loki old fart wrote:
I find it amusing that you've all concluded the Russians are in Ukraine. Based on American intel.
http://www.assemblee-nationale.fr/14/cr-cdef/14-15/c1415049.asp
Commission de la défense nationale et des forces armées
Mercredi 25 mars 2015
Séance de 9 heures
Compte rendu n° 49
Présidence de Mme Patricia Adam, présidente

Committee on National Defence and Armed Forces
Wednesday, March 25, 2015
Session 9:00
Report No. 49
Ms. Patricia Adam presidency, President
[spoiler]The meeting opened at nine.

Madam President Patricia Adam. General, colleagues, ladies and gentlemen, I am pleased to welcome General Christophe Gomart, director of military intelligence for a hearing on the bill on intelligence.

We continue in effect with you the cycle of our hearings on the subject, our commission is being asked for its opinion. The Military Intelligence Directorate (DRM) is part of the so-called intelligence community and as such is directly affected by this bill. Your hearing will allow us to better understand the issues.

General Christophe Gomart. Madam President, ladies and gentlemen, I am honored to be heard today by your commission. Before taking the head of the Military Intelligence Directorate in 2013, I had the chance to order special operations from 2011 to 2013; before, I was deputy national intelligence coordinator Bernard Bajolet - 2008 to 2011 - head of the office and booked the cabinet minister of defense - from 2006 to 2008. This course allows me to have a broad vision of the intelligence and everything related to its specificity.

I propose to begin by briefly presenting the direction of military intelligence before discussing the state of the threat and its major issues and conclude with my appreciation of the bill, which seems to be going in the right direction.

Foch said: "In war, we do what we can with what we know; order a lot, you should know a lot. " It is in this spirit that I see the action of the DRM, the intelligence service of the armed at a time when our soldiers are engaged in many operations abroad and in the country. We contribute - that's the essence of my work - autonomous situation assessment of military leaders at all levels and policy makers in the selection of military options.

DRM is one of the six intelligence services of our national community, in which it holds a special place due to its missions and organization. Intelligence service of armies, it is subordinate to the Chief of Staff (ECS). It therefore depends armies to all its human, material and financial, and the director that I am also the minister's adviser on intelligence of military interest. DRM is an autonomous specialized service that is discreet, but not secretly. Our expertise is that of military intelligence interest, as recalled by the National Policy Plan intelligence (PNOR) 2014-2019, which is a defense secret document to define the scope of each service, which I seems essential. My scope is interested in parts of the forces, military and paramilitary, state or not, of our adversaries and their environment that strictly belong only to areas of military interest, that is to say having or likely to have consequences on our strengths and our national interests. Our scope is broad: it covers both direct support to military operations - in Iraq, the Sahel, Central - anticipating crises such as Ukraine or Libya, and ongoing business intelligence including monitoring of major potentially dangerous military powers such as China or Russia.

We note the ongoing challenge due to the integrated nature of DRM, which allows him to have the full range of capabilities needed to develop intelligence.

These are, first, the direction of research, being fully involved in the work of the group's strategic anticipation Chief of Defence Staff and promoting short loop operation; second, intelligence gathering, as we have - either personally or because of the provision by the armies - a number of technical sensors - electromagnetic and image - and humans in all areas ; thirdly, analysis and exploitation of the information gathered by the crossing of geographical and thematic expertise; Fourth, and finally, the dissemination of that information developed granted appropriate recipients.

DRM is based in Paris, Creil and Strasbourg, and nine support centers spread across the globe. We also contribute to operations by continuously projection of about a hundred people in the theater of operations. DRM employs 1600 people, 80% from all armed personnel, services and gendarmerie, and 20% of civilian personnel. We suffer for the military personnel category of deficiencies in the implementation of our staff rare specialty staff, including interpreters images and linguists. The 20% of civilian staff are mostly officials. We are also fortunate to have highly qualified staff under contract, primarily as geographic and thematic analysts. Our wealth lies in the alchemy of military experts and experienced civilian or just out of school.

