At Tech Central Station, a good article by Joe Katzman on the intelligence bonanza being reaped from Iraq: Weapons of Mass Distortion.

Revelations concerning Saddam’s network of influence are coming thick and fast in the wake of his regime’s collapse. Politicians like George Galloway. Diplomats and business people. Even journalists. Especially journalists.

Saddam’s war of influence was actually based on a very common intelligence practice: cultivating “agents of influence.” Such an agent is, according to the International Spy Museum, “a person who works within the government or media of a target country to influence national policy.” What’s especially interesting about Iraq’s approach is not so much its predictable existence as the completeness of its infrastructure; a completeness that bought Saddam media success, even in the midst of a losing war.