Saxby Chambliss: “First, let me again thank my colleagues from Maine and Connecticut for their hard work preparing and bringing an…”

“First, let me again thank my colleagues from Maine and Connecticut for their hard work preparing and bringing an intelligence reform bill to the Senate floor. Reforming the intelligence community is serious business, and I appreciate the professional and thoughtful approach taken by the Government Affairs Committee, especially the chairman and ranking member. I rise today to express some of my concerns on S. 2845, the National Intelligence Reform Act of 2004. First, it is important to fully understand exactly why we are debating the reformation of our intelligence community in the first place. Our enemy has attacked us in new ways that no one ever thought about or occurred before in the entire history of mankind. The attacks on 9/11 were made on predominately civilian targets, using commercial civilian airlines, loaded with totally innocent, ordinary citizens. No one really planned for an attack of this nature because as a God-fearing nation, it was hard to imagine that some human beings could be so evil, so warped in their interpretation of their own religion that they believe the slaughter of innocent people by the thousands is somehow condoned or even approved by their God. Well, we now know the nature of our enemy, and it is dangerous beyond anything we have known in the past. And we are reminded of our enemy's evil nature every time we see a video of an innocent person pleading for their life or being beheaded in Iraq.”