Brian Jones: “Thank you very much. I want to thank President Obama for his nomination of Chuck Hagel to be Secretary of Defense. While…”

“Thank you very much. I want to thank President Obama for his nomination of Chuck Hagel to be Secretary of Defense. While we were home last week, I had the opportunity to watch the Senate confirmation hearing, and I was dismayed by the way many of the Republicans in that hearing chastised Mr. Hagel. Mr. Hagel is a man of integrity. The question from one of the Senators about, do you think the surge worked, and Senator Hagel was such that he didn't want to give him a direct answer. I would have said, no, it didn't work--1,200 Americans killed, I don't know how many Iraqis. And look at the country today. It's totally falling apart. But that was a question toward Senator Hagel. Mr. Speaker, the Iraq war was very unnecessary. It was manufactured by the previous administration, and there was a general, Marine General Greg Newbold, who had been working with the Department of Defense, who actually wrote an article in Time after the war started. And one of the points he made that I'm going to share with you, Mr. Speaker, is ``some of the missteps include the distortion of intelligence in the buildup to the war.'' The distortion of intelligence in the buildup to the war. In the history of Washington, if ever our government needed integrity, it's now. Chuck Hagel is a man of integrity. No one can question his integrity. I've had the privilege of knowing Senator Hagel since 2005 when I came out against the unnecessary war in Iraq.…”