Moral indignation is jealousy with a halo.

The skills of the British intelligence community are a great national asset.

I do have concerns about the current efforts to restructure our nation's intelligence community.

I rise today to discuss the National Intelligence Reform bill. I commend my colleagues in both Houses for their hard work in coming to an agreement. As with any conference each voice is heard but none can dominate and compromise must be achieved.

I certainly believe that improving our intelligence is of important national interest.

The Committee's review of a series of intelligence shortcomings to include intelligence prior to 9/11 and the pre-war intelligence on Iraq clearly reveal how vital a diverse intelligence workforce is to our national security.

A lot of the things that we've been able to do in the last several years were Democratic ideas including the structure for this new director of national intelligence.

As a nation we have over the past seven years been rebuilding our intelligence with powerful capabilities that many thought we would no longer need after the Cold War. We have been rebuilding our clandestine service our satellite and other technical collection our analytical depth and expertise.

Since 2001 the Patriot Act has provided the means to detect and disrupt terrorist threats against the U.S. Prior to enactment of the law major legal barriers prevented intelligence national defense and law enforcement agencies from working together and sharing information.

Not all intelligence can be artificial now so if we make a mistake the consequences are no longer simply located within an institution or a national culture.

Mr. Speaker we are a blessed Nation. We have not suffered another attack on our soil since September 11 and we are grateful. We have killed or captured dozens of members of al Qaeda and the Taliban. Our military and intelligence forces are working both hard and smart.

Over the course of two years we arrived at a point where we began to look at the value added by making information more easily accessible across the intelligence community both defense and national.

I can remember when I was National Security Adviser the intelligence community told us... they put out an intelligence report saying that Iran would never back off from attacks on shipping in the Gulf if we use force.

The National Intelligence Director needs the authority to do the job we are asking him to do. That means power over the intelligence budget. And to be effective to be allowed to do his or her job they must have authority over the budget.

The 9/11 Commission strongly recommends that the National Intelligence Director be fully in control of the budget from developing it to implementing it to ensuring that the National Intelligence Director has the clout to make decisions.

If you imagine someone with 100 percent determination and 100 percent intelligence you can discard a lot of intelligence before they stop succeeding. But if you start discarding determination you very quickly get an ineffectual and perpetual grad student.

Someday we'll learn the whole story of why George W. Bush brushed off that intelligence briefing of Aug. 6 2001 'Bin Laden Determined to Strike in U.S.' But surely a big distraction was the major speech he was readying for delivery on Aug. 9 his first prime-time address to the nation.