7. Secret Intelligence Service (SIS, MI6)
Country: United Kingdom
Secret Intelligence Service (SIS) is better known under its Word War II name of Military Intelligence, Section 6 or MI6 for short. It is the oldest intelligence agency on our list, with lineage tracing back to 1909 and the Secret Service Bureau, founded jointly by the Admiralty and the War Office to keep tabs on the growing might of the Imperial Germany. Its existence wasn’t formally recognized by the British government until 1994. The agency was heavily hit in the late 1940s and early 1950s by the activities of the Cambridge Spy Ring, although it managed to recover and deal some heavy block to its Warsaw Pact counterparts. Recently, it came under fire for its involvement in Iraqi War, namely because of alleged accusations of planting false stories about Saddam Hussein’s WMD program in media.
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