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ISI Adopted a Vertically Integrated Bureaucratic Model

• ISI's bureaucratic model looked like the ideal structure al-Qa'ida operatives described in memos, but ISI replicated that structure at local levels to implement territorial control.
• By 2008, ISI had subdivided Iraq into specific sectors but was struggling to fill its designated positions at the subnational level.
• ISI allocated human capital rationally, with the suicide-bomber corps dominated by foreigners (more likely than Iraqis to be fanatical believers in the group's ideology) and with intelligence and security personnel (where local knowledge was critical) dominated by its Iraqi members. However, the majority of foreign fighters were not suicide bombers.
• ISI's management and information reporting requirements appeared quite systematic for an ostensibly covert militant organization.

As with the Present-Day Islamic State, ISI Demonstrated Sophisticated Financial Management

• The salaries and other compensation ISI paid to its members seem designed for an environment where labor was plentiful and the organization needed to attract loyal members and screen out opportunists and spies.
• ISI's monthly payroll consistently consumed the largest single portion of its revenues. ISI had a well-developed payroll system with clearly defined salaries.
• There was significant personnel mobility within ISI. Turnover was high, and the group frequently reassigned members to different military units or back-office positions.
• ISI aimed to raise money locally, largely from criminal activities but also partly from activities that resembled state action, such as taxation.
• ISI placed a premium on local fundraising because that gave it maximum control. Fundraising also allowed the group to look more like a state; its taxation activities resembled what any state might do.
• ISI leadership sought substantial oversight of the group's finances and put in place detailed record-keeping requirements for tracking and auditing purposes.