Phil Gingrey: “The gentleman is so right, and of course, people want to say, well, we have not found any weapons of mass destruction…”

“The gentleman is so right, and of course, people want to say, well, we have not found any weapons of mass destruction, we have not killed or captured Saddam Hussein, so we have not accomplished the mission, the reason we went there; but of course, that was never the reason. As the gentleman from Minnesota points out, the reason for being there was to rid that part of the world of a dictator, of a tyrant; and of course, although we have not found a cache of weapons of mass destruction, in the process of looking, we have certainly found lots of evidence of mass destruction, that is, bodies, mass graves, where Saddam Hussein has murdered his own people. As the gentleman points out, the main purpose is to bring some stability to the Middle East and to that part of the world as we effect this regime change; and make no doubt about it, that mission has been accomplished, and I wanted to just speak a little bit more, continue in that vein on cost, and it is actually estimated that since the Gulf War 10 years ago that the cost of containing Saddam Hussein, and that cost would be continuing if we were not rid of him, that cost over that 10-year period cost Americans at least $30 billion.”