Michael Burgess: “And of course I do need to make the point that this was an area that just a few months before had seen some of the most…”

“And of course I do need to make the point that this was an area that just a few months before had seen some of the most intense fighting. And many of the buildings at the front of the street, well, let's just put it this way, a JDAM doesn't do anything for your drive-up appeal. And there were several buildings that obviously had suffered the scars of war. But as you went a little further down the street, you began to come upon scenes such as this. And I would simply point out that at the very edge of the photograph here, and I had forgotten this, we see a brightly colored garment set that looks like it would be appropriate for a woman to wear. I saw more women on this trip to Iraq than I can recall seeing at any other trip where I had been through the country. And it was, to me, reassuring that the female members of Iraqi society felt comfortable enough to travel out to the shops on a Saturday morning and be with their husbands and their children, as you so eloquently point out, as commerce was breaking out all over on the streets of Ramadi.”