Critics of the military methods say the name 'military intelligence' is an oxymoron, putting together terms that seemingly contain opposite meanings. However their opponents would argue that this is an unfair statement given that the critics are only using the word 'intelligence' in its literal sense. Oxymoron or no oxymoron, what is true is that the Directorate of Intelligence and Security drew a lot of its staff from a Botswana Defence Force unit called the Military Intelligence.
The MI or 'the company' as its officers call it, formed the core of the DIS for various reasons. One, is that given that the DIS is an intelligence organ, it made sense to the founders to draw officers who already had experience in intelligence work. Secondly, since the MI and Commando units are elite forces, it was possible to assume that the DIS possessed the best men there were to offer from the BDF. So, within the BDF, the officers who would make the core of the DIS were drawn from the MI and some elements from the Commando unit. Most importantly, most officers had been either in MI or Commando or both. For example Isaac Kgosi, the Director, is a former commander of the Military Intelligence unit, where he was deputised by Peter Magosi. Magosi, who is the current head of Military Intelligence, was once in Commando before moving into MI. Not many officers from outside these two units found themselves in important positions within the DIS. But the other major trait of these officers, such as Kgosi and Magosi is that they are really Khama's men. Some argue that the closeness between the two is reflected by the closeness between their two organs. And the two men's closeness to Khama, indicates the two units' closeness to Khama too.
