The morning paper tells us that the State Department has decided to drop from its annual report the number of serious international terrorist incidents that occurred during the previous year.

We ought to go after any acts of terrorism or support of acts of terrorism with all of our might.

I'm wondering whether--and I'll ask each of you--whether or not you were consulted by the State Department prior to this important information being dropped.

I do think we want somebody who will call them as he or she sees them in terms of intelligence.

I applaud you and Senator Akaka for holding today's hearings and I look forward to working with you.

I can't stress enough how important I feel that financial literacy is to all Americans.

I would be happy to do that.

As I indicated in my opening remarks, the budget that is before us does not include funding to pay for the incremental costs of operations in Iraq and Afghanistan.

I would hope that the Secretary of Defense would help us carry out that responsibility with a positive answer.

Do you have an estimate as to what the approximate monthly incremental cost would be to maintain those operations at the current level?

Can we check that out?

If it is going to be independent, it has to be independent of the President, and that means Congress has to be involved in the selection of that commission and the rules.

That is not a responsible way to support our troops, and it is not responsible budgeting.

I just want to let you know that that is not being looked at by any of the investigations that you refer to.

What is not part of any of those investigations...is a review of the policymakers' certainty in their statements.

Secretary Rumsfeld, the President's budget request would increase the funding for new or modified nuclear weapons.

Was the Feith operation supposed to look at intelligence through a different prism from the rest of the Intelligence Community?

The issue is when will this supplemental be presented to us.