The military planning law (LPM) must consolidate our research capacity, especially in the satellite field. We eagerly await the arrival of the constellation MUSIS, scheduled for 2018, and CERES, to be launched in 2020. These satellites pérenniseront our strategic capabilities of the original image information and electromagnetic origin. We are also vigilant on the realization of other programs such as the payload of airborne electronic warfare to succeed the C-160 Gabriel, the asset acquisition of light aircraft for surveillance and reconnaissance, such as those currently leased on theaters operations and which are highly effective and the MALE drones prospects by including a signals intelligence load (SIGINT).

The attacks of January cruelly reminded the news of the threat that we face. DRM is primarily interested in fighting the armed opponent in the theaters of Saharan-Sahelian Operations, Central, Iraq or Lebanon. The area of ​​intelligence interest, however, is much larger than the area of ​​operations in the strict sense; we have to also look at what is happening around in the Persian Gulf, the Levant at large, in North Africa and especially in Libya, Nigeria and Cameroon to include major hot areas.

This opponent has radically changed over the last decade. The globalization of the threat contemplated by the last two White Papers is now a reality in all areas. We face a very reactive enemy, modern, able to adapt to his opponents and having political-strategic objectives well defined. The opponent has appropriated the global information revolution in which we are immersed. He mastered modern network means for recruiting, influence and communicate. Online publications or videos of Daech illustrate how our enemy knows how to use the flaws of our "connected societies."

This modernity opponent also allows it to be very responsive and adapt in front of us on the ground. It easily combines the conventional modes of action and asymmetric modes of action: the terrorist armed groups (GAT) North Mali and ride classic ambush against the multinational forces and continue to pose improvised explosive device while conducting Daech major offensives in Iraq and Syria and launching suicide attacks in the heart of Baghdad. Knowing our action restrictions Daech knows blend into the population, borrow uniforms of Iraqi security forces or store their weapons in hospitals or mosques. Having learned of the first battles against the Serval force, the GAT reviewed their procedures: they do not employ the means of communication that we can intercept and now prefer to travel on a motorcycle rather than columns pickup.

The continuity of this threat is the new fact that mobilizes all intelligence services. The armed fight this enemy "off" in Iraq and the Sahel, but the opponent is more intimate with the threat to the country that I mentioned earlier. So there is a real continuity between the opponent comes to attack us on the national and the soil that is now in the Sahel or Iraq.

Beyond finding the threat - our purpose - we also take into account the changing environment in which we operate. We have to cope with an increase in stress and phenomenal growth of information to process. When General Bolelli, my predecessor, was speaking to you two years ago, DRM supported mainly the Afghan theater and the last gasps of the Ivorian theater; Today, we are engaged throughout the Sahel-Saharan Africa, Central Africa, Iraq and Lebanon. The real explosion in the volume of information is already a reality and is a phenomenon that will in the coming years. It becomes even more difficult to discriminate the right information in such mass.

Recognizing these challenges, we have initiated the DRM on a vast transformation for nearly two years. The main objective is to keep the initiative on our opponent. We aim to continue to guarantee the CEMA freedom of action in its capacity for autonomous situation assessment. So we review in depth our organization and procedures to optimize, modernize and adapt. We intend to fully exploit existing and acquired future of DRM equipment programs.

Among our projects, I would like to highlight three. First, the DRM now has a fused geospatial intelligence capability - that the Anglo-Saxons call GEOINT (geospatial intelligence) - within a center dedicated to Creil, central joint geospatial intelligence, real startups whose the ambition is to provide a complete information, accurate, location-aware and updated on a digital medium suitable for both strategic decision makers as DRM analysts and tactical commanders in the field; we must see this as a kind of Google Earth with a viewer to see, in near real time, what happens anywhere in the world.

Second, we continue our full involvement in the sharing of programs between the intelligence services. The means of the DGSE, which DRM, ISB, DNRED and DPSD access, allow us to benefit from significant technical capacity and dimensioning and guide our reorganization.

