Pat Roberts
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Charles Patrick Roberts (born April 20, 1936) is a United States Senator from Kansas. A member of the Republican Party, he is currently chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee.
Born in Topeka, Kansas, Roberts earned a B.A. from Kansas State University in 1958. He served in the U.S. Marine Corps as a captain from 1958-62. He was a reporter and editor for several Arizona newspapers before joining the staff of Kansas Senator Frank Carlson in 1967. In 1969, he became Administrative Assistant to Kansas's 1st District Congressman Keith Sebelius.
After Sebelius' retirement, Roberts was elected as a Republican to the United States House of Representatives in 1980, serving eight terms until 1997. Following the retirement of Senator Nancy Kassebaum, he was elected to the Senate in 1996 and re-elected in 2002.
Roberts served as the chairman of the House Agriculture Committee from 1995-97, leading the reform of outdated federal farm policies.
In addition to his chairmanship on the U.S. Senate Select Committee on Intelligence, Roberts is a senior member of the Senate Armed Services Committee, chairing the Subcommittee on Emerging Threats and Capabilities. This subcommittee oversees the military's contribution to homeland security and the efforts to prevent proliferation of nuclear, chemical, and biological weapons.
In August 2004, Roberts proposed legislation to dismantle the C.I.A. and establish a national intelligence director with far-reaching powers, including authority over budget and personnel decisions.
As chairman of the U.S. Senate Select Committee on Intelligence, Roberts played a key role in investigating intelligence failures leading up to the 2003 invasion of Iraq. The first half of the Senate Report of Pre-war Intelligence on Iraq was released on July 9, 2004. At that time, Roberts said about the second half of the report, "It is one of my top priorities". However, after the 2004 election, he stated "To go though that exercise, it seems to me, in a post-election environment--we didn't see how we could do that and achieve any possible progress. I think everybody pretty well gets it." Critics have argued that a comparison between pre-war intelligence and the pre-war statements made by senior Bush administration officials may have been damaging to the Bush administration, and that this half of the report was halted to protect those officials.
Senator Roberts and his wife Franki have three grown children, David, Ashleigh, and Anne Wesley. He is the son of the late Wes Roberts, Chairman of the Republican National Committee under President Dwight Eisenhower. His great-grandfather, J.W. Roberts, founded the Oskaloosa Independent, Kansas' second oldest newspaper.
External links
- Official website (http://roberts.senate.gov/)
| Preceded by: Keith Sebelius | U.S. Representative for Kansas' 1st Congressional District 1981-1997 | Succeeded by: Jerry Moran |
| Preceded by: Nancy Kassebaum Baker | U.S. Senator (Class 2) from Kansas 1997- | Succeeded by: Incumbent Template:End box Template:KS-FedRep Template:Current U.S. Senators |