Home | Columns | Media Watch | Reports | Links | About Us | Contact

MEXIDATA . INFO
Column 021609 Brewer

Monday, February 16, 2009

Threats Warrant Western Hemisphere Intelligence Sharing

By Jerry Brewer

The world intelligence community as a whole is in serious

disarray. Although perfunctory mandates may dominate
intelligence collection tasks at the routine inquiry protocol levels,
this is not necessarily true with all. A foreign
intelligence/security service that relies heavily on military
support, and whose services are highly politicized agents of
state control, is the radical exception.

One stark example within the western hemisphere has been

Cuba. Cuba's intelligence apparatus has been complicated and
undergone considerable change in national security since the
collapse of the Soviet Union. However, embattled Venezuelan
President Hugo Chavez has seen fit to adopt the previous
Soviet-styled Cuban intelligence service (DGI) as his model.
This service is known as the DISIP (Directorate of Intelligence
and Prevention Services), and it utilizes Cuban intelligence,
counterparts and advisors.

For the most part, western hemispheric nations share common

ground on the inherent nature of intelligence, that is to collect,
analyze, and disseminate information towards their conduct in
foreign relations, as well as national security. Although there is
much diversity in the kinds of intelligence sought, much of this is
primarily political, military, and economic. The haunting and
stark reality of world terrorism that has metamorphosed from
threats to operational acts by terrorists resulting in world
carnage, directs the intelligence mission and cycle to national
security collection efforts to protect homelands.

What has been previously considered to be domestic security

and law enforcement (criminal) intelligence related was known
as non-traditional intelligence. However, the stark reality
manifested in massive death and destruction clearly
demonstrates the nexus and necessary merging of the
intelligence machine to a more holistic approach. This direction
is critical to ensure that international terrorist activities are
interdicted and their murderous operational plans disrupted.
Although essentially analogous, proactive and strategic
intelligence collection tasks must include those rogue foreign
powers and hostile intelligence services that support or give
safe haven to terrorists.

Organized crime and terrorist activity by definition in Mexico

represents a graphic example and demonstration of a specter
that has plagued the country, manifested in violence, death, and
superior weaponry at the border and even into U.S. states.
Some observers have reported and forewarned of this
evolvement that reached a new peak in Nuevo Laredo in 2005,
and more recently in Ciudad Juarez, Chihuahua. Much of this
just now being more fully covered in the media – to the shock
and chagrin of those in the U.S. who have mainly been in a
frenzy over illegal immigrants.

Mexico, due to its contiguous location with the U.S, is suspected

of being a strategic haven for a myriad of ethnically diverse
transnational terrorists and criminals, narcoterrorists, and other
paramilitary-styled insurgents. There may be organized
Russian criminal cells operating in Mexico, as well as Asian
criminals involved in a myriad of criminal enterprises that
include alien smuggling and human trafficking, and drug
trafficking partnerships with Mexican cartels.

Russia's influence throughout Latin America is being felt also

with planning and helping Venezuela build a nuclear reactor.
Russia's strengthening of military ties with Venezuela and,
again, Cuba is reason for concern by their Latin American
neighbors, and this generates intelligence related information
tasking. This in order to ascertain clear Russian intentions
within the region, and to assess the combined agendas. As
well, Russians have reportedly been training Nicaraguan
military personnel.

Anti-gang initiatives throughout Central America have fueled

fluid movement into Mexico and the U.S. Transnational gangs,
so well-armed and organized, require extreme vigilance by
intelligence officials. This activity must go far beyond police
interdiction. This imminent threat requires counterinsurgency
strategies that must include military, economic, and diplomatic
remedies for technical assistance and overall success.

Assessing threat by intelligence officials in the affected areas

requires coordination, information sharing, and technical
expertise. Threat must be triaged to assess the variables
involved, such as any form of religious or ideological focus, a
geographic focus, possible state sponsorship, the organizational
structure, and any political goals. Any of those variables could
conceal motives and agendas that are easily disguised by
leftists and rogue regimes, and thus dismissed as insignificant
to terrorist or other forms of "organized" threat.

Assessing national threats and threat trends, as well as the

modus operandi of such, requires a united foreign intelligence
mission. The threat, as we now know it and understand it,
comes from a diverse cadre of ethnicity and motivation –
domestic and international. The sources of sponsorship are
also far from being transparent. Spy versus spy remains a topic
of motive and pursuit of mostly hidden agendas.

——————————
Jerry Brewer is C.E.O. of Criminal Justice International
Associates, a global risk mitigation firm headquartered in Miami,
Florida. His website is located at www.cjiausa.org.
jbrewer@cjiausa.org