Being appointed coordinator of all intelligence activities in the days after the Bali bombing, head of the National Intelligence Agency (BIN), Hendropriyono, has found himself at war not only with terrorism but also the police.
BIN spokesman Muchyar Yara opened the bidding, apparently under the impression he now had strong authority, by stating within a few days of the bombing that an arrest could be expected soon.
He praised the work of the BIN investigative team led by Maj. Gen. Muchdie P.R., who he said was hot on the trail of the perpetrators.
"We are monitoring them and will act soon. This shows that BIN can do its job. Even before Bali, we had told the others about terrorists, but they disregarded the information," he said.
Deputy head of public relations for the national police, Edward Aritonang, denied that BIN had shared information. "I've received no information from BIN. We don't have any suspects in mind yet," he said.
Aritonang said police investigators were sifting clues found at the scene of the blasts, and relying on their own intelligence efforts.
The force has its own intelligence division, the Directorate of Intelligence and Security Affairs (Dit Intelpam), an organization which is placed under the Deputy for Operations.
Its function has potential to overlap with the intelligence operations conducted by BIN or the military intelligence agency (BIA). Intelpam's function covers investigation, counter-intelligence and support/covert operations in the context of carrying out preventive and repressive police operational duties including defense and security operational duties allocated to the police.
While the police were still integrated into the Armed Forces, police intelligence officers were involved in a number of highly political cases, since the definition of the term "criminal activities" was in the hands of the military authorities.
In the post-Suharto era, BIN is supposed to be a civilian-type intelligence organ focusing its activities on intelligence gathering, information and analysis. But when President Megawati Sukarnoputri appointed former Jakarta regional military commander Hendropriyono as her intelligence chief, BIN was destined to remain very much influenced by the military mind and to act like combat intelligence.
This has at times led BIN to become involved in overt operations, losing the elements of secrecy and surprise that covert work might have achieved.
BIN's reputation fell when it disclosed that terrorists were training in a camp in Poso, Central Sulawesi. BIN stated that al Qaeda fighters were being trained there.
This allegation emerged originally in testimony given to a Spanish judge by eight al Qaeda activists. They claimed 200-300 fighters had trained in Poso and mentioned an Indonesian, Parlindungan Siregar, as a pivotal figure.
The claims were taken up by Hendropriyono, who stated publicly in mid-December 2001 that his officers had found evidence of foreigners training near Poso. By making a public announcement, Hendro was seen to have blundered.
"When he received the information regarding terrorist activities in Poso, what he should have done was to conduct a silent operation to root out the terrorist suspects," says one analyst. "Announcing the existence of terrorists in Poso only warned them that their presence had been exposed. Thus they decided to escape immediately."
Worse still, Hendropriyono's public warning on terrorist training in Poso was denied by senior Indonesian police and military officials, who said that, while there were certainly Indonesian paramilitary training bases in Poso, they had no evidence of outsiders training there.
The obvious lack of respect between BIN and the police intelligence is just part of the story that suggests that BIN is unable to act decisively as the peak intelligence organ in the fight against terrorism.
The personal record of Hendropriyono does not endear him to human rights activists, creating yet another source of friction.
Apart from bungling the issue of al Qaeda bases in Poso and arousing controversy over his role in the arrest of Indonesians Tamsil, Balfas and Dwikarna in the Philippine, Hendropriyono was also involved in the massacre of more than a hundred Muslim villagers in Talangsari, Lampung, in 1989. Many more were imprisoned.
At that time commander of the Garuda Hitam batallion, the crackdown on members of the Warsidi sect was a typical Suharto-era response to extremist Islam: stop it in its tracks. To this day, Hendropriyono remains dogged by demands for justice from the relatives of some who died or were imprisoned.
He has attracted adverse press attention over his extensive business interests and his name has been mentioned as being involved in the killing of Papuan leader Theys Eluay.
The record of BIN itself is little better. It has been publicly ridiculed for its inaccurate and often politically loaded reporting. In early 2002, it was derided by ministers and senior politicians when it emerged that BIN had written separate and contradictory reports on the economy for cabinet ministers and a parliamentary committee.
BIN also prepared an error-filled briefing for parliament's Foreign Affairs and Security Commission prior to John Howard's visit to Indonesia in February. Among other things, it alleged that Australia's Lt. Gen. Peter Cosgrove had written an autobiography denigrating Indonesia's role in East Timor. It also asserted that the Howard government had formed a secret twelve-person committee to engineer Papua's secession from Indonesia.
Referring to BIN's unreliable reports, the police rebuttals of spokesman Muchyar Yara's claims to prior information on the Bali bombing has strengthened the assessment made earlier by Vice President Hamzah Haz: BIN is no action, talk only (NATO).