Political Quotes

“I wish to discuss the work that Congress still must do regarding America's ongoing war against ISIL, and I am glad to follow my colleague, the chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, who has played such a critical role in initiating the first major step that Congress has taken. I want to talk about that step and the steps in which we would continue to engage. It was my strong hope as of December 2014 that Congress would have spoken by now with a clear voice regarding ISIL and authorizing the military action commenced by President Obama on August 8. While that has not occurred, action taken by the Senate Foreign Relations Committee last week finally moves the body into the sort of good-faith legislative process regarding this ongoing military action, and it is my hope the process will be completed early in 2015. I first began speaking about this issue in the spring of 2013. I had grown deeply concerned that the administration, as did the previous administration, was using the 2001 Al Qaeda authorization and the 2002 Iraq authorization to justify military actions significantly beyond what Congress had intended when those authorizations passed. So during an Armed Services hearing in May 2013, I told administration witnesses that any decision to introduce U.S. forces into Syria would require, in my view, a new authorization.…”