Vlad Jecan

Patrick Cockburn is a journalist and a veteran war correspondent. He began his carrier as a Middle East correspondent for the Financial Times and the Independent in 1979 and he concentrated on Iraq ever since.

In 2003, just weeks before the US invasion of Iraq, Cockburn made his way to the country. Thanks to a book published in 1999 which was co-authored with his brother Andrew, he did not receive a visa to enter Iraq. The book, Out of the Ashes: The Resurrection of Saddam Hussein, was not seen well by the Saddam regime. Cockburn writes in The Occupation, that the book did well in the black market, as some Iraqis photocopied the book, multiplied it and then they went on and sold the book. In consequence, Patrick Cockburn had to pass through Syria and into Northern Iraq controlled by the Kurds. Then he crossed the Tigris River by boat and made his way to Baghdad.

For the next three years, Cockburn would report on Iraq for The Independent and after the invasion he started to write for the London Review of Books. He was present when the Saddam regime fell and reported on the anarchy and looting that occurred throughout the country after the invasion. Cockburn writes that American soldiers did not intervene in order to stop the looting and try to install order in the streets of Baghdad. Throughout The Occupation, Cockburn criticizes the steps taken by the Americans to pacify regions of Iraq and eventually the entire country. Continue reading →