Jay Rockefeller: “I tremendously regret the argument that took place between the Senator from Alaska and the Senator from New York…”

“I tremendously regret the argument that took place between the Senator from Alaska and the Senator from New York, because that is exactly what we do not need around here. I thought the Senator from Alaska, as much as I respect him, should not be trying to cast political aspersions, and then I thought the Senator from New York should not be saying we are not in any sense being political, we only want the truth, and talking about weapons of mass destruction and the intelligence, because we all agree that the intelligence was wanting. We all agree that it is very different from the cold war, but what is really important that has to happen and something which only the Intelligence Committee can do, and which has to be in continuity with the work we are doing now, is after we finish investigating what went wrong is to figure out what we are going to do to make it go right. That is a whole other chapter. That is getting rid of the stovepipes and determining whether we want a director of national intelligence. It is an entirely different relationship now between intelligence and warfighting. Intelligence and warfighting used to be separate. They are now integrated. Intelligence and policy used to be separate. They are now integrated. That is what our committee is doing, but first we need to finish the investigation and then we get to that. Our problem is we are doing so much investigating we cannot get to that. It is very frustrating to me.”