Political Quotes

“the media is portraying a very different story regarding what is going on in Iraq than what we saw. There is no doubt that Iraq is still a dangerous place. At least it was in August, it was in September, and it probably still is today. But as we flew over the city of Baghdad there were cars, buses and trucks on the streets. There was commerce. Much of the city of Baghdad was functioning. We met with a couple of divisional military commanders who talked about the thousands of projects that they had going on, rebuilding schools, cleaning irrigation ditches, working on clinics, and they talked about the progress that they were making. We met with a number of talented people. The second trip I had over there I met with Peter McPherson, who is the president of Michigan State. He is now back at Michigan State. He was kind of the shadow finance minister. I asked him, what about the plans? You guys did not have a plan for reconstruction. He said, What do you mean we did not have a plan? Did you see our currency collapse? No. He said there was a debate about whether Iraq should keep this currency that had Saddam Hussein's picture on it. He said, we made a conscious decision, we planned to keep that currency because we did not want the currency to collapse, we did not want a run on the banks. Commerce continued in Iraq after the war. The plan is in place. They now have a tax code, 15 percent top rate.…”