Last updated 10:12, Thursday, 19 June 2008

The corps is regarded as the 'brains' of the army and processes data that commanders in the battlefield use to make tactical decisions.

It predicts what the enemy is going to do and safeguards UK secrets to stop the enemy from being able to predict what our troops are going to do.

The core disciplines are operational intelligence and counter intelligence.

Operational Intelligence involves gathering information and then analysing and interpreting what it contains. An example is the Intelligence Preparation of the Battlefield, which answers vital questions such as where, when, how and why an enemy is likely to attack.

Counter Intelligence is the identification of and protection against enemy intelligence operations such as espionage, sabotage, subversion or terrorism. It covers two main areas: security intelligence and protective security.

Security intelligence finds out the identity, capability and intentions of enemies. Protective security is the systematic implementation of physical and personal defensive measures and could involve examination sites of national importance, such as power stations and government buildings.

Supporting the core disciplines are specialist areas that employ specific skills and equipment - human intelligence, signals intelligence, electronic warfare and imagery intelligence.