Test ideas in the marketplace. You learn from hearing a range of perspectives. Consultation helps engender the support decisions need to be successfully implemented.

There's another way to phrase that and that is that the absence of evidence is not the evidence of absence. It is basically saying the same thing in a different way. Simply because you do not have evidence that something does exist does not mean that you have evidence that it doesn't exist.

I don't believe anyone that I know in the administration ever said that Iraq had nuclear weapons.

Arguments of convenience lack integrity and inevitably trip you up.

If a person is determined to fight to the death, then they may very well have that opportunity.

See that the President, the Cabinet and staff are informed. If cut out of the information flow, their decisions may be poor, not made, or not confidently or persuasively implemented.

I don't know anybody that I can think of who has contended that the Iraqis had nuclear weapons.