Michael Burgess: “as part of the Committee on Government Reform that took a recent official visit to Iraq, I witnessed what I thought was…”

“as part of the Committee on Government Reform that took a recent official visit to Iraq, I witnessed what I thought was the true shock and awe story. I saw the progress of a fledgling free nation, and I came away knowing we have every reason to be optimistic in that country. My disappointment, Mr. Speaker, is that when watching the evening news on my return home, I could scarcely recognize the situation I had just left. In Iraq, General James Conway of the First Marine Expeditionary Force described our efforts there as a vivid success story, both during the major combat phase and since its conclusion. Perhaps most important, he said that most Iraqis were concerned not that we would stay too long, but that they would leave too soon. As a doctor, I particularly wanted to assess the Iraqi health care system. I knew the difficulties that this system had suffered under Saddam's rule, but I also knew that we were starting to see the decrepit hospitals begin to improve. Most of these hospitals had no nursing staff left at all. A member of the public health team of the 385th Civil Affairs Brigade, Lieutenant Michael Keller, told me that in the library at the medical school no text had a copyright date later than 1984. Mr. Speaker, on average, Saddam's government spent 50 cents per person on health care. Since the fall of that regime, that amount has increased to $45.”