Senator Roberts Speech to Kansas City Chamber of Commerce

Hello Kansas City... Thank you for having me. There's a lot going on both here at home and in Washington so first let me start with some brief remarks and then I will be happy to take questions.

First, I have the privilege of being Chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee. It is not an oxymoron I assure you. I am continuing to spearhead the committee's inquiry into prewar intelligence on Iraq. Former weapons inspector Dr. David Kay provided the committee with a classified briefing a few weeks ago. Dr. Kay indicated that the intelligence community had failed the president and that we are lacking in our intelligence capabilities. A final report from my committee is due this spring. I cannot say too much about the report in this forum because it is still a highly classified document. What I can tell you today is that our report does not paint a flattering picture of the performance of our Intelligence Community agencies as they developed their pre-war assessments. This fact was borne out in these recent statements by Dr. David Kay who has said:

•"Almost everyone believed, regardless of how you felt about whether you should have unilateral military action or wait for the UN, there was no disagreement about the belief that the weapons existed."

•"Before the war, there was very little difference in opinion between US intelligence, French intelligence, German, even the Russians, with regard to whether or not Iraq had WMD."

•When asked whether he had any evidence that analysts had been pressured to change their judgments, Dr. Kay said he was convinced that the analysts were not pressed by the Bush Administration to make certain their pre-War intelligence reports conformed to a White House agenda on Iraq.

•He added, "almost in a perverse way, I wish it had been undue influence, because we know how to correct that. We get rid of the people who, in fact, were exercising that. The fact that it wasn't tells me that we've got a much more fundamental problem of understanding what went wrong, and we've got to figure out what was there. And that's what I call fundamental fault analysis." As I said these are Dr. Kay's views but they are relevant to the issues our Committee is going to report. I continue to insist that the Committee must handle this review in a responsible manner untainted by politics. This is extremely difficult in the political blast furnace which Washington, D.C. becomes during a Presidential election year.
We must complete our work on this review and report the facts to the American people, free of politics. After that, I intend to let the chips fall where they may.

Just last week the committee voted unanimously to refine the terms of reference for the ongoing inquiry. The terms are as follows:

•We will examine the quantity and quality of U.S. intelligence on Iraqi weapons of mass destruction programs, ties to terrorist groups, Saddam Hussein's threat to stability and security in the region, and his repression of his own people.

•We will take a hard look at the objectivity, reasonableness, independence, and accuracy of the judgments reached by the Intelligence Community, whether those judgments were properly disseminated to policy makers in the Executive Branch and Congress; and whether any influence was brought to bear on anyone to shape their analysis to support policy objectives. By the way, we have interviewed over 200 analysts and have found no evidence to date of this.
Now, let me turn to some issues that hit closer to home for us in Kansas city.

I'm encouraged by the recent announcements by the Johnson County Commission on the plans to redevelop Sunflower Army Ammunition Plant. Two years ago, I committed to ensuring that about 2000 acres of pristine land from Sunflower to be used as a park. I remain active in this process to ensure that a park is created as part of the redevelopment. The Army may not be making ammunition out there anymore, but they are working on helping with the transfer.

As a member of the Senate Armed Services Committee, I look forward to working with Johnson County officials on this project.

I think another compatible use of the former plant is a research park, maybe life science-related. As you know a number of companies are looking to expand or move research operations to Kansas City. This is a rare chance to plug in a research park into one of the regions growing sectors. I also wanted to mention the economic boosts the state of Kansas will receive in highway funding this year. The Senate just passed its version of the Highway Bill which is predicted to create 120,000 new jobs in Kansas. Under the Senate Bill we stand to gain $2.6 billion over six years just for highway related projects. I look forward to working with Senator Bond to see that this bill continues to be a significant boost to our economy, our safety and our way of life.

Yet another economic opportunity for Kansas City came in November when Missouri Senator Kit Bond and I urged Secretary of Homeland Security Tom Ridge to locate a Homeland Security Regional Office in Kansas City. While the homeland security focus remains on large urban communities at the nation's coasts and along our borders, I think the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) needs a centrally located regional office that Kansas City can provide. The Greater Kansas City community is already a federal city with a number of regional offices (HUD, GSA, FAA, EPA, FTA, DOL).

Kansas City is an efficient choice for a DHS regional office. There is a benefit of "co-locating" with other federal agency regional offices. These regional offices draw from an excellent and educated employee base committed to serving taxpayers. It is also a wise investment for taxpayers since the Kansas City area has one of the lowest costs per square foot for office space of any location in the country.

While the focus on homeland security has centered on our coasts and national borders, the people of the heartland know all too well the reality of terrorism on American soil. Those from the Midwest and Great Plains will never forget the attack by Timothy McVeigh on the Murrah Building in Oklahoma City in April 1995.

Kansas residents are particularly sensitive to this issue since the plan for this terrible attack was planned there. The 1995 attack and the events surrounding its planning clearly demonstrate that the heartland should not be overlooked in plans to protect the homeland.

That's a quick overview of the issues we're working on. Thank you again for your time and attention - now let me get to your questions