Thirdly, the management of human resources is the subject of special attention. We have a desperate need for manpower, the risk of being suffocated and not properly respond to requests. So I am now in a position to follow the countries classified P3 category, being obliged to focus my resources on the current crises. Our people are not fully realized and we are facing a chronic lack of staff in key specialties such as pictures interpreters and linguists. The issues that I have described advocate for strengthening our workforce to enable us to handle this exponential mass of information coming to us and to quickly detect the warning signs, vital capacity for intelligence. In comparison, the DGSE has a larger volume of military personnel than the DRM - including a larger number of patented the War College officers. It was decided, following the attacks, enhance the strength of 185 personnel to the DGSE - at least thirty soldiers, who do not necessarily go to the DRM - and 65 DPSD. It is also necessary that we can offer attractive career prospects personnel, both military and civilian. Two tracks are already being explored but have not yet completed: looking for a job status for our civilian personnel and development of a real inter mobility.

We strive to other challenges, such as the provision of information systems and robust, resilient communication, taking into account the move to Balard, reflecting on the opportunities for stability and consistency offered by Basic Creil where we are already established, or the consolidation of a database center that we just be delivered.

I also believe that we must continue the inter operational cooperation initiated in support of operations in Iraq to the Hermès cell - which I wanted to create, supported in this by the Chief of the Defence Staff and the Minister of Defence - which allows all intelligence services of being in the center of planning and conduct of operations to military operations currently in Iraq. I am convinced that the creation of Hermes, which is a first, will bring us a lot: it has paved the way for greater interaction between services, a dynamic and effective exchange of information in favor of the action, military in this case. Current and future security challenges, especially in the country, campaigning for the continuation and consolidation of similar devices.

About the Bill relating to information that is submitted to you, I would make three introductory remarks. First, this project sticks to the present realities and future of our intelligence services on their means and their missions; second, it provides a clear framework and applicable to all the intelligence services; Third, I think this law will protect our citizens well.

The project defines the duties of the intelligence services, specify the purpose for which services may use the intelligence techniques provided by law, fixed intelligence techniques and their conditions of implementation and control procedures defined by an administrative authority and independent judicial review.

For the DRM, it is a project complete and coherent legislation that respects a balance between operational needs of services and control essential for the guarantee of civil liberties. It also sits the legitimacy of the action of services. This project complements the existing system without compromising the already provided by existing legislative provisions capabilities.

The objectives defined in Title I, for which the services can implement intelligence techniques, do not force DRM. In this context, it can fulfill all its missions, operations support to business intelligence.

It does not distinguish between services that affect the country and those who act out. DRM is essentially outside the national territory for intelligence techniques addressed by this project. However, it has sensors stationed on our territory: these include listening Giens centers and departments and communities overseas Mayotte, Pointe-à-Pitre, Papeete Tontouta and buildings the Navy such as Dupuy de Lome and other buildings shipping ways electromagnetic interception. It is primarily concerned with international surveillance and maintenance of those on radio spectrum already provided for in the 1991 Act.

For DRM Title V dealing with intelligence techniques require authorization is the main contribution of this bill. It effectively defines provisions for international monitoring. These take into account the monitoring of information transmitted or received abroad from sensors on the national territory. They take particular account of the evolution of electronic communications techniques that go far beyond simple telephony as it was defined in the law of 1991. This is an advanced and vitally important in the light of operational need and new electronic communication.

The mechanism provided for this project, which appears to be more flexible than that in force for security interceptions, however, have strong guarantees: for communications that refer to national identifiers, conservation is the same procedure as that provided for other intelligence techniques under the control of the national intelligence oversight technical Commission (CNCTR). Furthermore, CNCTR ensures good conditions for the implementation of these measures.

In Article 5, the project incorporates the provisions of the terrestrial exception provided for in Article 20 of the 1991 Act DRM considers that the maintenance of these provisions is imperative, insofar scanning the radio spectrum from sensors located on the national territory allows the detection of weak signals which, once identified, can be treated, for example, in the context of international monitoring measures or access to technical data connection.

