I would observe, Madam Speaker, in the now nearly 231 years that this great Union has endured, this House has encountered few sessions demanding greater honesty, greater selflessness, and greater wisdom than that of occasions of war. And…

the conduct of oversight of our Nation's intelligence community is one of the most sensitive and complex duties that we have as a Congress. Our committee and other committees took a very close look at recommendations from the 9/11…

Mr. Speaker, for a bill that is supposed to carry out a series of partisan campaign promises on national security and homeland security issues, what is most notable about this bill is actually the many areas that it highlights where there…

Mr. Speaker, we are a Nation at war. All we need to do is take a look at what the leaders of radical Islam are saying. Bin Laden has said that if by the grace of God he would be able to have access to nuclear weapons, he would use them…

The arguments this evening on the other side have been along the lines of FISA does work. The President acted alone and in secret. FISA is the only tool that is necessary. But we know that that is not true. It does not work. The President…

I will reclaim my time. I am sure Mr. Scott is going to have a little bit more time. If I could complete my statement, I recognize the difference, but I would hope that folks on both sides would recognize the tremendous effort that we have…

I welcome to this discussion and debate my colleague from the State of Michigan (Mr. Conyers), who is also a great cosponsor of our Federal Prison Industries legislation, which we will consider tomorrow. You have good friends on the…

I think I misspoke earlier. I said the troops were in Erbil. They were in Balat. The troops were in Balat.

There is not much else to do. But absolutely, you know, the families pay a tremendous price with the amount of time that their husbands or wives or sons or daughters are spending in Iraq, knowing that the conditions are tough, the…

You know, it is inspiring to see those folks and also knowing that, you know, whether it is an American or an Iraqi injured on the battlefield, that is the quality of care that they are going to get. I think we also heard the number that…

The other thing, the solder saying, before I leave, they were on space-available because he was not as seriously injured as some other soldiers, he was going on to Germany. I think he was going to leave in the next 24 hours. But said, you…

Talking about soldiers that do things well, I mean, we went to Arbil, and there were two groups of people that were absolutely outstanding. The troops from North Dakota, our colleague from North Dakota, Representative Pomeroy, was with us…

I think you have also got to give a real set of kudos to the folks in the background. You know, we talk about the troops that are going out and they are finding the IEDs. We are talking to the C- 130 pilots who are flying in. You and I…

It is why they are nervous about us pulling our final troops out, because we are the ones that have earned their trust, and they still look to you, and I both hope and pray for the day where the same type of result, as we see in Kosovo, as…

The political meetings we had, it was very interesting meeting with the Minister of Defense and the Minister of Interior. The difference this time is you are meeting with people who know they are going to be in the job for 4 years. Every…

It is much like what we talk about for some of our domestic policies. The longer we are there propping them up, the more we have the potential of creating a situation of dependency, where they are looking to the U.S. Government to fix…

No, I appreciate you doing the Special Order. I appreciate you yielding me the time and the opportunity. The one thing we did not talk about was Serbia, that on the way back we stopped in Serbia, so that we had an opportunity to see a part…

That we could walk down Sniper Alley Sunday night, and that we could walk through the streets of Sarajevo in Bosnia, and that we could walk through the streets of Bosnia on Monday morning, and, you know, that it was a vibrant city, people…

to my good friend from Massachusetts, consensus means that we have 12 votes to move a bill out of committee. All right. Consensus does not mean 21 ayes and zero noes. Okay. So thank you for that clarification. I think it is also important…

We will hold a legislative hearing, and we will determine whether there is a consensus in the committee that will enable us to move a bill that would reform FISA and move it to the floor.

I will not use my position as chairman of the committee to block a consensus of the Intelligence Committee to move a bill to the floor.

I thank you for yielding. As the gentlewoman knows, we have worked through this very much in a collaborative process. We followed on the heels of the former chairman and the former ranking member in trying to make sure that we do this in a…

The historic blunder is that we didn't address this problem in the 1990s when it started rearing its ugly head. I yield to my colleague for a unanimous consent request.

I yield 3 minutes to our colleague from California, a member of the Intelligence Committee, Mr. Issa.

This Congress will not walk away from a mission, it will not walk away from its troops, and it will not walk away from its allies. With that, I would like to yield 3 minutes to my colleague from Michigan (Mr. Rogers).