"But the soldiers had fed me and given me a seat in their Humvees, and the refugees had tolerated my presence on some of the worst days of their lives. They very rightly expected that I would tell their story."
You could have explained a little about the death of newspapers and other media outlets, and how much existing footage/photography there is of conflict in Iraq (to say nothing of Afghanistan, Syria etc). They should have been under no illusions as to the likelihood of any particular photographer getting their work paid for and published. It's like the Simpsons joke about space missions. The first guy landed on the moon and it's the story of the century. The 12th lunar mission though? Meh - what else is on. Trying to get a western, especially an American, audience excited about another batch of photographs about fighting in the Middle East seems like something of a tall order. Even outside of the news photography has died a death. Anyone can take an adequate photograph nowadays with cheap, simple equipment so few people are willing to pay a professional.
"death of newspapers and other media outlets" decreases supply of such images - armchair bloggers have less means, infrastructure and connections to do it.
The proliferation of mobile devices that record videos and pictures has IMO made up for it with sheer documentation volume from people on the spot. The Syrian civil war is far more thoroughly documented than the first Gulf War even though the first Gulf War took place in an environment where Western news-gathering organizations were in a much better financial state. You can see combat recorded from the the Syrian Arab Army, the foreign military powers intervening in the war, and the rebel factions. Not just combatants, either; the aftermath of attacks on civilians gets recorded/uploaded as well. They're all uploading stuff for the world to watch.
The vast majority of this footage is admittedly uploaded in service of one agenda or another, but that's just a lateral move from the status quo ante of the 1991/2003 Iraq invasions. The critical Western press coverage of war in the Vietnam era did not seem to endure. (And that was itself a bit unusual; American press coverage of WW II and Korea was by-and-large aligned with the aims of the American government in those wars.)
You could have explained a little about the death of newspapers and other media outlets, and how much existing footage/photography there is of conflict in Iraq (to say nothing of Afghanistan, Syria etc). They should have been under no illusions as to the likelihood of any particular photographer getting their work paid for and published. It's like the Simpsons joke about space missions. The first guy landed on the moon and it's the story of the century. The 12th lunar mission though? Meh - what else is on. Trying to get a western, especially an American, audience excited about another batch of photographs about fighting in the Middle East seems like something of a tall order. Even outside of the news photography has died a death. Anyone can take an adequate photograph nowadays with cheap, simple equipment so few people are willing to pay a professional.