NIS intelligence leakage severe, resulting in lack of intelligence

International Crisis Group, the non-profit, non-governmental organization committed to preventing deadly conflict and security analysis, has pointed out that Korean intelligence organizations’ leakage of confidential information and intervention in politics is a chronic pathology. Also raised was a concern that this could disrupt Korean intelligence institutes’ sharing international information.

Dr. Daniel Pinkston, who is a Korean Peninsula security expert and ICG Seoul representative, said thus in a report on “pathological” risks inside Korean intelligence organizations, which was compiled from interviews of current/former government and military officials and civilian experts in Korea and relevant nations for one year.

The report, some 50 pages long, presented the Korean intelligence organizations’ pathologies into “intelligence failure,” “intelligence politicization,” and intervention by the intelligence services in the domestic politics of the nation. Dr. Pinkston raised as specific cases the exposure of unusual trends related to North Korean leader`s uncle Jang Song Thaek to manipulate public sentiment by the South’s National Intelligence Service (NIS), which was in a political corner late last year.

He said this could have resulted in losses of Humint, or human intelligence assets, which provided this information. He added that the Army Cyber Warfare Command was embroiled along with the NIS in Internet comments manipulation, which allegedly intervened in the 2012 presidential election, damaged national security by disclosing confidential plans in order to soften public sentiment. The report also said that former NIS director Won Sei-hoon was a non-expert who lacked the ability to take control over the organization, and pointed out that he irresponsibly claimed that the North Korean regime would soon collapse, which was not based on concrete evidence. Dr. Pinkston said Monday that due to such pathologies in intelligence services, he had heard from relevant intelligence officials that top-notch North Korea-related information is not shared with South Korea.

The ICG is an NGO headquartered in Brussels and has presence in some 30 nations around the globe. On its board are former Swiss President Micheline Calmy-Rey, former U.S. Undersecretary of State Thomas R. Pickering, and global financial market mover Quantum Fund Chairman George Soros.