The publication of the reports and communications on the situation in Ceuta left mixed feelings in the PSOE. Party officials and leaders expressed their surprise upon learning their content, since it was confirmed that the CNI warned the Government and Morocco the previous day of massive calls to enter Ceuta. The majority impression that there was within the party after reading the documentation and the practically generalized interpretation of them was the following: "We have shot ourselves in the foot", alluding to the fact that they believe that the known information strains the version maintained by La Moncloa.
The officials and leaders consulted believe that what happened is that there was a miscalibration of the situation, because, it is their deduction after reading, clues to know that a massive entry could occur do believe they existed. "I was warned and the threat described in the reports was not given the relevance."
The feeling for many in the PSOE is that the priority now in the party and the Government is to try to shield a story that has been maintained since the massive entry took place on July 30 and 31: no one foresaw what happened. Thesis in which they stand.
In fact, Pedro Sánchez himself, just a few hours before the publication of the documents, already knowing the content of all of them, outlined the line to follow in an interview on TVE: "The situation reports that were made by everyone, without detracting from their professionalism, of course, did not at all foresee a massive arrival of so many migrants." A story that has been questioned by the Minister of Defense, Margarita Robles, to whom the CNI depends, who in her interventions has stated that the "Intelligence services did do their job well." From the first moment, Defense showed their absolute willingness to declassify and publish all the CNI reports so that the chronology of the events was known.
La Moncloa's position is not only a strategy to shield its message, but it is also one more notch in the internal war within the Government due to the Ceuta crisis between the Interior (Marlaska) and Defense (Robles). Fernando Grande-Marlaska has always maintained that no one warned of the magnitude and that no one conveyed to him the magnitude of what finally happened. Moncloa supports that version.
"I am not aware that there was any report that could foresee the magnitude of what happened on July 30," reiterated yesterday the Minister of Foreign Affairs, José Manuel Albares, visiting Brussels where he held meetings with community commissioners, including the Minister of the Interior and Migration, Magnus Brunner.
Another aspect of this crisis is the questioning that is taking place by the Government itself of the work of the CNI. The focus is on the secret services, in charge of national security. Transcendental matter. To begin with, Sánchez focuses on his performance, ensuring that it is necessary "to have Intelligence that is sufficiently sophisticated so that we can see in the digital world how these important movements can occur, as occurred on July 30 and 31. It is one of the elements that we have to improve.
In La Moncloa they consider that the performance of the CNI in this crisis has not been entirely correct, because it limited itself to sending a message "to a minor position" on July 29 - that position was a member of the cabinet of the Government Delegation - and "at no time did the CNI send a formal notice or alert to its chain of command or to any member of the Executive by any means." That message is part of a conversation in which they warn of a "call for assault by fence and sea" on social networks, in two groups "with a total of 180,000 followers." The Government delegate in Ceuta, Miguel Ángel Pérez Triano, said yesterday that he was not aware of that conversation or the call that occurred on July 29 at 9:34 p.m. between CNI and the Delegation cabinet.
The strategy of shining a spotlight on the Intelligence services is not understood by many in the PSOE. «Why this obsession that it seems that what has failed is Spanish Intelligence? "It is not completely understood," more than one wonders. "It is as serious that Intelligence fails as it is that the response device fails," says a leader.
«At no time did the CNI send a formal notice or alert to its chain of command or to any member of the Executive by any means. An organization that believes that a massive entry will occur the next day does not limit itself to sending an ambiguous WhatsApp to a minor position: it raises it. That is their responsibility and their competence," they say in the Executive.
