And as I and the other soldiers leave out of here, we, the American soldier, the American military men and women in our nation, have given the people of Iraq a huge gift. We have given them freedom and liberty that they’ve never known, and we have given them the potential to have a democracy in this part of the world of where it would be a unique institution.
And our desire -- but that does not come free. That never comes free anywhere in the history of the world. And so we -- as we have given them freedom and liberty, we as a nation -- as the Iraqi people -- have paid a great price for that with thousands of lives lost.
So as we leave out of here, our desire is that they take this gift that we have given them and they turn it into something worth the price that we have paid for it. So again, on behalf of the servicemen and women over here, thanks for telling their story. Thanks for taking an interest in what’s going on here. And you can be very proud of them that they are going to leave a great legacy here and, again, they are not going to give up until the last day they are here as we sprint across the finish line.
Would it me too much to ask for America to pay the incremental costs to defend what we and our coalition and Iraqi allies have paid to achieve so far?
