President Clinton has taken steps to protect U.S. classified intelligence against moles like Aldrich Ames. Leaks resulting from lax security at the United Nations, however, don't seem to concern him.
"A new politicized management team has been hired to shake up, purge, and otherwise discipline the CIA's covert operations directorate," reports Frank Gaffney of the Center for Security Policy. "This is being done in the name of preventing such disastrous compromises of U.S. intelligence" as those perpetrated by Aldrich Ames. "Yet, there appears to be one important exception to this policy," says Gaffney. "If the compromise occurs as the predictable result of sharing intelligence with the United Nations, it seems the Clinton administration is inclined to regard that as an acceptable cost of doing business."
Sharing intelligence information with the United Nations can be risky indeed. Gaffney points out that UN personnel in Somalia were "rather casual about safeguarding classified information supplied by the United States. In fact, had it not been for a chance discovery by a U.S. diplomat literally turning out the lights as the UN bailed out of Mogadishu, sensitive data -- some of which reportedly identified the Somali sources -- would have been compromised."
This near-disaster was not unprecedented. "There have been at least four incidents in which the United Nations has breached the security of classified documents provided by the United States," reports Gaffney. Until recently, in fact, "there was no agreement in place obliging the United Nations to provide for the protection of intelligence supplied by the United States." Gaffney says the Clinton administration seems to believe that "it would be demeaning to the Secretary-General even to ask for such an agreement."
The Senate Foreign Relations Committee amended the Foreign Relations Revitalization Act so that it "blocks the provision of U.S. intelligence information to the United Nations, its employees, or any associated organization unless mechanisms 'have been formally agreed to and implemented by the United Nations for protecting intelligence methods and sources.'" The United Nations would thus be required to "adopt background investigation and security violation investigation procedures comparable to those employed by the United States government; agree to protect U.S.-provided intelligence in a similar manner; immediately notify Washington if there has been a security breach . . . and cooperate in U.S. law enforcement investigations [of such breaches]; and ensure that U.S. classified data is not given to nationals ineligible for access to such information."
Despite its boisterous attempt to prevent any further damage to U.S. intelligence efforts by double agents, the Clinton administration strenuously opposes efforts to protect U.S. intelligence from treachery or incompetence inside the UN. The lesson to be learned from the Ames affair, according to Frank Gaffney, is that intelligence sources "are highly perishable and, once exposed, are gone for good." He warns that "undisciplined, indiscriminate sharing of classified information with the United Nations" is sheer folly.
