Mark Warner: “by previous agreement between the distinguished majority leader and the Democratic leader, the chairman and ranking…”

“by previous agreement between the distinguished majority leader and the Democratic leader, the chairman and ranking member of the committee will, for the remainder of this evening, as well as tomorrow morning, follow this protocol. I will put forth an amendment momentarily on behalf of myself, Mr. Frist, Mr. Reid, and Mr. Levin, and it is a joint, hopefully bipartisan, accepted amendment to be debated further in the morning. The military operation that resulted in the death of Zarqawi was a stunning accomplishment for U.S. forces. It displayed the precision, perseverance and professionalism of our Armed Forces supported by a sophisticated and superb intelligence apparatus that included U.S, Iraqi, and Coalition intelligence organizations. Behind the details that were made public, I can tell you, were months of coordinated, hard work by analysts, human intelligence operatives, and military planners. The death of Zarqawi will hopefully lessen, but not end the violence in Iraq, but it is certainly a significant blow to the terrorist network in Iraq, to Osama bin Laden, and the al-Qaida organization. Zarqawi was the most prominent insurgent in Iraq and the most active of bin Laden's affiliates. While bin Laden hides in mountain caves, capable of making occasional audio tapes, Zarqawi was working to trigger a civil war, disrupt the democratic process of the new unity government in Iraq, and then use Iraq as a base to launch attacks throughout the region.…”