The press always wants to know how many people will be killed or how much it will cost, but the answers to those questions are not knowable.

What will follow will not be a repeat of any other conflict. It will be of a force and scope and scale that has been beyond what has been seen before.

It is hard to put a price on some things. What is the value of having prevented nuclear weapons from getting into the hands of a dictator like Saddam Hussein - or of Gadhafi?

If a prospective Presidential approach can't be explained clearly enough to be understood well, it probably hasn't been thought through well enough. If not well understood by the American people, it probably won't 'sail' anyway. Send it back for further thought.

Don't divide the world into "them" and "us."

Any country on the face of the Earth with an active intelligence program knows that Iraq has weapons of mass destruction.

It isn't making mistakes that's critical; it's correcting them and getting on with the principal task.