VITAL SIGNSrnFOREIGN AFFAIRSrnA Spy in thernHouse of NATOrnby Justin RaimondornThe recent news tliat there was a spvrnat NATO who revealed top-secretrnplans —inckiding detailed descriptionsrnof targets — during the Kosovo war hasrnthrown the Pentagon and the Westernrnpowers into confusion and dismay. Accordingrnto the London Guardian (Marchrn10), a classified U.S. militarv intelligencernreport reveals that the Serbs may havernbeen reading the NATO air command’srndaily orders before the NATO pilots did,rnstarting from day one of the operationrn(March 24, 1999). The secret report wasrnalso discussed in a BBC documentaryrnthat aired March 12 with the Orwellianrn(or perhaps ironic) htle, A Moral War.rnAccording to the BBC reporters, thernspy passed information to the Serbs aboutrnthe activities of NATO spy planes andrnuinnanned reconnaissance drones, sorntiiat Serb militarv rmits could movernabout undetected right before a scheduledrnbombing raid. The Pentagon alsornhas concluded that the information wasrnnot hacked out of NATO’s computer svstemsrnby Serb cyber-pirates. According tornthe Guardian. Gen. Wesley Clark “suspectedrnearly in the bombing campaignrnthat Belgrade had a spy in [NATO’s]rnBrussels headquarters.” Clark has vigorouslyrndenied this. But the Guardian citesrna “senior source” within NATO hcadc|rnuarters who quoted Clark as saying; “Irnknow I’ve got a spy, I want to find him.”rnAnother source noted that pilots at NATO’srnVincenze base in northern Italyrnwere worried that the Serbs were “pickingrnup on our runs.”rnThere were certainly a lot of potentialrnspies to choose from: The distribution listrnof the daily “air tasking orders” (ATOs)rncontained no less than 600 names.rnWhen the NATO-crats narrowed it downrnto 100, that apparently stopped the leak.rnStill, this alleged spy remains at large, hisrn(or her) identit’ still unknown to NATO,rnnor is it known how this person transmittedrnthe information to Belgrade.rnThe suspicion that NATO high commandrnhad a spy was initially reported lastrnyear, in the first week of the bombingrncampaign, when a U.S. FII7A Stealthrnfighter was downed by Serb anti-aircraftrnmissile fire. According to news reportsrnand rumors coming from the Pentagon,rnthe humiliating attack on the Stealth wasrnsuccessful because its secret flight planrnhad been obtained by Belgrade. Last August,rna NATO official was cited as thernsource of a story claiming that an Alliedrnmilitary officer had passed the details ofrnthe bombing raids to a Russian intelligencernoperative, who then turned the informationrnover to the Yugoslavs.rnRumor had it that the spy was a Frenchman.rnThis was no doubt based on an admissionrnby Pierre-Henri Bunel that hernhad given a Yugoslav diplomat access tornNATO’s bombing plans in Octoberrn1998, five months before the bombingrnbegan. Apparentlv, Bunel —who said hernacted out of hatred for the U.S. governmentrn—was not alone, and the generallyrnmore pro-Serb French came under immediaternsuspicion.rnThe secret U.S. report, which wasrndrawn up by retired Air Force Gen.rnJames McCarthy for Deput)’ Secretary ofrnDefense John Hamre and Gen. Joe Ralston,rnavers that the Serbs had foreknowledgernof NATO bombing raids. The reportrnnotes riiat when the distribution listrnwas reduced, “the effect was immediate,”rnand the Serbs appeared to be in the dark.rnBefore that, things had gotten so bad (asrnGen. Clark admitted to Reuters after thernGuardian article ran), that particularlyrnsensitive informahon had to be entirelyrnomitted from ATOs. Lt. Col. VicrnWarzinskv likewise confessed to reportersrnthat “there was a sense at NATO headquartersrnthat the Serbs were pretty wellrninformed about what we were doing.”rnMore importantly, he widened the list ofrnpossible suspects, stating that the SerbianrnDavid could have been aided in his fightrnagainst the U.S./NATO Goliath by anyrnnumber of possible suspects. Accordingrnto the Guardian, this included spottersrnplaced at the head of NATO’s Italianrnrunways; on the other hand, diplomatsrnassert that the information was readilyrnavailable to an even larger audience oncernit reached the various European capitals.rnThe NATO-crats, while forced to admitrnthe possibility of a spy, are doing theirrnbest to downplay the effect that this hadrnon the conduct of the war—and the ramificationsrnfor future military action in thernBalkans. This supposedly “secret” U.S.rnreport, originally leaked to the BBC, goesrnto great lengths to imply that the securityrnbreach was plugged when the distributionrnlist was shortened. BBC military correspondentrnAndrew Gilligan reports thatrnthe mole remains a mystery, but thatrn”heavy hints are being dropped that it wasrnnot a leak from NATO headquarters itself,rnbut from one of the national delegationsrnattached to it or from a national government.”rnVirtually every news report on the “spyrnin the house of NATO” contains this allegationrnby U.S. government officials,rnwhich is one good reason to treat it withrnsuspicion. If this is an attempt to steer usrnaway from the truth about a highlyrnplaced spy near the top of the NATOrncommand structure, it fits with anotherrntwist to this case, provided by the Germanrnleft-wing newspaper Tageszeitung.rnIn an article published March 10, thernnewspaper claims that the NATO molernwho tipped off Belgrade is a U.S. AirrnForce officer. This officer contacted thernnewspaper and authorized it to reveal hisrnnationality after the war ended, under therncondition of strict anonymity. It was thisrnAmerican officer who betrayed NATO’srnATOs to the Serbs: That downed Stealthrnfighter fell victim to the dictates of his (orrnher) conscience.rnIf this story is true, there can be littlerndoubt that the NATO mole acted becausernof a conscious moral decision,rnrather than the more traditional inducementsrnof 30 pieces of silver or a desire tornbe on the winning side. According tornTageszeitung, the officer said he turnedrnover NATO’s secrets on the grounds thatrnthe attack on Yugoslavia was illegal by thernprecepts of international law and immoralrnbecause of the “blackmail ultimatum”rndelivered at Rambouillet. Whilernour rulers rampage from one end of thernworld to the other, this person clearlyrnfeels that Americans have a moral obligationrnto engage in civil disobedience, disruption,rnand outright sedition, throughrnany and all avenues open to them.rnJUNE 2000/41rnrnrn