Saxby Chambliss: “I rise tonight in response to the comments of my friend, the Senator from Florida, about the report that was issued…”

“I rise tonight in response to the comments of my friend, the Senator from Florida, about the report that was issued today about September 11. There were a lot of innuendoes and direct statements by the Senator from Florida with respect to the administration, faults on the part of the administration leading up to September 11 and the connection of causation between the administration and some deficiencies with the administration and September 11. Nothing could be further from the truth. My friend from Florida made the comment that the lack of resources in our intelligence community played a big part in the intelligence deficiencies that allowed September 11 to happen. I agree with him 100 percent. What he failed to say is that this administration had been in office less than 8 months when September 11 happened. This administration had not even been through an appropriations cycle. It is this body and the House that made the appropriations over the last several years that, in fact, did lead to a decline in resources, with the leadership of the previous administration, that caused the resources not to be put in the right place, that allowed the problems within the intelligence community to arise.”