There has, indeed, been very substantial progress in Iraq over the past year - violence is down by 80 percent, civilian deaths by about the same, and so on.

Over the last few years they have done a superb job in their fight against al-Qaida. As you may recall, our embassy in Jedda (in Saudi Arabia) was overrun some four years ago and a number of foreign workers went home because of violence against them.

I am not a politician, and I will never be, and I say that with absolute conviction.

Fighting in cities is a totally different endeavor than obviously fighting out in the open.

I just don't know whether it was all destroyed years ago - I mean, there's no question that there were chemical weapons years ago - whether they were destroyed right before the war, (or) whether they're still hidden.

Al-Qaida in particular remains dangerous, and there [in Iraq] is some residual militia and special group presence. There are still between 20 and 30 attacks per day, still periodic car bombs and still loss of innocent civilians.

We cleared many of their towns and cities and rural areas of al-Qaida Iraq and other insurgents.