Marie Colvin was born in New York City in 1956. She was a high profile foreign correspondent and war journalist, who worked for the Sunday Times for over a quarter of a century. She was particularly noted for her courage and fearlessness.
Marie Colvin was killed in 2012, alongside the French photojournalist Remi Ochlik, whilst covering the siege of Homs in Syria. Her killing is widely regarded to be the result of a targeted assassination, sponsored by the Syrian regime.
Her collected journalism was published in On the Front Line, shortly after her death.
On the Front Line – The Collected Journalism of Marie Colvin (2012)
“What happened? Just 18 months ago, Saddam sat in a windowless bunker, wrapped in a heavy woollen greatcoat because there was no heat and in dim light because even the president had to rely on a diesel-fuelled generator for electricity. Outside, his country lay in ruins. The electricity grid was destroyed. Sewerage and water systems, telephones, even traffic lights did not work. His oil refineries were reduced to tangled machinery and holed tanks. He had just been kicked out of Kuwait, his army was in disarray, a rebellion raged in 14 of his 18 provinces, and much of his air force was parked on the territory of his enemy, Iran.
Since then, Iraq has been rebuilt without money from oil exports, without the teams of foreign experts that once staffed the military and civilian industries, without the $4 billion of assets frozen in overseas banks, and under strict sanctions that ban the import of spare parts or construction materials.
The key to the revival is Saddam. According to those around him, he did not even falter in the face of devastation so massive that allied leaders believed his downfall to be inevitable. Saddam never, ever, gives up, they say. This mentality was a liability during the Gulf crisis, when he refused to leave Kuwait, but it was crucial to the rebuilding of Iraq. He went from the Mother of all Battles to the Mother of all Reconstructions, without missing a beat.”
Published by Harper Press
Featured image: Ahmed Akacha, Pixels.com
