D EVALUACIÓN ECONÓMICA

in the early 21

Century

‘We are now in the midst of a… revolution [in information technology and connectivity] in military communications. Proprietary solutions, where each nation develops its own radios and waveforms at the cost of wider interoperability, are becoming a thing of the past. Instead

we are seeing international standardisation… and interoperability emerge as the watchwords.’

- Bruno Rambaud, Senior Vice-President and Managing Director of Thales.1

[1.0]: Introduction

‘American help is vital,’ The Economist succinctly noted in an article on UK intelligence during March 2005.2 _{This chapter expands on the introductory passage} provided in Chapter 1 [10.0] by further exploring UK-US intelligence liaison in the early twenty-first century. Notably this chapter examines the extent to which interoperability is enhanced and underpinned by structural factors. Accordingly, we need to analyse: (i) who is involved in UK-US intelligence liaison – for example, which agencies and which roles; (ii) what type of liaison takes place; (iii) when does it take place; (iv) where that liaison is ‘located’; as well as (v) how it is conducted. This chapter, together with this study as a whole, also seeks to contribute towards comprehensively addressing the observation of Dan Plesch that ‘despite efforts the [UK-US intelligence] relationship has not yet received the attention it deserves in Britain.’3 _{Whether the nature of UK-US intelligence liaison is structurally ‘ever closer’} in the early twenty-first century is then evaluated towards the end of this chapter. A plethora of conduits exist. When disaggregated, structurally UK-US intelligence liaison consists of a matrix or a series of different simple to complex linkages. These are found in each of the specific areas liaised over - such as HUMINT, SIGINT, and so forth.4 _{These are relatively self-contained channels, although they are interrelated} and naturally there is sometimes overlap. In terms of UK-US relations, over time each of these links, together with their multiple ties within them, varies to different degrees of ‘specialness’.

Distinct trends emerge. The greatest UK-US intelligence interactions (in terms of their freedom and extent) occur in the overt intelligence realm, through outreach activities. While, in the covert intelligence realm - roughly descending from the broadest (‘need to share/pool’) to narrowest (‘need to know’) domains of exchange/sharing/access - the interactions concern: open source intelligence (OSINT), signals intelligence (SIGINT), military intelligence (MILINT or MI) - including measurement and signature intelligence (MASINT) and imagery intelligence (IMINT), etc. - and finally human intelligence (HUMINT). Extending beyond merely these expanding, and often increasingly technically automated, channels, are more collaborative interactions. These are structurally orientated around exponentially proliferating specific tasks/cases that have an increasingly central intelligence component, such as in the domains of law enforcement and military operations. Moreover, in parallel there exist interactions involving all-source and intelligence assessment/analysis material, which includes a degree of input from all the above ‘INTs’.

Variously over time, each of these links and their associated ties also contribute towards collectively helping to sustain the overall UK-US intelligence relationship. For example, from the UK side, this is mainly on qualitative (quality of intelligence exchanged), rather than so much on quantitative (volume of intelligence exchanged), bases. Again, for the UK at least, maintaining a close UK-US intelligence relationship has moved beyond being merely a central component of overall UK foreign policy towards being more of a condition of ‘an ingrained habit.’5 _{Providing some insights} into international intelligence liaison generally, and more specifically UK-US intelligence interactions focussed on counter-terrorism, the UK Intelligence and Security Committee (ISC) Renditions report clearly highlighted how necessary the US help was to the UK:

We have been told by all three Agency Heads that their intelligence-sharing relationships with foreign liaison services are vital to counter the threat from international terrorism. The U.S. link is the most important, not least because of the resources the U.S. agencies command. The Chief of SIS [Sir John Scarlett] told the Committee:

The global resources of CIA, FBI and NSA [National Security Agency] are vast… The UK Agencies’ long-developed relationships with U.S. intelligence agencies give them vital access to U.S. intelligence and resources. It is neither practical, desirable, nor is it in the national interest, for UK Agencies to carry out [counter- terrorism] work independently of the U.S. effort.

The Director of the Government Communications Headquarters (GCHQ) [Sir David Pepper] reiterated the value of the relationship to the UK, saying

“Overall the benefit to the UK from this arrangement is enormous”, and the Director General of the Security Service [Dame Eliza Manningham-Buller (in post until her retirement in April 2007)] said “It is unimaginable that we could [cease sharing intelligence with the U.S.] because of the degree of importance of SIGINT and HUMINT and the intelligence they give us”.

