Political Quotes

“I wholeheartedly join with my new chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee, Senator Rockefeller, in urging our colleagues to work constructively with us in reestablishing congressional oversight of our intelligence community. More than 30 years ago, the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence was formed to address a serious problem, and that problem was previously a complete lack of congressional oversight of the U.S. intelligence operations. The attacks of September 11, 2001, and the findings of the 9/11 Commission confirmed that congressional oversight of intelligence was still seriously lacking in many areas. With the painful lessons of 9/11 in mind and the threats laid out by Chairman Rockefeller, it is more important than ever that we perform our oversight role. Unfortunately, the last Congress failed to see an intelligence authorization bill pass the Senate, although Chairman Roberts and Vice Chairman Rockefeller tried hard to pass one. There were political reasons--neither side of the aisle was blameless in that regard--but it did not happen. When Senator McConnell asked me to be vice chairman of the Intelligence Committee for this session of Congress, I wrote a letter with suggestions to the chairman on the priorities, and at the top of the list was passing the fiscal year 2007 Intelligence Authorization Act.”