As leader of the effort of the Iraqi Survey Group, I spent most of my days not out in the field leading inspections. It's typically what you do at that level. I was trying to motivate, direct, find strategies.

The Germans certainly - the intelligence service believed that there were WMD. It turns out that we were all wrong, probably in my judgment, and that is most disturbing.

Both of us are known for probably at times regrettable streak of independence.

And let me take one of the explanations most commonly given: Analysts were pressured to reach conclusions that would fit the political agenda of one or another administration. I deeply think that is a wrong explanation.

The case of Iran, a nuclear program that the Iranians admit was 18 years on, that we underestimated. And, in fact, we didn't discover it. It was discovered by a group of Iranian dissidents outside the country who pointed the international community at the location.

And never - not in a single case - was the explanation, 'I was pressured to do this.' The explanation was very often, 'The limited data we had led one to reasonably conclude this. I now see that there's another explanation for it.'

I would also point out that many governments that chose not to support this war - certainly, the French president, Jacques Chirac, as I recall in April of last year, referred to Iraq's possession of WMD.

I came not from within the administration, and it was clear and clear in our discussions and no one asked otherwise that I would lead this the way I thought best and I would speak the truth as we found it.

I do believe we have to understand why reality turned out to be different than expectations and estimates. But you have more public service - certainly many of you - than I have ever had, and you recognize that this is not unusual.

There's a long record here of being wrong. There's a good reason for it. There are probably multiple reasons. Certainly proliferation is a hard thing to track, particularly in countries that deny easy and free access and don't have free and open societies.

Let me begin by saying, we were almost all wrong, and I certainly include myself here.

A great deal has been accomplished by the team, and I do think it important that it goes on and it is allowed to reach its full conclusion. In fact, I really believe it ought to be better resourced and totally focused on WMD; that that is important to do it.

This hearing came about very quickly. I do have a few preliminary comments, but I suspect you're more interested in asking questions, and I'll be happy to respond to those questions to the best of my ability.

And you know, almost in a perverse way, I wish it had been undue influence because we know how to correct that. We get rid of the people who, in fact, were exercising that.

And like I say, I think we've got other cases other than Iraq. I do not think the problem of global proliferation of weapons technology of mass destruction is going to go away, and that's why I think it is an urgent issue.

The Libyan program recently discovered was far more extensive than was assessed prior to that.

But the most important thing about that story, which is not often told, is that as a result after the Cuban missile crisis, immediate steps were taken to correct our inability to collect on the movement of nuclear material out of the Soviet Union to other places.

I had innumerable analysts who came to me in apology that the world that we were finding was not the world that they had thought existed and that they had estimated. Reality on the ground differed in advance.

I think the aim - and certainly the aim of what I've tried to do since leaving - is not political and certainly not a witch hunt at individuals. It's to try to direct our attention at what I believe is a fundamental fault analysis that we must now examine.

I've seen looting around the world and thought I knew the best looters in the world. The Iraqis excel at that.

But I do think the survey group - and I think Charlie Duelfer is a great leader. I have the utmost confidence in Charles. I think you will get as full an answer as you can possibly get.

As leader of the effort of the Iraqi Survey Group, I spent most of my days not out in the field leading inspections. It's typically what you do at that level. I was trying to motivate, direct, find strategies.

Fortunately, President Kennedy and Robert Kennedy disagreed with the estimate and chose a course of action less ambitious and aggressive than recommended by their advisers.

The fact that it wasn't tells me that we've got a much more fundamental problem of understanding what went wrong, and we've got to figure out what was there. And that's what I call fundamental fault analysis.

The result is - document destruction - we're really not going to be able to prove beyond a truth the negatives and some of the positive conclusions that we're going to come to. There will be always unresolved ambiguity here.

In my judgment, based on the work that has been done to this point of the Iraq Survey Group, and in fact, that I reported to you in October, Iraq was in clear violation of the terms of U.N.Resolution 1441.

Sen. Edward Kennedy knows very directly. Senator Kennedy and I talked on several occasions prior to the war that my view was that the best evidence that I had seen was that Iraq indeed had weapons of mass destruction.

I also believe that it is time to begin the fundamental analysis of how we got here, what led us here and what we need to do in order to ensure that we are equipped with the best possible intelligence as we face these issues in the future.

I think that shows a level of maturity and understanding that I think bodes well for getting to the bottom of this. But it is really up to you and your staff, on behalf of the American people, to take on that challenge.

Socialism proposes no adequate substitute for the motive of enlightened selfishness that today is at the basis of all human labor and effort, enterprise and new activity.

Every American deserves to live in freedom, to have his or her privacy respected and a chance to go as far as their ability and effort will take them - regardless of race, gender, ethnicity or economic circumstances.

Achievement is not always success, while reputed failure often is. It is honest endeavor, persistent effort to do the best possible under any and all circumstances.

You really should not do this job unless you're willing to put in that enormous amount of effort. You should not do the job unless you're willing to take risks. And you shouldn't do the job unless you're willing to lose the job, too.

When families observe a later, deeper stage of cult involvement they may find it necessary to consider the involvement of a professional such as myself in an intervention effort.

Much effort, much prosperity.

No one will deny that the excessive use of alcohol and alcoholic beverages would do more than any other single factor to make impossible a total war effort.

Success requires first expending ten units of effort to produce one unit of results. Your momentum will then produce ten units of results with each unit of effort.

I'm not the type of person who goes through all this effort for a movie, and then doesn't care if anybody sees it. I want them to see it, and I want them to see it on the big screen.

It wasn't my plan to create such a record. All I did was put in the effort to win every match I played and it went on for weeks, months and years until my defeat to Ross Norman in Toulouse in 1986.

Periods of wholesome laziness, after days of energetic effort, will wonderfully tone up the mind and body.

Productivity is never an accident. It is always the result of a commitment to excellence, intelligent planning, and focused effort.

A minute of perfection was worth the effort. A moment was the most you could ever expect from perfection.

I'm always making a conscious effort to be viable and accessible.

A strenuous effort must be made to train young people to think for themselves and take independent charge of their lives.

If those committed to the quest fail, they will be forgiven. When lost, they will find another way. The moral imperative of humanism is the endeavor alone, whether successful or not, provided the effort is honorable and failure memorable.

Doyle stokes in a thousand shrewd touches with no effort at all. Wonderful.

I know, to banish anger altogether from one's breast is a difficult task. It cannot be achieved through pure personal effort. It can be done only by God's grace.

Sport is the habitual and voluntary cultivation of intensive physical effort.

The Russians obtained a number of plants under Lend-Lease, which had been authorized by Washington, that I thought were not justified for their war effort. They wanted them for postwar use.