The Director General of the Security Service made a further important point about the UK/U.S. relationship – that the two countries are inextricably linked: “As [the summer 2006 UK/U.S. airliner plot] showed, their security is absolutely bound up with ours.”6

Similarities emerge as important facilitators. As former UK intelligence practitioner Michael Herman notes, the most ‘effective contact is specialist-to-specialist; like talks with like.’7 _{However, this is more easily stated than mapped. To provide at least an} initial insight, each of these expanding clusters of specialist/expert intelligence ties will now be briefly explored in succession. Starting with SIGINT liaison, this chapter will then go on to examine: HUMINT liaison, MILINT or MI, MASINT and IMINT liaison, OSINT liaison, UK-US law enforcement intelligence liaison, and UK-US intelligence assessment/analysis and ‘shared/common perceptions’ liaison. Some further insights into how UK-US and international (or foreign) intelligence liaison is managed and co-ordinated are also presented.

[2.0]: UK-US signals intelligence (SIGINT) liaison

Some of the closest ties are over SIGINT. In the realm of covert intelligence, this forms the ‘core’ of the UK-US intelligence relationship8 _{– or, at the least, in the} contemporary era of exponentially burgeoning OSINT (see below [5.0]), SIGINT liaison continues to form one of the relationship’s major supporting pillars. It is because of the nature of this dimension that BBC journalist Mark Urban somewhat controversially claims that: ‘More than anything else, British intelligence is a system for repackaging information gathered by the USA.’9 _{There is the constant exchange} of vast quantities of data between the substantially integrated UK Government Communications Headquarters (GCHQ) and its US counterpart, the National Security Agency (NSA). According to The Guardian newspaper’s security affairs correspondent, Richard Norton-Taylor, ‘GCHQ… has a symbiotic relationship with its American big brother…’ He continued, while quantitatively at least ‘the

Americans give more than Britain gives in return… an internal GCHQ staff manual [dated 1994] notes that the [UK] agency’s contribution to the relationship must be “of sufficient scale and of the right kind to make a continuation of the Sigint… alliance worthwhile to our partners.”’10 _{Elaborating further, the GCHQ staff manual noted} that: ‘This may entail on occasion the applying of UK resources to the meeting of US requirements.’11

Intricately networked computer set-ups facilitate the UK-US intelligence interactions in the SIGINT domain. These include the UKUSA ECHELON system, described by one of its foremost analysts, US national security scholar Jeffrey Richelson, as: ‘a computer-based tasking and exchange system… that allows the various [UKUSA] parties to request, via keywords, data collected by the other’s collection assets and to have it transmitted to the requesting party.’12 _{Around 2000,} during the debates surrounding the prominent European Parliamentary inquiry into ECHELON, several claims regarding the capabilities of the system were arguably exaggerated.13 _{The intelligence ‘failures’ surrounding 9/11 demonstrated vividly that} the system was not as ‘all-powerful’ as some had claimed. Constant rapid technological developments writ large have also served to keep the UK and US intelligence agencies smartly on their toes in this domain of operation. This is so that they do not fall behind the curve of general trends.14

Undoubtedly, a high volume of data is gathered and processed in the SIGINT domain. Much of this is undertaken as part of the bilateral UK-US sharing arrangements, also involving the ‘exclusive’ multilateral UKUSA arrangement. Tasks include monitoring e-mails, faxes, mobile (cell) and fixed-line telephone calls and electronic (and financial/bank) transactions.15 _{Moreover, the volume of data} processed, with arguably some greater finite targeting over time, has increased exponentially in the so-called ‘War on Terror’ context.16 _{Indeed, the volume of data} processed in the UK-US intelligence relationship is so vast, that there is considerable engagement with the real issue of ‘information overload’. This requires the application of ever-more sophisticated data filtering software, which is generally orientated around the flagging up of particular targeted keywords of interest. In 2000, Professor Harold Shukman posed an ongoing concern vis-à-vis this domain of operation. This took the form of the reasonable question: ‘Are the intelligence services faced by the paradox that too much data can mean too little understanding?’17 _{Inevitably, various time lags are involved due to the processing} (including translation) of the vast quantities of data gathered.

A significant amount of UK-US liaison is witnessed in this domain. Due to the substantial integration of NSA and GCHQ, there is routine ‘physical’ liaison to varying degrees on more of a regularised everyday basis. This is facilitated through a

sizeable exchange of staff both at headquarters level (Fort Meade and Cheltenham), and with the running of joint UK and US staffed monitoring sites located in different parts of the world.18 _{The liaison simultaneously occurs ‘virtually’ through the} constantly networked and highly integrated computer systems and platforms, allowing access to the (substantially) pooled SIGINT.

