To gain support in U.S. Congress and from other nations requires clarity, an acceptable mission and an explicit outcome.

The United States, as all you know, did not come to Iraq for oil, not to occupy. We came here only to help.

Oh, Lord. I didn't mean to say anything quotable.

Have a deputy and develop a successor. Don't be consumed by the job or you'll risk losing your balance. Keep your mooring lines to the outside world - family, friends, neighbors, people out of government, and people who may not agree with you.

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

If you develop rules, never have more than ten.

We have an orientation that tends to make us think that everything is our responsibility and that we should be doing this. It is the Iraqis' country, 28 million of them. They are perfectly capable of running that country.