I have come here today to talk to you—and to the American people—about something important to our nation and central to our future: how the United States intelligence community evaluated Iraq’s weapons of mass destruction programs over the past decade, leading to a National Intelligence Estimate in October of 2002. I want to tell you about our information and how we reached our judgments. I will tell you what I think—honestly and directly.

There are several reasons to do this. Because the American people deserve to know. Because intelligence has never been more important to the security of our country.

As a nation, we have over the past seven years been rebuilding our intelligence—with powerful capabilities—that many thought we would no longer need after the end of the Cold War. We have been rebuilding our Clandestine Service, our satellite and other technical collection, our analytic depth and expertise.

Both here and around the world, the men and women of American intelligence are performing courageously—often brilliantly—to support our military, to stop terrorism, and to break up networks of proliferation. The risks are always high. Success and perfect outcomes never guaranteed. But there is one unassailable fact—we will always call it as we see it. Our professional ethic demands no less.

To understand a difficult topic like Iraq takes patience and care. Unfortunately, you rarely hear a patient, careful— or thoughtful—discussion of intelligence these days. But these times demand it. Because the alternative—politicized, haphazard evaluation, without the benefit of time and facts—may well result in an intelligence community that is damaged, and a country that is more at risk.

Before talking about Iraq’s weapons of mass destruction, I want to set the stage with a few words about intelligence collection and analysis—how they actually happen in the real world. This context is completely missing from the current public debate.

By definition, intelligence deals with the unclear, the unknown, the deliberately hidden. What the enemies of the United States hope to deny, we work to reveal.

The question being asked about Iraq in the starkest of terms is: were we “right” or were we “wrong.” In the intelligence business, you are almost never completely wrong or completely right. That applies in full to the question of Saddam’s weapons of mass destruction. And, like many of the toughest intelligence challenges, when the facts on Iraq are all in, we will be neither completely right nor completely wrong.

As intelligence professionals, we go where the information takes us. We fear no fact or finding, whether it bears us out or not. Because we work for high goals—the protection of the American people—we must be judged by high standards.

Let’s turn to Iraq....