Patrick Cockburn, journalist

This week our guest is journalist Patrick Cockburn. He has been a Middle East correspondent since 1979, previously for the Financial Times and currently for The Independent. Cockburn has written four books on Iraq. Two, Out of the Ashes: The Resurrection of Saddam Hussein and Saddam Hussein: An American Obsession, were written with his brother Andrew Cockburn prior to the war in Iraq. Two more were written by Patrick alone after the U.S. invasion, following his award- winning reporting from Iraq.

His most recent book is Muqtada: Muqtada al-Sadr, the Shia Revival,and the Struggle for Iraq.