I hope and pray we can avert this crisis. I hope I'm wrong, but there's nothing in Saddam's record to indicate that he's going to keep any commitments.

Apparently, the hard facts of war need not inconvenience the Senate at this time. And the solemn duties that war imposes on us can be postponed indefinitely.

There's no really good solution to getting out of it. It's just a question of among all the relatively poor answers, what's the one that is the best one of the group.

But I do not believe that the Bush administration decided that they would set up a scenario that gave us the rationale for going into Iraq.

I'm embarrassed to admit that after all these years in politics, I failed to interpret your previous assurances as typical rhetorical gloss routinely used in politics to make self-interested partisan posturing appear more noble. Please be assured I won't make the same mistake again.

You cannot remove the military option from the table, but it is a totally undesirable option and one that can only be considered after all other options are attempted.