WASHINGTON, DC – U.S. Senator Pat Roberts today said Americans deserve to know how management of the next critical phase in Iraq will affect their daily lives and the United States’ relationship with its adversaries and allies around the world. Roberts, Chairman of the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence and a key member of the Senate Committee on Armed Services, made the remarks at an Armed Services Committee hearing on the nomination of Robert Gates to be the next Secretary of the U.S. Department of Defense.

In questioning Gates, Senator Roberts said, "We've heard much about all the current problems in Iraq and the new policy options, and withdrawal. I think everybody in this room would like to see our people home as soon as possible...Now, with all due respect, I want you to get to the level of the people of Wichita, College Station and everybody's hometown here and go over that a little bit in terms of their daily lives and pocketbooks."

"We can talk about geopolitical national threats," Roberts went on to say, "It sounds pretty good, but what does that mean to them? To me, it means if you leave Iraq in a precipitous fashion -- and we may want to do that down the road; we still have to ask -- what happens in Afghanistan? What happens in Iran? Will these attacks follow us home with the sleeper cells that are now in this country not so asleep and the second-generation terrorists?

"I think we have to tell the American people, yes, we want everybody home as soon as possible, but if we do it the wrong way we're going to face a lot of credibility problems and a lot of dangers that they have to understand will affect their daily lives and pocketbooks."

Senator Roberts also pointed out to the Secretary-designee that there are difficulties that the Kansas National Guard and other Guard units around the country face when replacing equipment used in missions abroad. Roberts commented that the National Guard members in Kansas have been deployed at a rate never before expected in support of missions in Iraq and Afghanistan. As a result, their equipment, which must return to the state in support of the Guard’s primary mission to respond to national disasters at home, is compromised. Roberts told Gates he must be proactive on this issue in order to ensure that our Guard units are properly equipped.