And in a startling expression of official British policy, Dame Eliza-Manningham-Buller, the director general of MI5, the British domestic security service, also made very clear she was opposed to indiscriminate increased intelligence sharing with all other members of the 25-nation European Union.

The European Commission in Brussels has been pushing hard for all members of the 450-million population EU to step up intelligence sharing to combat both terrorism and organized crime.

But Manningham-Buller made clear she rejected this broad approach to intelligence sharing, even if it brought Britain into conflict with the EU overall.

"There can be no coercion to share intelligence. ... If we splash it (intelligence) around carelessly we shall soon have none of it," she said in her speech delivered Sept. 1 in the Netherlands at the 60th anniversary of the AIVD, the Dutch security service.

"So I could never agree to a compulsory exchange of intelligence as that would risk compromising valuable sources of intelligence. There would soon be little to exchange."

Manningham-Buller's comments reflect conflicts both old and new between the British intelligence and security services and other agencies in Europe's secret world.

The French, German and other Western European security and intelligence services have long envied Britain's full access to and full participation in Echelon, the long-established elint, or electronic intelligence sharing agreement between Britain's General Communications Headquarters (GCHQ) in Cheltenham and America's giant National Security Agency (NSA) in Fort Meade, Md. President George W. Bush recently approved Australia being granted the same full access as Britain to the NSA's "crown jewels."

Manningham-Buller's speech, therefore, reaffirms in no uncertain terms that in intelligence cooperation, if Britain has to choose between its traditional partnership with the United States, and the EC's ambitious plans to boost Euro-intelligence sharing, the United States will win hands down.

But Manningham-Buller also made clear that she was not opposed at all to intelligence sharing with major, efficient and responsible European security services like the French or the German. Many planned terrorist attacks, she acknowledged, had already been "thwarted by good intelligence and police work, and through international cooperation. These successes have usually been quiet ones."

And her choice of the AIVD anniversary celebration to make her speech also signaled very clearly that British ministers and security chiefs regard the Netherlands service as part of Europe's "first division" intelligence agencies as well.

But that is not the case for all of Europe's security services by any means, particularly the ones in former Warsaw Pact nations in Central Europe. British intelligence sources have told UPI they are especially concerned about the security of the Czech intelligence service following recent newspaper revelations in Prague that seasoned veterans of the old Soviet-era Czechoslovak secret service had been allowed to stay on and rise to high positions in today's agency.

"To some (preventing the compulsory disclosure of intelligence) presents a real dilemma," Manningham-Buller said. "To me, it's part of the normal conduct of business, making sure intelligence gets to the right places and is used while sources are protected."

"Intelligence is also fragile," the MI5 chief said. "It comes from human sources who risk their lives and whom we have a high moral duty to protect and from the technologies whose effectiveness can be countered by skilled opponents.

Far from trying to keep her comments under wraps, MI5 went to unprecedented lengths to publicize them. The entire speech was published on line on the security service's web site.

Manningham-Buller also got headlines and raised hackles with her frank warning that civil liberties would have to be further curtailed to protect the public against the growing threat from Islamist and other forms of international terror.

"This is a central dilemma, how to protect our citizens within the rule of law when intelligence does not amount to clear cut evidence and when it is fragile," she said "... But the world has changed and there needs to be a debate on whether some erosion of what we all value may be necessary to improve the chances of our citizens not being blown apart as they go about their daily lives."

Manningham-Buller's speech was remarkable on several accounts. Clearly, she had received the full approval of Prime Minister Tony Blair before making it, let alone ensuring that it was deliberately publicized.

While Blair took office with a reputation as a Europhile who wanted to expand Britain's role in the EU, he has focused during his eight years in power on expanding the "Special Relationship" with the United States to its strongest level in decades.

Her comments, therefore, reflect Blair's own determination to preserve Echelon and not to put British intelligence secrets at the mercy of small, inexperienced European security services, not to mention those that may have been compromised or heavily penetrated by potentially hostile powers, or by organized crime or terror groups.

And her warnings that some civil liberties may have to be curtailed, coming from a non-political, professional security chief, will help Blair and his government create the political climate they need to push through and maintain public support for anticipated new anti-terror legislation.

Also, it underlined the radical change in public policy that the British government has followed in recent years about its domestic security service. For generations, MI5 operated in the shadows, with the cooperation of newspaper editors and the old D-notice system assuring that the details of its operations were never brought to public view.

But in recent years, the head of MI5 in particular has become a media super-star, and the chief advocate for the performance and requirements of his or her own service. Manningham-Buller's Netherlands speech left no doubts about her willingness to perform that role.

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