I wish to emphasize the last two points that seem important because they enable services to achieve their missions in better conditions. First, the provisions relating to conditions in which will be taken regulatory and individual acts regarding the organization, management and operation of services, are a useful complement to the existing system which aims to ensure the anonymity of the agents; second, Article 9 of the draft, which supplements Article 41 of the 1978 Act relating to data files and freedoms, guarantees given to the necessary confidentiality of the action of services and respect for the secret National defense to a dispute relating to access to files, which are constantly increasing.

Finally, the definition of the new National Control Commission intelligence technical missions allow a real unification of licensing procedures and control. It will give us advance notice prior to implementation of information technologies require authorization and conduct subsequent verification of the implementation of these techniques. I think the work of this commission will be a real guarantee of respect for civil liberties.

The Director of Military Intelligence I therefore consider that the draft law will contribute to information relating to the maintenance and insurance of the effectiveness of the intelligence services. Our mission needs a coherent framework pressing control capabilities. I personally welcome this will guarantee us such a framework and I can assure you that all members of my service remain fully committed to their mission, with the main aim to contribute to the security of our citizens.

Madam President Patricia Adam. Since you mentioned the countries classified in category P3, can you tell us what are these countries?

General Christophe Gomart. We classify countries into three categories, category P1, which brings together the countries in crisis, or the subject of the security of France is directly at stake, category P3, made up of countries that we believe have a higher risk reduced to national security - P2 is obviously the intermediate category. I said that we do not give up any systematic monitoring of countries ranked P3: well, we continue to monitor what is happening in some of them. Given the constraints we face in staffing, however, we must stop to watch some countries, especially those in Latin America and the United States of America. We just follow them on theaters of military operations, whereas the defense military mission based in Washington is fully able to keep us informed on US military leaders in office and their orientations.

Frédéric Lefebvre. What are our relations with NATO base in Norfolk?

General Christophe Gomart. We have excellent relations with the Supreme Allied Commander Transformation (SACT) and intelligence notes DRM also supply NATO reflection. In September, General Denis Mercier will succeed General Jean-Paul Paloméros to this post.

The real difficulty with NATO is that US intelligence is dominant, while the French intelligence is more or less considered - hence the importance for us to supply sufficiently commanders of the NATO French origin information. NATO announced that the Russians would invade Ukraine while according to the information of the DRM, nothing came to support this hypothesis - we had indeed found that the Russians had not deployed command or logistics, including field hospitals, to consider a military invasion and the units of second level had made no movement. Subsequently showed that we were right, because if Russian soldiers were actually seen in Ukraine, it was more of a ploy to put pressure on Ukrainian President Poroshenko as an attempted invasion.

Mr Philippe Nauche draftsman. Thank you for letting us share your beliefs about the bill relating to intelligence and your service.

You mentioned that this law was sticking to realities, it constituted a clear and enforceable framework and offered satisfactory guarantees in terms of guarantees of the rights of citizens, and have emphasized the international monitoring measures constituting the framework of your action. Can you tell us how you exercise your right away: the individuals and groups that you follow may be asked to come and go between France and abroad, make sure you follow the individuals concerned in all places, or are you asked to hand over to another service in certain circumstances?

Mr. Alain Moyne-Bressand. Can you tell us how is coordination between the civilian intelligence services and yours, military in nature? We know that in the past, the relationship between the intelligence services have been marked by a certain rivalry. Does the new organization will allow you to work hand in hand, in the interests of safety and the Republic - which should be a priority?

Moreover, we know that the Islamist extremist terrorism is to watch with the greatest attention. How would you take to identify and track terrorist leaders in the theaters of Malian and Iraqi operations, consisting of desert and mountain areas very difficult to access?

General Christophe Gomart. DRM has actually designed to work on the theater of operations and monitor everything that is likely to pose a threat to the French armed forces, and she monitors what is happening in Libya and can threaten troops in Niger, Chad and Mali. We follow the terrorist leaders and individuals - AQIM component, for example - but not necessarily the channels which may be appropriate Directorate General for External Security (DGSE) and the Directorate General of Internal Security (ISB) - the latter being leader.

