After a meeting held by Mr Allawi’s campaign alliance in west Baghdad, reporters, most of whom were from the Arabic-language press, were invited upstairs where each was offered a “gift” of a $100 bill contained in an envelope.

Many of the journalists accepted the cash - about equivalent to half the starting monthly salary for a reporter at an Iraqi newspaper - and one jokingly recalled how Saddam Hussein’s regime had also lavished perks on favoured reporters.

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Wonder if any of the American reporters jokingly recalled how they were paid to promote Bush’s policies…

Anybody else picturing Robert Novak sinking ever-lower in his chair as Armstrong Williams starts spilling beans to save his own ass?