Political Quotes

“I rise to talk about all of the interesting things going on in Iraq. We saw yesterday the surprise, very important visit by the President to the new Iraqi Cabinet under Premier Nouri Kamal al-Maliki. This marks one more significant step in efforts to bring national unity to Iraq. We all must remember that just a few short years ago, Iraq was ruled by a murderous tyrant, Saddam Hussein. According to the Iraqi Survey Group's Charles Dilfer, Iraq was a far more dangerous place even than we knew. We may not have had the intelligence right, but the intelligence was focusing on the fact of how dangerous this place was. Dilfer said that Iraq was overrun with terrorists, like Abu Musab al-Zarqawi who was then in al-Ansar Islam and later changed that to al-Qaida in Iraq, the butcher who brazenly beheaded innocent Americans and others on television. Dilfer said that Saddam Hussein had the ability to produce chemical and biological weapons that he had in the past and he was willing and able to sell them to terrorists who could deliver them to our country. This milestone, unfortunately, received not enough attention or appreciation in the media. This is not an isolated example of people trying to downplay good news in Iraq. As Peter Wehner wrote in the Wall Street Journal on May 23: Iraqis can participate in three historic elections, pass the most liberal constitution in the Arab world, and form a unit government despite terrorist attacks and provocations.…”