John McCain

We have made a great many mistakes in this war. And history will hold us to account for them, just as the voters did last week.

The day after 9/11 we should have begun to increase significantly the size of the Army and Marine corps. But we did not.

Let's invite a genuine contest of ideas within our party and with the other party for conservationism, as Ronald Reagan told us, is not a narrow ideology.

We were elected to reduce the size of government and enlarge the sphere of free and private enterprise. We increased the size of government and the false hope that we could bribe the public into keeping us in office. And the people…

Common sense conservatives believe that the government that governs least governs best.

I think you can look back and say that more American troops would have been advisable in the earlier stages.

Basically, you're advocating the status quo here today, which I think the American people, in the last election, said, that is not an acceptable question.

I regret deeply that you seem to think that the status quo and the rate of progress that we are making is acceptable. I think that most Americans do not.

I am of course disappointed that basically you're advocating the status quo here today which I think the American people in the last election said that is not an acceptable condition.

Are we doing the things, organizationally and legally, that need to be done to prepare for it? Yes.

We have just one choice in Iraq, and that is to see our mission there through to victory.

I have always said we needed more troops in Iraq.

I believe that there are a lot of things that we can do to salvage this, but they all require the presence of additional troops.

We had a carrots-and-no-sticks policy that only encouraged bad behavior. When one carrot didn't work, we offered another. Now we are facing the consequences of the failed Clinton administration policies.

The bill would cover methods such as water boarding, extreme hypothermia and sleep deprivation.

It's clear we have to have the moral high ground and we cannot violate the Geneva Conventions.

This is an argument for prevailing in Iraq and succeeding in Iraq so that they won't be further encouraged.

The spirits of the Geneva Conventions have been preserved.

What I worry about is we're playing a game of whack them all here. We move troops -- it flares up, we move troops there.

For them to recognize that we have terrorist organizations which -- who are dangerous by themselves, are now being supported by radical Islamic governments, i.e., the Iranians.

I think Senator Burns, has raised that. Senator Dorgan, when he made his intro, talked about incentivizing innovation and providing for competition.

We strongly support S. 1294, the Community Broadband Act, sponsored by Senators Lautenberg and McCain.

The new language in S. 2686 approaches the spirit of S. 1294 and looks to accomplish the same goals.

I'm grateful to see that Senator Stevens incorporated many important ideas from my NetUSA bill.

Chairman Stevens deserves a lot of credit for introducing such a thoughtful and far-reaching telecommunications bill.