Political Quotes

“we are on the verge of voting on historic legislation, landmark legislation that will reform our intelligence structure to allow us to better fight the war against terrorism and to counter future security threats. We will be taking a structure that is characterized by stovepipes, by a lack of sharing of information, that was so indicated in the 9/11 Commission Report as being a major cause of intelligence failures. The 9/11 Commission, over and over again, described the good people in our Government straining against structures that did not allow them to communicate effectively vital information; thus, no one assembled the pieces of the puzzle that might have allowed us to detect the hijackers' plot against our country. We have reorganized the intelligence agencies into a new structure where one person clearly will be accountable and responsible. The new Director of National Intelligence will be able to marshall the resources we need to counter the threat to our citizens. We have a National Counterterrorism Center, a National Counterproliferation Center designed to bring together analysts from all the agencies so they can pool their talents, analyze the intelligence, and produce better informed reports. This legislation will help make America more secure, and that is what this entire debate is all about. As my colleague, Senator Lieberman, has eloquently stated: The status quo failed us. Our bill may not be perfect.…”