2 March 2002

From: "Glenmore Trenear-Harvey" <intelresearch@hotmail.com>
To: intelforum@his.com
Subject: THE REALITY OF INTELLIGENCE IN IRELAND
Date: Sun, 24 Feb 2002 11:05:19 +0000

Having lost a good friend to cowardly and murderous action by American NORAD-funded, Spanish ETA supporting, Colombian FARC-training, Irish Republican terrorists, I took exception to Mr. Bugler's mawkish paean to the Irish.

The Irish, he claims, are people who  "love [to] dance and sing  and smile" and "the only weapon they carried was the Cross of Christ."  (Fashioned, presumably, from SEMTEX?)

He utters a further solecism:  "They are and always will be a country with no intelligence service; for they fear no one and they seek to dominate no one."

If you were to make a broth including the spies, counterspies and spooks who've operated in Eire in recent years, you'd end up with an Irish alphabet soup: BOSS, BND, CIA, DEA, DGSE, DIA, FBI, FRU, GARDAI C3, GRU, IIS, 14 ISC, JCID, KGB, MIB G2, MI5, MI6, MOSSAD,  RUC, SAS, SVR would be some of the ingredients. All are, or have been, operating there.

Ranged against them are the Irish Intelligence Services including the Irish Defence Forces Military Intelligence G2 Branch and the Gardai's Special Branch C3 Section who deal with terrorism and counterintelligence.

I estimate that there are today at least 35-45 foreigners engaged in espionage, operating clandestinely in the Irish Republic. (Though, when, recently, I asked, Commandant Pauline O'Connell, Head of Irish Military Intelligence in Dublin, for confirmation, she said, "I couldn't possibly comment on that.")

Through the seventies, until today, such activities as intelligence gathering, subversion and counter-intelligence have been a constant, if largely hidden, part of the Irish political, military and economic scene. There have been main four main factors that have been responsible for this: The Troubles, The possibility of Eire joining NATO, Eire's EU membership and Ireland's emergence as the IT centre for Europe.

The main British intelligence services, SIS (MI6) and MI5, usually have distinct areas of responsibility and operation. MI6 tasked with overseas operations and MI5 (working with the British Police Special Branch) operating domestically in a counterespionage and anti-terrorism role. Exceptionally, both MI5 and MI6 operated, at the same time, in Eire.

As the conflict in Northern Ireland escalated, so did the number of British security and intelligence organisations operating clandestinely throughout the island of Ireland. So much so, there was a real danger of British spooks bumping, unknowingly, into other British spooks, with potentially tragic results.

So the UK Government appointed an espionage Supremo to oversee British spying on the Island. The man chosen was the former head of MI6, Sir Maurice Oldfield. The new organisation: The Joint Coordinating Intelligence Department was known, cryptically as "The Department". Oldfield coordinated the activity of  MI6, MI5, 14 Intelligence Company (14 ISC), the SAS, the Force Research Unit (FRU),  RUC Special Branch, RUC Special Patrol Group "Bronze" Section and the Special Military Intelligence Unit.

The building of the radar station at Mount Gabriel in County Cork (as part of BACKBONE) and the proposal that Ireland might join NATO attracted the interest of the newly established Soviet Embassy in Dublin. According to a former senior KGB officer, both the KGB and GRU had six people at their Rezidentura.

Now, while the GRU or military intelligence service will be targeting Ireland's burgeoning IT industry, the SVR (ex-KGB) have been increasing their targeting of US and British citizens who are visiting or based in Ireland. It is believed that, because they are relaxed in the Irish environment, they are more susceptible to attempts by the Russians to recruit them.

The SVR has been very active in Ireland in recent years. One reason is a result of the significant Irish involvement with the Russian aviation industry -- including engineering,  maintenance and livery painting, airport management, catering management and joint-ventures.

The US security and intelligence services have also been active in Ireland. While the CIA presence has been minimal, the FBI and the Drugs Enforcement Agency (DEA) have a significant presence. A concern over terrorism and the drug links with Colombia has driven this interest.

Other intelligence services and their reason for operating include the German Federal Intelligence Service (BND) and their interest in the activities and welfare of German nationals (following terrorist targeting). MOSSAD, the Israeli secret service has watched the activity of the Libyan Intelligence Service in Ireland. The former South African Bureau of State Security (BOSS) has been shown to have based several of its ventures on Irish soil and the French intelligence agency, the DGSE, are thought to have targeted Irish technology.

In fact the fasted growing area of skulduggery is that of commercial and industrial espionage conducted not only by the French, but Chinese, Israeli, Japanese, South African and even the Americans too. Often these are people working within a host company from whom they attempt to garner commercially sensitive information.  While trained in the tradecraft and elicitation techniques of the traditional intelligence agencies (including how to avoid counterintelligence measures) they are actually civilians.  It is an inevitable downside of Ireland's vanguard position on the IT front.

These threats, as well as the continuing cancer of Irish terrorism, are dealt with by the Irish intelligence and security services. They are very much real, quiet and effective.

Unlike Mr Bugler I will end, not by quoting from a gravestone (those of terrorist victims can be too heart-wrenching) but from an IRA supporter:

"This is not the land of sweet singing ballads. This is hard, strong, dramatic -- and violent."

Glenmore Trenear-Harvey

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