Mark Kennedy: “And the gentleman spoke of the satellite dishes. They are watching all kinds of channels now that they never saw before.…”

“And the gentleman spoke of the satellite dishes. They are watching all kinds of channels now that they never saw before. They are seeing the outside world. If you ask me, Mr. Speaker, what the average Iraqi thinks, the average Iraqi is thinking, how do I get to be like Kuwait as quickly as possible? How do I become a prosperous country? How do I have everything everybody else has? And it is not just the oil Iraq has. And I am sure my other colleague saw the same thing, when we looked down from those helicopters, it was green. They actually grow rice there. They have enough water between the Tigris and the Euphrates Rivers to flood fields and grow rice. This was the old supposed Garden of Eden. This was the cradle of civilization. So we have, really, a region that has foundations for prosperity, not just oil but water, that can produce a strong agricultural base as well as industry. I know my colleague must have in Georgia many industries that rely on water, and having that diversified economy to employ the people is something that Iraq is potentially uniquely qualified in that region to do.”