Doc. 11302 Report 169. The WSI was formally accountable to the Minister of Defence, but our sources describe it as having operated more as a kind of “cartel” serving the self-interests of particular elite groups. I find it especially interesting that Poles we spoke to regard the processes of military intelligence reform143as smoke-screens aimed at obstructing transparency and preserving corrupt access to state resources.144There is no doubt that the WSI is an agency quite accustomed to covert action that challenges the boundaries of legality and morality. 170. From our interviews with current and former Polish military intelligence officials, we have established that the WSI’s role in the HVD programme comprised two levels of co-operation. On the first level, military intelligence officers provided extraordinary levels of physical security by setting up temporary or permanent military-style “buffer zones” around the CIA’s detainee transfer and interrogation activities. This approach was deployed most notably to protect the CIA’s movements to and from, as well as its activities within, the military training base at Stare Kiejkuty. Classified documents, the existence of which was made known to our team, describe how WSI agents performed these security roles under the guise of a Polish army unit (Jednostka Wojskowa) denoted by the code JW-2669, which was the formal occupant of the Stare Kiejkuty facility.145 171. On the second level, the WSI’s assistance depended to a large extent on its covert penetration of other state and parastatal institutions through its collaboration with undercover “functionaries” in their ranks. Our sources have indicated to us that WSI collaborators were present within institutions including: the Polish Air Navigation Services Agency (Polska Agencja Zeglugi Powietrznej), where they assisted in disguising the existence and exact movements of incoming CIA flights;146the Polish Border Guard (Straz Graniczna), where they ensured that normal procedures for incoming foreign passengers were not strictly applied when those CIA flights landed; and the national Customs Office (G/lówny Urzad Celny), where they resolved irregularities in the non-payment of fees related to CIA operations. Thus the military intelligence partnership brought with it influence throughout a society-wide “undercover community”,147none of which was checked by the conventional civilian oversight mechanisms. 172. When asked to give an example of a WSI collaborator who occupied an important position in the operation of the CIA’s covert programme, several Polish sources named Mr Jerzy Kos, former Chairman of the Board of Mazury-Szczytno Airport Company (Porty Lotnicze Mazury Szczytno) and Director of Szymany 143. Reform of the military intelligence services in Poland has been a contentious issue since the early 1990s, and a topical one throughout my mandate as rapporteur. Prior attempts at regulating the WSI appear to have been half-hearted, at best. From its creation in August 1991 to December 1995 it operated exclusively under secret military orders; then until July 2003 it came under the nominal control of the Ministry of Defence, but without close legal oversight. Even the Law on the Military Secret Services passed by parliament on 9 July 2003 contained no external verification procedures. Since late 2005, at the instruction of Prime Minister Jaroslaw Kaczynski, the WSI has been gradually dissolved and replaced by a restructured military counter-intelligence unit. Deputy Defence Minister Antoni Macierewicz, who heads the new unit, published a report on the dissolution in February 2007, but the process appears to have done little to assuage public scepticism or criticism. For analysis of the report and reactions to it, see, inter alia, Joanna Najfeld, “Polish Military Intelligence Involved in Illegal Activities”, Network Europe, 23 February 2007, available at involved-in-illegal-activities. 144. See also Zybertowicz, “The Role of the Polish Intelligence Services”, supra note 139, at pp. 6-7. The author lists what he sees as the objects of “self-reform” in the WSI, including “to prevent outsiders – including democratically established control and oversight bodies – from obtaining thorough access to the services”, “to present the WSI as a useful ally to the NATO authorities”, and to retain an “upper hand in economic institutional rearrangements, including key financial flows and major privatisation schemes”. 145. One of the few means of verifying – through independent public sources – the fact that JW-2669 was stationed at Stare Kiejkuty during this period is through photogrammetric studies of activity on the Internet servers by users with particular “net-names”. In outputs from such studies, inter alia, of 23 October 2003, the “net-name” JW-2669 is registered as being assigned to “Jednostka Wojskowa 2669, Stare Kiejkuty”. 146. For more information on the means used to cover up CIA flights into Poland, see Section III.iii below, entitled “The anatomy of CIA secret transfers and detentions in Poland”. 147. As in many former communist countries, the secret services in Poland are accustomed to using networks of operatives and informants that span many of the most important institutions of the state, as well as the private sector. These networks comprise what is known as the “undercover community”. For a description of this “crucial notion” in Poland, which the author refers to as “the security complex”, see Zybertowicz, “The Role of the Polish Intelligence Services”, supra note 139, at pp. 4-5. 35