Mike Pence: “I just remember when my colleague first returned from Baghdad, he shared with a number of us, his colleagues, video…”

“I just remember when my colleague first returned from Baghdad, he shared with a number of us, his colleagues, video footage of Baghdad as a bustling city, a very modern city, which it was. And the reason we went to Basra the first day was because Ambassador Bremer and other officials were locked in round-the-clock negotiations over the constitution. So they sent us as the first delegation of American Congressmen to Basra. I have to tell you that going from Basra, which is like a Third World country, I mean it is ravaged not by war, it is ravaged by 30 years of neglect and tyranny by Saddam Hussein who refused to, even though billions of dollars were flowing from the Oil for Food program into his regime, and he was building more and more palaces, these monuments to his own greatness with marble floors and crystal chandeliers the size of minivans hanging from the hallway ceilings, but then go to Basra, and there is ramshackle dirt buildings falling down, roads in disrepair, sewers in disrepair, it demonstrated to me that contrast more than anything between the bustling city of Saddam Hussein to a city under the control of Basra, the Shiite population, the mendacity of this regime and the self-indulgence and evil of this regime letting so many people live in poverty while they live in sinful opulence.”