Repères 30/08/06 - Suspicions, accusations : La guerre de l'information des néocons contre la FINUL

What did you do in the war, UNIFIL?
Weekly Standard 04/09/06

"DURING THE RECENT month-long war between Hezbollah and Israel, U.N. "peacekeeping" forces made a startling contribution: They openly published daily real-time intelligence, of obvious usefulness to Hezbollah, on the location, equipment, and force structure of Israeli troops in Lebanon.

UNIFIL--the United Nations Interim Force in Lebanon, a nearly 2,000-man blue-helmet contingent that has been present on the Lebanon-Israel border since 1978--is officially neutral. Yet, throughout the recent war, it posted on its website for all to see precise information about the movements of Israeli Defense Forces soldiers and the nature of their weaponry and materiel, even specifying the placement of IDF safety structures within hours of their construction. New information was sometimes only 30 minutes old when it was posted, and never more than 24 hours old.

Meanwhile, UNIFIL posted not a single item of specific intelligence regarding Hezbollah forces. Statements on the order of Hezbollah "fired rockets in large numbers from various locations" and Hezbollah's rockets "were fired in significantly larger numbers from various locations" are as precise as its coverage of the other side ever got.

This war was fought on cable television and the Internet, and a lot of official information was available in real time. But the specific military intelligence UNIFIL posted could not be had from any non-U.N. source. The Israeli press--always eager to push the envelope--did not publish the details of troop movements and logistics. Neither the European press nor the rest of the world media, though hardly bastions of concern for the safety of Israeli troops, provided the IDF intelligence details that UNIFIL did. A search of Israeli government websites failed to turn up the details published to the world each day by the U.N.

Inquiries made of various Israeli military and government representatives and analysts yielded near unanimous agreement that at least some of UNIFIL's postings, in the words of one retired senior military analyst, "could have exposed Israeli soldiers to grave danger." These analysts, including a current high ranking military official, noted that the same intelligence would not have been provided by the U.N. about Israel's enemies..."


European Lebanon Force Is Cast as Shield for Iranian-Hizballah Military Buildup
Debka 25/08/06

"Whereas Israel initially conceived of a multinational force as a guarantee of its border security against terrorist attack and a boost for the Lebanese army to displace Hizballah, the European governments contributing contingents to this force have their own ideas – and interests.

Less than two weeks into the UN-brokered ceasefire, the swiftly-evolving situation in Lebanon is casting the international force in the role of protector and shield for the rapid buildup of a new, beefed up Iranian-Hizballah military deployment in Lebanon up to the Israeli border.

The force dubbed by Kofi Annan UNIFIL-2 has no operational plan to enforce the UN arms embargo which would entail stemming the heavy flow of Iranian arms shipments entering Lebanon day by day along two Syrian tracks..."