I was surprised to find that the people of Iraq were actually happy that we were there.

Imagine you had a plumber in your house to fix a broken pipe three years later he'd still fixing that pipe but now your house is filled with sewage.

There is movement across its borders of people and matériel used in violent acts against Iraq.

He pretended to care for the people of Iraq after he and other presidents before him have killed by the use of weapons, including depleted uranium, and by the blockade which is now more than 12 years old, more than 1 million and 700,000 innocent Iraqis out of a population of 25 million citizens.

This is a truly historic moment for the people of Iraq and for the entire region as the newly elected Iraqi National assembly meets for the first time.

The lifting of sanctions marks a momentous event for the people of Iraq. After more than a decade of being frozen out of the world economy, it is time for the Iraqi people to benefit from their natural resources.