We are eager to hear your testimony, but before that, I would like to offer a few thoughts. I would then ask the distinguished Ranking Member, Mr. Lantos, to offer remarks of his own.

The Administration is facing an onslaught of criticism regarding the pre-war intelligence concerning weapons of mass destruction in Iraq. Some eagerly proclaim in unflattering haste a more sweeping pronouncement, that the entire conflict was a mistake, an opinion curiously put forward by many – including some members in this House – whose prior support was accompanied by few, if any, qualifications.

But the political season is upon us and, as in war, truth is often the first casualty.

The role of intelligence in the decision to go to war, the costs and benefits of that conflict, and many other facets are the subject of legitimate contention. But those originally opposed, and those belatedly discovering their doubts, equate failure to find these weapons – that is, to find a loaded gun aimed directly at our head – with failure of the enterprise as a whole. At its core, their criticism is that the President took action to defend this country instead of just sitting there.

A principal mistake arises for both critics and defenders in viewing the conflict in Iraq as a thing in itself. However, instead of its depiction as a lone adventure of questionable wisdom, a more reasoned view is that our actions in Iraq must be judged in a larger context. Our actions there are in fact part of an incredible success story, one that is still unfolding and one that is due almost entirely to the foresight and determination to act that is a refreshing characteristic of this Administration.

Over the years, I have found myself in ever-greater agreement with former Senator Sam Nunn who has incessantly warned us of the threat of the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction being placed into the waiting hands of our enemies. The Bush Administration has transformed our entire approach to this staggering challenge by crafting and implementing an unprecedented multifaceted, global, and – this is key – action-oriented effort, of which Iraq is an integral part.

I need not rehearse the arguments regarding weapons of mass destruction in Iraq, other than to point out that every intelligence agency – along with the United Nations, Saddam’s own generals, and even the majority of today’s critics – believed that those weapons existed.

In our vulnerable world, to wait until compelling evidence of a threat is leisurely compiled is to wait for our destruction, to err on the side of annihilation. It is tendentious – or evidence of an alarming naivete – to talk of intelligence failures as shocking surprises, as though these estimates and extrapolated predictions could ever be more than imperfect.

A far more serious intelligence failure than the one currently in the spotlight became evident in 1991 when, in the aftermath of the Gulf War, we uncovered Iraq’s massive WMD programs, including the bone-chilling discovery that Saddam was only an estimated six months away from an operational nuclear device. Was not that failure of prediction and the inaction it encouraged of greater consequence than the recent conclusion that he still possessed WMDs, a deception he himself cultivated? We had valuable, but incomplete intelligence preceding 9/11 and largely ignored it. Is that the model to which critics of our actions in Iraq would have us adhere? When is it wise to risk the safety of the American people? Because that is the outcome that a demand for certainty will guarantee.

Now making the rounds is the view that the United States has lost credibility around the world due to its failure to find evidence of weapons of mass destruction in Iraq. I suggest that the exact opposite is true: We have in fact gained enormous, immensely valuable, even decisive credibility from our actions. For the next time the United States, or at least this President, warns some foreign despot to cease actions we believe are threatening to our security, my hunch is that he will listen, and listen carefully. The fact that we went into Iraq virtually alone, excepting our courageous partner Great Britain, not only without the sanction of the international community but in blunt defiance of its strenuous efforts to stop us, is far from the ruinous negative it is often portrayed as. In fact, it is all to the good, for it is unambiguous proof that absolutely nothing will deter us, that the entire world arrayed against us cannot stop us. The message to those on the receiving end could not be clearer, and unless they are suicidal, they will understand that their options have been radically narrowed.

This is not theory. Already, the Administration has won another victory in Muammar Khaddafi’s decision to surrender his WMD programs as a direct consequence of our actions in Iraq. He himself has said that the example of Iraq was the determining factor in his decision. And it is a powerful precedent, for it is the first time that a state has surrendered these weapons without a regime change. If he makes good on his promise, and if we can in confidence readmit him fully to the international community, the effect on others cannot be but salutary. For we can then offer offenders a stark choice of the sword or the olive branch, of destruction or the rewards of cooperation, with all ambiguity torn away, and thereby refocus their cold calculations of self-interest away from ambition and toward survival.

Our intervention in Iraq has made this seminal message both possible and credible for the first time. Can anyone cognizant of the threats we face doubt its value?

