INTRODUCTION•xxvJIC’s independent analysts with the raw material that they skillfully
craft into their weekly assessments.
The Joint Intelligence Committee, at the apex of the intelligence pyr-
amid, consists of the directors of the four intelligence-producing agen-
cies, the consumers (being the senior civil servants from the Home
Office, Treasury, and Foreign Office), the chief of the Defence Staff and
the intelligence coordinator to the Cabinet. Chaired by a senior diplo-
mat, the JIC manages it own independent Assessment Staff, subdivided
into Current Intelligence Groups (CIGs) and organized on either a re-
gional or topical basis, assembles the relevant data, and drafts reports
for consideration at the weekly JIC meeting. Latin America, Africa, and
the Far East have their own geographic CIGs, and additional groups
will be formed to deal with particular events, such as a crisis in Kosovo,
Afghanistan, or Iraq. Created in 1936, the JIC provides a focus that
scrutinizes all the pieces of the intelligence jigsaw and sets objectives
for the agencies.
In the military intelligence (MI) establishment, the various MI de-
partments have corresponded to their Military Operations (MO) equiva-
lents, with the exception of MI5 and MI6 (MO5 is assigned to future
plans). Thus, MI1 is the department of the director of military intelli-
gence, and MI2 deals with Europe, MI3 with Germany, MI4 the Middle
East. MI8 is the designation of the Radio Security Service (RSS), MI9
the escape and evasion branch of SIS, and MI19 the Combined Services
Detailed Interrogation Centre (CSDIC). Within these branches are al-
phabetic subsections; for example, one of the little more obscure mili-
tary intelligence units, MI4(b), was responsible before World War II for
the preparation and printing of maps across the Middle East from Tur-
key to Aden.
In the modern world, the military intelligence establishment coexists
with the civilian agencies of MI5 and SIS, and until the reorganization
of the Ministry of Defence in 1964, when the Defence Intelligence Staff
was created by the amalgamation of the Naval Intelligence Division and
the Air Ministry’s air intelligence staff, was dominated by the Joint In-
telligence Bureau, the intelligence branch of the War Office. Since the
amalgamation, the DIS has been responsible for all armed services in-
telligence, and it manages its own analytical staff, which filters its prod-
uct to the JIC.
In the world of intelligence, the British version has always been