Phil Gingrey: “I thank the gentleman chairman for yielding to me. As he mentioned at the outset of his remarks, I was one of a group of…”

“I thank the gentleman chairman for yielding to me. As he mentioned at the outset of his remarks, I was one of a group of six Members primarily from the Committee on Rules, we affectionately called it CODEL Dreier, and we had an opportunity really to visit these 8 countries and the Palestinian West Bank as well. But I think more than anything else what we did in visiting those countries is to let the people in the Middle East, and this was almost exclusively a Middle Eastern trip, to let them know that we are their friends, to let them know that we are willing to reach out and to help solve the myriad problems in the Middle East. Mr. Speaker, there is no question that there are plenty of them. We are of course continuing to try to help the Iraqi people as they build their own government and stand up their military so they can defend themselves. They want democracy. They have had a taste of it. So at these many places that we stopped you could see it just sort of blossoming, blooming. And they seemed very, very appreciative that we would meet and listen. We did a whole lot of listening, Mr. Speaker; we did a little bit of talking. We had some formal sessions, but mainly I think it was a great experience for us, but it was a great experience for them as well, as I say, to see Members of Congress. It is not the easiest place in the world to get to.…”