The benefits of this new mode of interaction are evident in the current stand-off with Iran. The recent and unexpected exposure of Iran’s massive nuclear weapons program has startled that regime into a hastily constructed policy of stalling and superficial cooperation. Only a fool would believe that the Iranians will voluntarily abandon their nuclear ambitions, but their coerced cooperation has been helpfully motivated by their fear of U.S. action against them.

And, in truth, they should be afraid. Imagine the view from Tehran. Iran battled Iraq for a decade with the loss of hundreds of thousands of men, the end result being a return to their respective starting positions. Yet, twice the U.S. has easily demolished their menacing neighbor. Iran would be a much different challenge, but no Iranian leader can truthfully say, once the regime was targeted, that his sleep would remain undisturbed. And should sleep come, dreams of the Taliban’s fate would invade his fitful slumber.

Here as well, Iran’s adherence to the deal it cut with Britain, France, and Germany for a temporary halt to its programs has been made more likely by the existence of the U.S. threat, a bad cop routine that even the Europeans privately acknowledge to be useful. That situation is far from resolved, but does anyone actually believe that the possibility of halting Iran’s march would even exist without Saddam’s sobering example?

None of this has been lost on the North Korean regime. Our demonstrated willingness to use force to remove a threat, paired with the possibility of reward for cooperation, provides the decision-makers in Pyongyang with useful instruction in the rules of this new world. Once again, this bracketing of the regime’s options was made possible by our actions in Iraq.

To this Administration must go the credit for many other long-delayed but indispensable actions to reverse our slide toward the chasm. The Proliferation Security Initiative, the cooperative arrangement among countries concerned about WMDs and determined to do something concrete about them, is a muscular enhancement of our ability to halt trafficking in the components of these weapons. Despite the program’s infancy, there have already been notable successes. It was the interception of a vessel loaded with nuclear components for Libya that helped convince Khaddafi that the days of his undisturbed accumulation of the instruments of destruction were over.

I will cite two more praiseworthy innovations in this area by the Bush Administration. The first is a surprisingly successful effort to persuade the leaders of Pakistan to interrupt the proliferation of nuclear materials and assistance that has metastasized unchecked from within that country for many years. The revelations in Pakistan, combined with those emerging from Libya, are beginning to expose the international black market in nuclear technology and know-how, which, prior to this inside information, had been only sketchily understood. We are now in the process of unraveling that network and eliminating the horrors its commerce would otherwise help bring into being.

Here again, action long dreamed of is finally being taken. We are no longer bystanders wringing our hands and hoping that our intelligence will be good enough to somehow uncover it all, no longer waiting for some international court to issue a reluctant warrant or grudging permission to allow us to take measures to protect ourselves.

Taken together, these many elements constitute an extraordinary effort by this Administration to put in place a far-seeing, comprehensive, and action-oriented policy focused on preempting our annihilation. Of course, we inherited some very valuable initiatives, such as the Nunn-Lugar program that continues the effort to secure the vast WMD arsenal left in the wreckage of the Soviet empire. But it is simply beyond credibility and simple decency to dispute that this Administration has aggressively pursued a vastly increased effort against WMDs and their proliferation, that it has drawn bright and unmistakable lines of warning, has recruited committed allies, and has conducted a direct assault on a seemingly impregnable fortress.

The work is not done. We must make up for decades of stillborn plans, of whining excuses, of wishful thinking, of irresponsible passivity. This President has begun to lay the foundation for a comprehensive, multilayered, root-and-branch approach to the mortal danger of the proliferating instruments of our destruction. A global system of overlapping levels of international, multilateral, and unilateral measures is being erected, each using different tools and methods, but all sharing a common purpose. Each and all are needed. For even a single gap might well prove fatal, the hole through which our future is bled away.

We are only at the beginning. But it is an extraordinary beginning. Everyone in this room, everyone in this country, owes this Administration their thanks for the fact that this ultimate of threats is not only being battled, but battled successfully.

That is the true context in which our actions in Iraq should be judged.

We were not born to suffer a fate molded by our enemies. We cannot be made victims without our consent. If unmet, the terrors of this century will overwhelm us.

But although we may at times be uncertain of our path, we have never failed ourselves.

Are we safer now? Measured in this ultimate context, in the successes our actions in Iraq and elsewhere have made possible, in this contest on which our survival rests, the answer cannot be other than "yes." And I am grateful that this President has carried out his duty.