World: Watch on the Suez: Intelligence Gaps

IN a crowded briefing room in Tel Aviv, a lean Israeli colonel last week presented to the world what Israel considers proof of a major Egyptian cease-fire violation. The colonel's evidence came in the form of a series of large, fuzzy aerial photographs. To the untrained eye, the photos looked like little more than a jumble of black scratches and splotches on the desert sand. But to the Israeli military command, the pictures demonstrated that the Soviets and Egyptians had violated the truce as soon as it began at 1 a.m. on Aug. 8 by continuing to move SAM-2 antiaircraft missiles into the cease-fire zone. The photos were poor in quality, and had no reference as to when or where they were taken. "I admit you'll have to rely on my word of honor that the dates of the pictures are correct," said the colonel, who is an aide on the Israeli general staff.

The evidence was frankly not good enough for the U.S. intelligence community, which had been shown the pictures the week before. The resulting dispute stemmed in part from the substantial differences in the ways the U.S. and Israel gather and evaluate their intelligence. To monitor the Suez Canal front, the Israelis rely chiefly on high-speed passes by camera-carrying Phantoms during the daytime. At night, the mainstay of Israeli intelligence is a chain of electronic listening posts in the Sinai hills near the canal. But both these methods have glaring weaknesses: the Phantom pictures are often blurred, and the electronic sensors, which monitor Egyptian and Soviet radar and radio transmissions, frequently pick up ambiguous signals that are difficult to interpret. Furthermore, the Israeli listening devices can easily be spoofed by Egyptian and Soviet countermeasures.

The U.S. intelligence effort is considerably more sophisticated. Yet last week's flap uncovered some amazing faults. One reason that the U.S. was unable to refute or substantiate the Israeli claims was simply its tardiness in getting off the mark. Although the truce went into effect on Aug. 8, the U.S. was unable to get its U-2 reconnaissance planes over Suez until noon on Aug. 9. Then the pilot of the first U-2 botched the job, allowing the brilliant sunlight to get in the camera and render his photos useless. Thus the first worthwhile flight was not made until Monday, almost three days after the cease-fire began.

U.S. intelligence experts had urged the start of flights as early as ten days before the ceasefire, but disagreements over what aircraft to use and negotiations to secure the permission of allied governments in the area delayed them. British, Spanish and Turkish diplomats called to the State Department agreed that the U-2 would be a valuable pence-keeping device. But back in their capitals, the bureaucracies hemmed and hawed.

Another day was lost when Israeli Defense Minister Moshe Dayan, aware that his enemy was moving missiles toward the canal, unexpectedly called for the truce to start 24 hours earlier than scheduled, hoping to stop the missiles in their tracks. The upshot was that at the crucial moment when the truce began, the U.S. had no immediate "before and after" shots to test the veracity of the Israeli claims that the Egyptians had deployed SAMs at six to 15 sites in the cease-fire zone after the truce went into effect.