Jane Harman: “I call myself a passionate bipartisan on intelligence and security matters, and I take a back seat to no one for my…”

“I call myself a passionate bipartisan on intelligence and security matters, and I take a back seat to no one for my efforts to try to work out agreements on a bipartisan basis to fix our intelligence. As I said earlier, in my view, the proposed resolution does some good things, but it also should be calling for action to keep our troops and other personnel serving in Iraq safe. Just a few hours ago, Mr. Speaker, a devastating car bomb destroyed a hotel in Baghdad. The casualty reports are still coming in, but at least two dozen people have died. Better intelligence is essential to protecting our troops in Iraq and ensuring that we ultimately succeed there. It is the first line of defense in the war on terrorism. There are good ideas from both sides of the aisle that should be discussed and debated this year. What should we be doing? In my view, let us try six things: First, the President should direct intelligence agencies to scrub weapons of mass destruction intelligence on all major targets and release updates on areas of concern.”