Truth or folly?
The Military Intelligence Services (WSI) report on the liquidated services' wrongdoings was presented early last week and, as expected, picked the organization to pieces. "The WSI were a threat to democracy," claims President Lech Kaczyński.
The report, prepared by Deputy Minister of Defense Antoni Macierewicz, stated that the WSI "were engaged in various aspects of public life in which they shouldn't have been present." The services, made up of officers trained in the Soviet Union, were accused of influencing the media by recruiting journalists and editors of TV stations in order to influence public opinion. The report also claims that the WSI infiltrated political circles in the early 1990s. Among the parties most heavily targeted by the agents was the Kaczyński brothers' Center Agreement (PC).
The report lists agents trained in the Soviet Union as well as dozens of secret collaborators involved in illegal activities. The document also lists hundreds of names of officers working for the WSI even up to 2006. The current Ambassadors to Kuwait, Austria and China, as well as more than a dozen military attachés are on either the list of collaborators or the list of WSI officers.
Macierewicz has been heavily criticised for publishing the names. "We are the first country in history to give such a gift to foreign services," said Civic Platform's (PO) Paweł Gra from the Sejm's secret-services commission. PO has proposed an inquiry to investigate any breaches of the law made by the authors of the WSI report.
The ruling PiS views the criticism as a "defense of the WSI," as the Prime Minister put it. "We will fend off this counter-attack," declared Jarosław Kaczyński.
