hankyoreh

By Lee Tae-hee, Staff Writer

It was confirmed Wednesday that National Intelligence Service director Won Sei-hoon drastically reduced his organization's North Korea exchange and intelligence functions just after taking office in February 2009.

Among his actions was the elimination of a North Korea strategy bureau under the service's third deputy director. Won's decisions are being pointed to by observers as a main factor behind the weakening of the human intelligence network that once played a pivotal role in gathering North Korean intelligence.

A source familiar with NIS’s situation said Wednesday that Won dismantled the North Korea strategy section under the third deputy director immediately upon taking office.

"This was the section that handled inter-Korean talks, undisclosed meetings between the Koreas, and exchange and cooperation, and he got rid of it," the source said.

The source said the section had over 200 officials with many years of experience with North Korean issues. "Most working-level officials were transferred to the domestic section, while most of the senior-level members left the service," the source explained.

“The human intelligence system was destroyed just before Lee administration took office as the officials concerned were considered as an anti-Lee faction,” said ruling Grand National Party Lawmaker Chung Doo-un in a Twitter post on Wednesday. “A number of stupid cases like this took place where very precious assets of the country were eliminated due to simple slander.”

An opposition party figure who served on the Intelligence Committee for the 17th National Assembly said that just after the Lee Myung-bak administration took office, the NIS summoned around 50 "whites," or NIS-affiliated diplomatic officials registered in countries overseas, and transferred them to domestic duties.

"These were people who handled North Korean affairs in their locale. As a result, our North Korean intelligence was greatly weakened in the process," the figure said.

The same figure recalled former NIS chief Kim Man-bok as saying during the last National Assembly that "90% of all intelligence at intelligence agencies conforms to the wishes of the consumer."

"If Kim Man-bok produced intelligence according to the wishes of President Roh Moo-hyun, then the current intelligence system has been retooled to suit the desires of President Lee Myung-bak," the figure said, indicating that Lee's focus on domestic politics rather than on North Korea has led the NIS to focus more on gathering domestic intelligence than North Korean intelligence.

The figure also said agencies ranging from the NIS and Defense Security Command to prosecutors and police began buying large amounts of surveillance equipment at tremendous cost in 2008. The equipment, which included devices for Internet "packet eavesdropping" and e-mail surveillance, was brought in for the purposes of "ushering in an era of scientific intelligence."

"The fact that holes appeared in our North Korean intelligence network despite this investment has to be attributed to the use of this surveillance equipment for domestic affairs," the figure said.

Won himself acknowledged the collapse of the network for human intelligence in North Korea while speaking at the National Assembly. At a meeting of the Intelligence Committee on Tuesday, he said that "our intelligence comes from analyzing and detecting technical intelligence, not information leaking from the North Korean government," a number of lawmakers on the committee reported.

Meanwhile, a member of the Grand National Party blamed the collapse of the human intelligence network on the Kim Dae-jung and Roh Moo-hyun administrations. In a KBS radio interview Wednesday, GNP lawmaker Yoon Sang-hyun said the network "collapsed completely during the Roh Moo-hyun and Kim Dae-jung administrations and was never fully restored."

In response, Democratic Party secretary Choi Jae-sung said, "Given that it's impossible to have people living permanently in a closed society like North Korea to gather intelligence, human intelligence can only be gathered when it's easy to come and go there."

"The reason the human intelligence network collapsed is because not only dialogue between the North and South Korean governments but civilian dialogue as well has been completely severed under the Lee Myung-bak administration," Choi argued.

Many observers commented on the lack of intelligence specialists among the NIS leadership. Won, a former public servant with Seoul City Hall, is a layman in the intelligence field. With the latest controversy coming on the heels of a June 2010 incident when the identity of an NIS agent working as an employee at the North Korean embassy in Libya was leaked and the furor in February of this year when NIS agents were caught breaking into the hotel room of a visiting Indonesian delegation, a number of observers are saying the country's intelligence agencies have undergone a fundamental collapse.

Please direct questions or comments to [englishhani@hani.co.kr]