It was quite astonishing to be in Jeddah the other day with the Saudis, Emiratis, the Bahrainis, the Jordanians, the Qataris, the Turks, the Lebanese, and Iraqis.

I state unequivocally, and it is not a passing sentence, that I welcome the input, need the input of this committee

We must be clear-eyed about the risks before providing our enduring support for this operation.

We need to ensure that whatever authorization for the use of military force we consider is comprehensive and appropriate in scope and duration to meet the threat and sustain the fight.

I do hope that the Secretary today will outline the true nature of the threat.

I am very disappointed that the administration has chosen to go about what they are doing without explicitly seeking the authorization of Congress.

ISIL must be defeated, period. End of story.

The bottom line is we will not be successful with a military campaign alone, and we know it.

So as President Obama described last week when he spoke directly to the American people, we do have a clear strategy to degrade, defeat, and destroy ISIL.

That new president had the courage to choose somebody other than the current Prime Minister to say you try to form a government.

The President rightly understands that it is vital to undercut extremist recruiting among the disaffected Sunni Arab population.

We redoubled our efforts, frankly, to help move the Iraqi political process forward.

And that is why we want Congress to pass AUMF.

I believe we need to defeat ISIL before they develop the operational capacity to perform a September 11-like attack.

We must not repeat the mistakes of the past, given the nature of the threat we face.

We have been pushing for it for longer than that.

It is a multiyear effort. The President has already said that.

Do not mess with the most vibrant, expansive, even explosive area of our economy because it has worked and it has worked well.