“Stuff happens in Belgium. From the inside, it is chaos, to the point that a tooled-up anti-lockdown terrorist nicknamed ‘Belgian Rambo’ roaming the woods seems par for the course. In Belgium responsibility is shared between so many layers that ultimately no one is in charge.”

The Economist (July 2021)

July 7 2021 — The Belgian Intelligence Oversight Committee has reviewed the work of the two intelligence services. Their report reads like a book of blunders. Follow us on Twitter: @INTEL_TODAY

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“In a society with ever more and more complex threats, there is a need for a strong intelligence service. We are going to seriously invest in the security of the state. The challenges we face, and the threats to our country, are very great.”

Belgian justice minister Vincent Van Quickenborne (June 2021)

In the aftermath of the 2016 Brussels terrorist attacks, the Belgian Intelligence Oversight Committee made a series of urgent recommendations.

Last month, the Committee has looked again at the work performed by these agencies.

They concluded that nothing has been done. If anything, the current situation is worse than 5 years ago.

The main conclusions:

There is a structural staff shortage — One person working on right-wing extremism, no one working on Chinese espionage….

There is a large staff turnover — As a result, institutional knowledge and experience are about nil

The threats, when identified, are not followed up.

There is no information flow between the security services and with the government

There is no strategy

“Als de ene blinde de andere leidt, vallen ze beiden in de gracht.”

[“When one blind man leads another, they both fall into the ditch.”]

Dutch proverb

The few people who have read the report are not mincing their words….

These people are incompetent. They are simply unable to do their work. They have committed grave mistakes. And they use National Security as an excuse to hide their incompetence. More often than not, they lie to their oversight Committee. They must be prosecuted for their crimes. Heads must roll…

A few people go even further and suggest that the Belgian Military Intel Service should be disbanded.

On Monday, Defence Minister Ludivine Dedonder announced a new action plan aimed at reviewing the functioning of Belgium’s military secret service.

Do not worry. This is Belgium. A few weeks from now, all of this will be forgotten. Move on. There is nothing to see around here….

A rare glimpse at the TRUTH

When people get mad, they sometimes speak a bit to much…

As I have explained long ago, it is very clear that both the Paris and Brussels attacks would not have occurred if some Belgian politicians had not moved Heaven and Earth to obtain the release of Oussama Atar from an Iraqi jail.

RELATED POST: Paris & Brussels Attacks — Q&A About Oussama Atar in the Belgian Parliament (UPDATE)

During an interview yesterday morning, George Dallemagne — who was a member of the committee that investigated the Belgian Intel services after the 2016 Brussels attacks — made the following comment.

“The Belgian Intelligence services had some information about Oussama Atar, and that information was ignored.”

The readers familiar with this blog will hardly be surprised. I have repeatedly argued that Atar was working for the Belgian Intelligence services, probably at the request of the CIA.

This extremely important comment has now been edited out, as you would have expected.

“We will evolve from the position of a Lilliputian service to a service that can meet the challenges it faces.” 

Jaak Raes — Head of State Security (June 2021)

REFERENCES

Report slams the role of the Military Intelligence Service in the Jürgen Conings case — NWS

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Brussels — Report : “Intelligence Agencies are dysfunctional”