Joe Lieberman: “needless to say, I thank the Senator from West Virginia, whom, as does everyone in the Chamber, I greatly admire. He is…”

“needless to say, I thank the Senator from West Virginia, whom, as does everyone in the Chamber, I greatly admire. He is a real authority on this matter, so I speak both with respect and a certain sense of humility. This recommendation that Senator Collins and I and our committee brought before the Senate rose out of reality. And the reality is that we have an intelligence community with a lot of extraordinary people and technological assets but, as the 9/11 Commission said, there is no one in charge. I repeat, it is like a football team with great players but no quarterback. In fact, some of the players, as great as they are, are playing in a different stadium than the one where the game is. The 9/11 Commission has said to us that its foremost goal, the most urgent recommendation it makes to the Congress for what to do if we want to believe that we have done everything we can to prevent a terrorist attack of the scope of 9/11 from happening in this country again, is to create--establish a strong national intelligence director, a leader where there is no leader, a quarterback where there is no quarterback. That is what Senator Collins and I have done in our proposal. A strong national director--but what is the element of strength? It is budget authority.…”