Congressman Steve King says he’s hoping freedom and capitalism are “contagious” in the Middle East. King just spent Wednesday and Thursday touring Iraq. “If they can grasp freedom the way that Afghanistan has, the way I pray that Iraq will…free enterprise can solve a lot of this,” King says. “It’ll change people’s focus from hatred to improving the lives of their families and their neighborhoods.” King was in Kuwait City yesterday (Thursday) when he talked by phone with Iowa reporters. King says there appear to be more “suicide bombers” in Iraq than U.S. officials had anticipated, but King says things may stabilize soon. “I did hear from General Casey that he believes that it’s possible that this insurgency, the end of it could be right around the corner but he definitely believes that it’s connected to the constitution and the rule of law,” King says. Iraqi leaders face a deadline next week to produce a draft of a new constitution for the country. King says even if a new Iraq Constitution is developed, the over-all war objectives are nowhere near being met yet. “We are in a war against radical Islam. It’s not a war against terror. It’s a war against radical Islam and radical Islam is a parasite that feeds off of the host, and the host is Islam,” King says. “We have to call Islam to task to rid themselves of this parasite globally.” King says the Iraqi business owners he met with want more U.S. commercial investment in their country and also expressed concern that some U.S. government contractors have been “skimming” profits and not spending all the money on rebuilding their country King says there should be a congressional review of the companies that got federal contracts for work in Iraq. King is now in Germany, visiting troops in a military hospital there. King says the U.S. military generals he talked with during his overseas visit are frustrated with the media attention given war protester Cindy Sheehan, the mother of a soldier who was killed in Iraq. “There’s some frustration because they know that there’s no way they can tactically lose this war here in Iraq, but they know if there is a relentless pounding that comes through the media in the United States, that’s how their effort and their sacrifice could be squandered,” King says. Sheehan is camping near President Bush’s ranch in Texas, asking to meet with Bush and speaking out about her opposition to the war.
