The CIA declined comment on Alliance Base, as did a spokesman for the French Embassy in Washington.
Most French officials and other intelligence veterans would talk about the partnership only if their names were withheld because the specifics are classified and the politics are sensitive. John E. McLaughlin, the former acting CIA director who retired recently after a 32-year career, described the relationship between the CIA and its French counterparts as “one of the best in the world. What they are willing to contribute is extraordinarily valuable.”
The rarely discussed Langley-Paris connection also belies the public portrayal of acrimony between the two countries that erupted over the invasion of Iraq. Within the Bush administration, the discord was amplified by Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld, who has claimed the lead role in the administration’s “global war on terrorism” and has sought to give the military more of a role in it.
But even as Rumsfeld was criticizing France in early 2003 for not doing its share in fighting terrorism, his U.S. Special Operations Command was finalizing a secret arrangement to put 200 French special forces under U.S command in Afghanistan. Beginning in July 2003, its commanders have worked side by side there with U.S. commanders and CIA and National Security Agency representatives.
Organizing Alliance Base
Alliance Base, headed by a French general assigned to France’s equivalent of the CIA — the General Directorate for External Security (DGSE) — was described by six U.S. and foreign intelligence specialists with involvement in its activities. The base is unique in the world because it is multinational and actually plans operations instead of sharing information among countries, they said. It has case officers from Britain, France, Germany, Canada, Australia and the United States.
The Ganczarski operation was one of at least 12 major cases the base worked on during its first years, according to one person familiar with its operations.
“It’s really an effort to come up with innovative ideas and deal with some of the cooperation issues,” said one CIA officer familiar with the base. “I don’t know of anything like it.”
Factions within the intelligence services of several countries opposed a multinational approach, according to current and former U.S. and European government officials who described its inception. The CIA’s Counterterrorist Center did not want to lose control over all counterterrorism operations; the British service did not want to dilute its unique ties to Washington; Germany was not keen to become involved in more operations.
And no country wanted to be perceived as taking direction from the CIA, whose practice of extraordinary renditions — secretly apprehending suspected terrorists and transferring them to other countries without any judicial review — has become highly controversial in Europe. In Italy, 13 alleged CIA operatives are accused of kidnapping a radical Egyptian cleric off the streets of Milan in 2003.
To play down the U.S. role, the center’s working language is French, sources said. The base selects its cases carefully, chooses a lead country for each operation, and that country’s service runs the operation.