Close liaison between GCHQ and the US National Reconnaissance Office (NRO) is also apparent. This involves interactions over US ‘spy’ satellite output, where intelligence ‘product’ comes from an elaborately networked satellite system offering global coverage.19 _{It is a set-up in which the UK is a part investor. Rather} than (explicitly) developing the UK’s own expensive series of satellites for espionage, surveillance and monitoring purposes - and after the UK’s own short-lived pursuit of the ‘ZIRCON’ satellite project in the 1980s20 _{- today the UK contributes a sizeable} sum of money towards the US ‘spy’ satellite system. This is in order to acquire (at least a degree of) privileged access to the valuable data produced.21

By 2006, further technological advances in the satellite sector had emerged. Some ramifications of these developments for the UK-US intelligence liaison relationship could be readily anticipated. Reportedly in 2006, according to defence analyst Bruce Sweetman, again ‘[t]he idea of a UK-operated space constellation is being taken seriously within the UK MoD…’ He continued, ‘Strategically, one goal of a UK space programme would be to give the MoD and intelligence community more to offer its US allies, in exchange for continued or improved access to US satellite data.’22 _{Furthermore, the Eros satellites ‘contain no critical US technology [(such as} the US DoD-developed global positioning system [GPS])]… [meaning] that the US government exercises no “shutter control” over the system.’23 _{Wing Commander} Mark Presley, the director of space strategy at the UK’s air staff, remarked: ‘The UK is a leader in small space technology, and that provides an opportunity for indigenous capability and influence with our allies.’24 _{In short, through pursuit of} such a strategy, greater bargaining and leverage potential in this area of UK-US relations could be better facilitated.

Added to these developments, March 2007 saw the launch of the upgraded UK ‘Skynet’ 5A satellite. Reportedly, its tasks include delivering ‘secure, high- bandwidth communications for UK and allied forces.’25 _{As Sweetman noted:}

The practice is to offload mundane [data] traffic on to commercial satellites and then to use a complementary, secure proprietary system for the traffic that has to be protected… Take for example the capability of unmanned air vehicles [UAVs]. These generate a lot of imagery and that has to be passed over a secure communications link. Modern warfare involves passing

around a lot of data [including processes such as transferring SIGINT], and that puts a premium on satellite capacity.26

Once gathered and processed, dissemination of SIGINT ‘product’ is undertaken. The SIGINT ‘take’ tends to be more pooled between the UK and US. Also it tends to be widely shared with varying degrees of ‘exclusive’ multilateral distribution, on a ‘need-to-share/pool’ basis, for example with the other UKUSA partners. The ‘need-to-share/pool’ mentality is codified and sanctioned by exclusive agreements, such as those composing the overall UKUSA agreements and their associated ‘memoranda of understanding’ (MoU), between the parties involved.27

[3.0]: UK-US human intelligence (HUMINT) liaison

Exchange in the domain of HUMINT is different. In contrast to SIGINT, HUMINT tends to be shared on much more of a strict ‘need-to-know’ basis. This type of sharing is more narrow and direct. It is usually confined to being bilateral and to just involving a carefully managed limited range of particular individuals within the partaking intelligence services. Reflecting this trend, in the UK-US intelligence relationship, the ties on the HUMINT front are mainly between the UK Secret Intelligence Service (SIS/MI6) and the US Central Intelligence Agency (CIA). Although, the US Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA) and its Defense HUMINT Service (DHS)/Defense HUMINT Management Office (DHMO) - created in 2005 - is also sometimes involved.28 _{Showing the value of the UK to the US in the realm of} HUMINT, former Assistant Director of Central Intelligence for Analysis and Production, Mark Lowenthal, has noted that: ‘British HUMINT does not completely overlap that of the United States, with Britain having some advantages in Commonwealth countries.’29

Demonstrably, the HUMINT ties tend to operate restrictedly. This is in terms of the volume and what precise intelligence is exchanged, as well as these interactions operating on more of a selective case-by-case basis than the SIGINT ties. Done for the ubiquitous so-called ‘security reasons’, these controls are intended for addressing counter-intelligence anxieties and maintaining at least a form of intelligence control and protectionism.30 _{Indeed, these forms of control, and the associated ‘sanitisation’} of intelligence, are at their most apparent during two occasions: (i) declassification; and (ii) when in operation vis-à-vis the interactions within forums where the broader forms of intelligence liaison is undertaken. Notably, this is vividly seen in the ‘less- exclusive’ multilateral intelligence sharing arrangements (for instance, when compared with the UKUSA arrangement), such as at the North Atlantic Treaty

Organisation (NATO), especially as expansion is undergone.31 _{As US defence expert} Derek S. Reveron has observed:

