One year after the United States led the invasion of Iraq, the country remains extremely dangerous not only to our troops, but also to the stability of the world.

For the past three years, the Senate intelligence committee has avoided carrying out its oversight of our nation's intelligence programs whenever the White House becomes uncomfortable with the questions being asked. The very independence of this committee is called into question.

Pat Roberts and I both feel very strongly that when we get to Iran, that we can't make the same mistakes. We have to ask the questions, the hard questions before, not afterwards, and get the right intelligence.

Iran is nothing but trouble, and always has been that.

There is a difference between being a political force, or a political apparent force or a potential force, and between a real discourse or a real argument.

We have to bring stability to Iraq, otherwise we will be faced with a future dilemma of sending our loved ones into harms way to stop a civil war or the rise of a new tyrant born from the instability that we created.

Allowing the U.N. into Iraq will demonstrate to the Iraqis that the international community as a whole is committed to bringing stability and safety to their country.

What is private and what is discussed behind closed doors, you do not have to be instructed at the age of fifty or sixty or forty or whatever to not talk about it outside.

It would be a big favor to political discourse to our ability to do our work here in Congress and to the American people, to be able to talk with each other and have some faith in their government and, more importantly, in their future.

The Republicans, in the various arguments, repeat exactly the same phrases one after another, with no sense of embarrassment, no sense of shame, no sense of intellectual integrity.