The role of the Interagency cell Hermes precisely to cross the information available to the different services each acting within its perimeter. And the National Directorate of Customs Intelligence and Investigation (DNRED) she follows all sectors, as TRACFIN (Intelligence Processing and Action against illegal financial circuits), which observes the flow of funds and possible closures accounts. The different services can communicate with each other through the Hermes cell, but also the national coordinator of intelligence, which includes department heads around it at least once a month so that they take stock of the threat status and display their concern. So there is coordination between the services, which is of an operational aspect of a share in respect Hermès for the Levant theater of operations, the other between the DGSE, DRM and the Special Operations Command ( COS) for monitoring the Sahel terrorists.

This cooperation is in association with the Americans, who provide us with the means of aerial surveillance - including drones - to monitor jihadists become more difficult to trace since they no longer use that rarely means of communication who once would allow us to locate them. Terrorists are back to the old methods - particularly that of the courier - and in telephony, using short-range devices, whose influence is limited to a few kilometers. These new practices greatly complicate the interception of communications, which does not preclude that certain actions are successful. Thus he was able COS neutralize a number of jihadist leaders.

In summary, there is good coordination between the different services, all of which have specific capabilities, depending on the tasks assigned to them.

Daniel boisserie. I want to know how is the cooperation between France and other Western European countries. You mentioned the difficulty of recruiting linguists and interpreters picture. Can you explain what is the role of interpreters images, and what is their training? As for linguists, what are the most popular languages, and those where you have the most difficulty in finding staff? Finally, do not you think that the sharing of personal exercising these functions could be deeper, especially regarding the DGSE?

Édith Gueugneau. DRM is part of the French intelligence system coordinated by the National Intelligence Council (CNR), including the establishment in 2008 enabled a better sharing of knowledge and information in respect of each of liability perimeters. What is your assessment of the creation of RSS? Today, France must adopt effective and modern means, while having strengthened safeguards and high definition of protection of our nation. How do you think the draft law on intelligence can he afford to go further deal with the terrorist threat in hyperconnectée society?

General Christophe Gomart. Cooperation with the countries of Western Europe is good. DRM participating in two forums, one regularly bringing together the NATO countries around various topics. I remember that in one of these forums, we tried to force our hand about Ukraine. This shows the importance of having concrete and factual information: from this point of view, France has the means to assess the situation and make his point of view.

Cooperation is also done in the framework of bilateral relations, that is to say, information exchange. France, usually very good in terms of Africa, is able to provide information on this region to its partners in exchange for other information about areas where she collects less. We share a lot with the Germans, the Americans, the British and Swiss.

An image interpreter is a person able to locate a satellite image of the elements that you and I would not see, whether a missile is erected or not, to highlight the presence of a helicopter on the aft deck of a ship and identify exactly what type of device it is, to distinguish between shell impacts and shrubs, where other only see black spots. The initial basic training lasts at least six months, and there are additional continuous training in order to perform analysis even faster and precise. The exercise of this feature requires a good knowledge of the enemy capabilities to distinguish between military equipment and those that are not, and to be able, for example, to draw conclusions about how certain canons are arranged.

To form a Chinese linguist, it takes three years; Russian or Arabic, two years. So we have a vested interest in retaining the personnel concerned once they are trained, as the length of their training is a significant investment. Of course, we strive to share these features with other intelligence services. If we currently require linguists fluent in Tamasheq - one of the languages ​​spoken in the Sahel - we do not know how long it will be useful to have such specialists, so we think about twice before bring in a personal that language training sector: it is better to use shared personnel. Also, when possible, we try to convert the linguists in a language that no longer has a major advantage for us and some of the many linguists we have trained Serbo-Croatian during the 1990s ont- they were transformed into the Russian specialists linguists. Similarly the crisis in Central Africa she has forced us to find people to talk Sango.

On this point, it seems to me, as leader of my counterparts from other services, which should engage a true reflection on the national level to determine if it would be possible to recruit in France Tamasheq speaking staff, Pashto or Dari - two languages ​​including Afghanistan - in exchange for the issuance of a long-term visa or the allocation of French nationality. One of the obstacles that we face in recruiting is that our service is not necessarily the one offering the best compensation - and I'm not even talking about the positions offered by the private sector.

General Christophe Gomart.