoria Palace, and to coordinate them according to his own administrative vision and political interests. Of course, all will be strictly coordinated with the Presidential Administration...So Iliescu will no longer blame the press for fueling an inexistent conflict of interest between himself and Nastase. End of the MApN-STS [Special Telecommunication Service] Battle The CSAT has also decided another issue that has generated scandal, as MApN management had accused the STS of trying to gain control over Romania's strategic communications. The CSAT approved rules for the organization and functioning of an inter-departmental commission to coordinate information technology and communications. The proposal was presented by Tudor Tanase, STS director. It says the chairman of the inter-departmental commission is the CSAT secretary, an idea some MApN representatives had fought very hard for. Another important decision was to give the commission the power to regulate, license, and control cryptography, subordinated to the government. This new institution is exceedingly important given its strategic implications. The CSAT has also approved the organizational structures of the SRI and the SIE along the lines proposed by the directors of those institutions, Radu Timofte and Gheorghe Fulga, respectively. Both services will focus more on anti-terrorism, and the SRI will expand its activity to economic counterespionage. Timofte Described the New Structure and Powers of the Institution He Is in Charge of -- SRI's Divisions Will Be Replaced With Departments -- SRI's Organization Scheme Is a State Secret At a press briefing held yesterday at SRI headquarters, Timofte described the new SRI structure and powers approved by the CSAT. According to him, the approved reorganization seeks to meet the following objectives: assume the challenges of information warfare, namely identifying and managing threats that are specific to information technology; reconsider and redefine the analytical component of SRI intelligence activities for national security, including the institutionalization of analytically identifying and assessing local and zonal security risks; and resize the main SRI components and regroup them into functional blocs defined by the activity and the logic of the generated information flow. The Organization Scheme -- The Public version These are the main functional, or department, blocs of the SRI (we must mention that the director used the generic names of the structures, that is, the ones open to the press, not those approved in the organization scheme, which is a state secret): 1. Department for issues of counterespionage and trans-border threats. 2. The inspectorate in charge of preventing and combating terrorism is a structure that will have the powers of a national anti-terrorist authority, according to a previous CSAT decision. It will ensure the development [fundamentarea] and implementation of national programs and international cooperation in this field, generated by the recent evolution of terrorist activity at the global level. The anti-terrorist inspectorate includes a directorate in charge of identifying and assessing terrorist threats and an anti-terrorist protection and intervention brigade. It benefits from the logistic support of an air transport and airborne troop group. 3. The office in charge of supervising state secrets and the directorate in charge of shipping state-secret mail. 4. The department in charge of technical support and intelligence activity identifies illegal radio-electronic transmissions (radio counterespionage), communication, and information technology. This department includes testing labs and other technical sources, as well as the production of technical means to obtain security information for protected objects. The departments of the functional structures include the secretariat, legal office, human resources, personnel training and career counseling, database records, management of physical-financial resources and assets, health-social insurance, and internal security. The directorate of integration and foreign relations will have a special group for links with non-governmental organizations, The President's Security Adviser Is Happy -- Ioan Talpes Says Intelligence Services Are Conforming to Normality Talpes, national security adviser to the president, said the CSAT approved at its meeting yesterday 2001-2004 SIE's and SRI's strategies, which seek to redistribute their staff according to the new challenges faced following the 11 September attacks in the United States. Talpes emphasized that the new strategies mainly deal with fighting terrorism and relations with foreign intelligence services. He noted that intelligence services all over the world have been mostly concerned with creating the means to prevent and retaliate against terrorism following 11 September. The national security adviser said Romania had to change the organization scheme of its intelligence services, to be able to act as a de facto NATO ally, a phrase used immediately after the terrorist attacks in the United States. Talpes said he insisted on higher budget appropriations for national security and defense in the state budget for 2002, and most of that was an increased budget for special services. He expressed his hope that the intelligence services will get the money they need for restructuring when the budget is amended next year. Talpes said there are some "reservations" about restructuring in the intelligence services, because departments that used to be "interesting" could lose some of their importance. The presidential adviser said the measures taken by the CSAT at Thursday's [15 November] meeting were taken for "[the intelligence services] to conform to normality." "No state that respects itself can fail to take measures to prevent threats," Talpes said. He said that for now the existing global threats are concentrated in the United States, but "nobody in Europe excludes the possibility that Europe, too, will become a field for such actions." "This is about responsibility and assuring a certain credibility," Talpes added. [Description of Source: Bucharest Ziua in Romanian -- popular, privately owned daily; generally critical of the political establishment across the board]