Political Quotes

“to respond to that question, what the Intelligence Committee looks at is what is the intelligence that was gathered. There have been some suggestions that the intelligence was influenced or colored by pressure from the administration. David Kay said absolutely not. He said he talked to the analysts, there was absolutely no information--there was absolutely no information--and he said that really the intelligence community owes an apology to the President--and I would say to the American people--for not having done it better. But they are dealing with a very inexact science. If you follow what other elected officials had said prior, during the 1990s, 2001, 2002--what they were saying shows that they used the same intelligence. We are looking at the intelligence, the national intelligence estimates and all those things. We look at it, and if you want to second-guess, if you want to argue that we should not have gone into Iraq, I think David Kay answers that and says the world is far safer. It was a much more dangerous situation than we thought. Yes, there are errors. There are areas where we overestimated his capability. There are areas where we underestimated his capability. But the fact remains that Saddam Hussein had so much weaponry, it is going to take 18 months just to destroy it. He still may have chemical and biological weapons. We look at what the intelligence is.”