About imagery intelligence
Gathering satellite imagery is commonly known as imint. It was developed by intelligence agencies during World War I. Nowadays gathering imint is still a powerful way of monitoring the activities of enemies. Think about the advantages that imint brought to the US in the first Gulf war, and the huge steps that since then have been made. In the early days, the possibilities were limited to gathering intelligence by aerial photography. In the present time, however, satellites are used to obtain these images.