“…on March 18, 2003, only a few days before the U.S. invasion of Iraq was to begin, the Iraqi government suddenly switched off all telephone service across Iraq, and the use of satellite and mobile phones was specifically banned by the Iraqi Ministry of the Interior, even by foreign reporters based in Baghdad. This closed off the last low-level sources of SIGINT [signals intelligence] that were then available to NSA [National Security Agency] about what was going on inside Iraq.”
– Matthew M. Aid, The Secret Sentry, Page 245