Multilateral relationships through organizations like NATO provide a greater audience for intelligence, but may create counterintelligence concerns greater than the value of the intelligence they produce … when expanding beyond traditional allies, a variety of practical and counterintelligence concerns arise.32

HUMINT sources and their provenance are especially sensitive. They thus continue to be closely (and at times jealously) guarded by national intelligence agencies.33 _As UK journalist Stephen Fidler has observed, ‘The sharing of humint between the US and UK is more selective than the sharing of sigint…’, and demonstrating the importance and high sensitivity accorded to HUMINT intensive operations, ‘Whitehall officials say that intelligence gathered by MI6, obtained they say at great risk to those involved, was critical in bringing an end to Libya’s non-conventional weapons programmes.’34 _{This practice of closely guarding HUMINT is even largely} maintained in an era of increasingly ‘globalised’ intelligence.35 _{It simultaneously} demonstrates that observed phenomena, such as the ‘globalisation of intelligence’, are not entirely unfettered processes in all domains of intelligence activity. Again, their overall haphazard nature is emphasised.

[4.0]: UK-US military intelligence liaison (including MASINT & IMINT)

MILINT/MI offers another extensive mode of liaison. This is not least as military doctrinal concepts, such as Intelligence, Surveillance, [Target Acquisition] and Reconnaissance (ISTAR/ISR), together with their facilitators, perform an increasingly central role in real-time on the battlefield (or in the ‘battle-space’).36 However, in this domain, interoperability obstacles can emerge more starkly, and can have more of an impact. This is due to the nature of the tools closely involved, and the (often high) tempo at which operations in this domain are conducted. The UK Defence Intelligence Staff (DIS) and the US Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA) liaise mainly over military intelligence (MILINT or MI), measurement and signature intelligence (MASINT), as well as imagery intelligence (IMINT).37 _{The UK DIS also} liaises with other US intelligence agencies, such as the CIA, over geographic and thematic/functional issues, such as Weapons of Mass Destruction (WMD) and proliferation. The UK Joint Air Reconnaissance Intelligence Centre (JARIC), also known as the National Imagery Exploitation Centre, handles UK IMINT, GEOINT and MASINT.38 _{Their main point of interface is the US National Geospatial-}

Intelligence Agency (NGA), which manages US IMINT/GEOINT (including high- resolution radar-imagery), acquired from sources such as its satellites.39

Some US IMINT is also acquired out-in-the-field. This is obtained by the UK from the US, reportedly due to ‘an agreement with the US Air Force (USAF) to gain access to imagery from the service’s RQ/MQ-1 Predators in Iraq and Afghanistan.’ Some valuable SIGINT, particularly of the ‘short-range’ variety (see below), is simultaneously obtained through the use of these platforms and their ability to fly over battle spaces. However, this operational sharing is not always smooth, with it being reported in 2006 that ‘British Army officers in Afghanistan are … frustrated that they are not getting the level of support required to cope with the current upsurge of Taliban activity and have asked for dedicated UK UAV [(unmanned aerial vehicle)] support.’40 _{These concerns were particularly troubling for the UK} military before the delivery of the UK’s own new UAV models (Watch-Keeper 450 and Reaper [a Predator B purchased from the US] with a strike-capable platform) later in 2007.41 _{These new arrivals could now - at long last by October 2007 - operate} in terrain as diverse as Afghanistan, as well as bring with them the added value of being able to function independently without the UK having to (overly) rely upon the capabilities of the US. Summarising the other element of persisting UK dependency on the US in the IMINT domain, Lowenthal observed in 2006 that: ‘Britain’s independent imagery intelligence (IMINT) capability is restricted to airborne platforms, but it receives satellite imagery from the United States.’42

Sharing over MASINT is similarly witnessed. MASINT is particularly key in assisting UK-US intelligence WMD and non-proliferation detection and verification enterprises. MASINT provides essential data on chemical, biological, radiological, nuclear and (high-yield) explosive (CBRNE) components and their associated programmes. Gathered via a range of sensors located across the world, including seismometers, the MASINT is exchanged between the UK and US’s WMD specialists to aid their individual and joint analysis and assessment efforts.43 _{Other selected} partners beyond, such as other UKUSA members - notably Canada and Australia - are also frequently included within this sharing.44

Further liaison takes place in the military context. In the armed services (army, air force and navy), UK-US intelligence liaison takes place primarily within G2 and J2 departments at headquarters.45 _{Activities include joint military planning} and operations - involving operations intelligence (OPINT) and, in its handling, operations security (OPSEC) - and occur between ‘conventional’ forces as well as the Special Operations Forces (SOF). Indeed, the close contact maintained between the UK and US Special Forces (SF) dates from their joint operations undertaken during