Enjoy your time in public service. It may well be one of the most interesting and challenging times of your life.

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.

I believe what I said yesterday. I don't know what I said, but I know what I think and I assume it's what I said.

The implication that there was something wrong with the war plan is amusing.

What is the value of having millions of people in Iraq not having a repressive regime? What is the value of having the Iraqi regime not shooting at UK and US aircraft almost every day? What is the value of the Iraqis having a free press? What is the value of the foreign minister of Iraq going to Paris, calling for an end of the Gadhafi regime and citing Iraq as a model, as an example, that in fact a freer political system can exist in that part of the world?

The reality is that [Barack] Obama has some 15 countries in the current Libya coalition. President Bush put together close to 50 countries for the Afghan coalition, some 40 countries for the Iraqi coalition, more than 90 countries for the Proliferation Security Initiative and over 90 countries in the Global War on Terror.

There are a lot of people who lie and get away with it, and that's just a fact.