30 AMERICAN SPYMy Bosnian security service colleagues worked night and day in stressful
wartime conditions. They prowled around the office like caged animals,
desperately attempting to gather intelligence and counterintelligence on
the encroaching BSA. Dressed in camouflage fatigues, they smoked foul-
smelling Balkan cigarettes at all hours, as did their Serb and Croat enemies
in other parts of the country.
As the new Croatian security service had done a few years earlier, the
Bosnians pleaded with me to relay to Washington their request for US
military intervention. Their arguments were compelling, but my job was
to obtain as much intelligence as possible, without promising any action
in return. At the same time, following headquarters’ guidance, I always
held out the possibility that eventually the United States might intervene
militarily on the side of the Bosnians. Ironically, I found myself in a similar
position when discussing “guaranteed US noninvolvement” with Ibrahim
Rugova and the Kosovo democratic leadership in the early 1990s.
During my meetings I also attempted to learn more about the growing
Iranian presence in Bosnia. After the war started in 1992, the Iranian gov-
ernment moved in to fill the vacuum left by the West’s inaction and, with
the collaboration of the Clinton administration, provide military support
to the dying Bosnians.
Through my recent work with the head of the new Croatian secu-
rity service, I knew that the White House was facilitating Iran’s illegal
arms shipments to Bosnia. Details of this shocking revelation are covered
in chapter 2. In the Bosnians’ view, America stood by and allowed the
slaughter of innocents, whereas Iran provided real life-saving assistance.
Against this backdrop, it is easy to understand why the Bosnians made
it clear to me that they considered the Iranians to be close allies. By the
time I showed up in Sarajevo in July 1995, the war had been raging for
three years. The Iranians were dug in, thanks in part to the secret influ-
ence of the White House. My Bosnian colleagues refused to discuss Iran’s
role in Bosnia with me, other than to say Iran was welcome there. Soviet-
made cars bearing symbols of Iranian private relief organizations were
omnipresent, and some were involved in conducting harassing surveillance
of official US government vehicles. The Iranians considered Bosnia to be
their “backyard,” and the few Americans present were not welcome.
Besides Iran, so-called muj influence in Sarajevo was palpable. Foreign