Jack Kingston: “That is a message we hear from all over, particularly new Europe, emerging Europe, the Europe that had been 50 years…”

“That is a message we hear from all over, particularly new Europe, emerging Europe, the Europe that had been 50 years under the Soviet bloc. They understand freedom, and they understand oppression. They do not take it for granted. They are not so anti- American as the Germans and the French seem to be. They do not enjoy the U.S. kicking that so many of our fair weather friends over there do. But along with military progress in Iraq, there has been tremendous economic progress. As I was there looking down from the helicopter over the streets of Baghdad, I saw small businesses, traffic jams, people moving in and out of buildings buying things and so forth. There is a port in Iraq that under Saddam Hussein never was used. Today, it has 40 ships a month going into it. In terms of newspapers and banking, it is coming back. In 2003, there were 13 Iraqi companies listed on the New York Stock Exchange. Today, I think that number is somewhere between 60 and 80. That is a lot of progress. The GDP last year, I think, was something like $15 billion. Today it is $29 billion. A very small economy, but that is a huge step. The unemployment rate was something like 70 percent, and it is now 26 percent. Still very high unemployment rate by our standards, but for the Middle East, pretty doggone good. I can tell you that the Palestinian Authority wishes their unemployment rate were that low.”