Marla Ruzicka successfully lobbied the US Congress to provide aid to innocent Iraqis who were harmed in the military operations. Harvard’s Sarah Sewell writes in the Boston Globe:

Virtually alone, she directed attention and resources to the invisible victims of war. She moved the military without using force, galvanized official Washington without powerful connections, and motivated the press without sensationalism -- just intimate connection to civilians whose deaths she documented and grieved. Her work was a triumph of the heart. She was recently killed by a car bomb while traveling to help Iraqis affected by the war. No one can take her place, but the United States can fulfill her mission to account more fully for civilian harm in war.