From the original text:

Before we start, let me be direct about an important fact—as we meet here today—the Iraq Survey Group is continuing its important search for weapons, people, and data.

And despite some public statements, we are nowhere near 85% finished. The men and women who work in that dangerous environment are adamant about that fact.

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...The Iraq Survey Group found that two separate groups in Iraq were working on a number of Unmanned Aerial Vehicle designs that were hidden from the UN until Iraq’s Declaration of December 2002. Now we know that important design elements were never fully declared.

The question of intent—especially regarding the smaller Unmanned Aerial Vehicles—is still out there. But we should remember that the Iraqis flight-tested an aerial Biological Weapon spray system intended for a large Unmanned Aerial Vehicle.

A senior Iraqi official has now admitted that their two large Unmanned Aerial Vehicles—one developed in the early 90s and the other under development in late 2000—were intended for delivery of biological weapons.

My provisional bottom line today: We detected the development of prohibited and undeclared Unmanned Aerial Vehicles. But the jury is still out on whether Iraq intended to use its newer, smaller Unmanned Aerial Vehicles to deliver biological weapons.

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...Let me also talk about the trailers discovered in Iraq last summer. We initially concluded that they resembled trailers described by a human source for mobile biological warfare agent production today. There is no consensus within our community over whether the trailers were for that use or if they were used for the production of hydrogen. Everyone agrees they are not ideally configured for either process, but could be made to work in either mode.

To give you some idea of the contrasting evidence we wrestle with, some of the Iraqis involved in making the trailers were told they were intended to produce hydrogen for artillery units.

But an Iraqi artillery officer says they never used these types of systems and that the hydrogen for artillery units came in canisters from a fixed production facility. We are trying to get to the bottom of this story.

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...I’ve now given you my provisional bottom lines. But it is important to remember that Estimates are not written in a vacuum. Let me tell you some of what was going on in the fall of 2002. Several sensitive reports crossed my desk from two sources characterized by our foreign partners as “established and reliable.”

The first, from a source who had direct access to Saddam and his inner circle said:

- Iraq wasnot in possession of a nuclear weapon. However, Iraq was aggressively and covertly developing such a weapon. Saddam had recently called together his Nuclear Weapons Committee irate that Iraq did not yet have a weapon because money was no object and they possessed the scientific know how.

- The Committee members assured Saddam that once the fissile material was in hand, a bomb could be ready in just 18-24 months. The return of UN inspectors would cause minimal disruption because, according to the source, Iraq was expert at denial and deception.

- The same source said Iraq was stockpiling chemical weapons and that equipment to produce insecticides, under the oil-for-food program, had been diverted to covert chemical weapons production.

- The source said that

--- Iraq’s weapons of “last resort” were "mobile launchers armed with chemical weapons which would be fired at enemy forces and Israel."

--- Iraqi scientists were “dabbling” with biological weapons, with limited success,

--- But the quantities were not sufficient to constitute a real weapons program.

A stream of reporting from a different sensitive source with access to senior Iraqi officials said he believed:

- production of chemical and biological weapons was taking place,

- that biological agents were easy to produce and to hide, and

- prohibited chemicals were also being produced at dual-use facilities.

This source stated that a senior Iraqi official in Saddam's inner circle believed, as a result of the UN inspections, Iraq knew the inspectors’ weak points and how to take advantage of them. The source said there was an elaborate plan to deceive inspectors and ensure prohibited items would never be found.

Now, did this information make a difference in my thinking? You bet it did. As this and other information came across my desk, it solidified and reinforced the judgments we had reached and my own view of the danger posed by Saddam Hussein and I conveyed this view to our nation's leaders.

Could I have ignored or dismissed such reports at the time? Absolutely not.