BLITZER: Mr. Secretary, with all due respect, you say there was no debate about that going into the war, but there was what has now famously been called the Downing Street Memo, which came out on July 23, 2002, almost a year before the war, in which your government was told this, "There was a perceptible shift in attitude, referring to what's going on in the Bush administration in Washington. Military action was now seen as inevitable. Bush wanted to remove Saddam through military action, justified by the conjunction of terrorism and WMD. But the intelligence of facts were being fixed around the policy. The NSC had no patience with the U.N. route, and no enthusiasm for publishing material on the Iraqi regime's record. There was little discussion in Washington of the aftermath after military action." Your government was told, almost a year before the war, that this intelligence was being concocted.
REID: No, they weren't, with great respect. You can produce one out of a thousand of memos that were flying about, which represented one person's view about one particular issue. I don't quite know what is the point that you're making. Let me just repeat again, Wolf, with great respect, every intelligence agency in the world knew that Saddam Hussein had the intention and capability over a period of years to develop a threat to the region, as well as to the world.
History had illustrated that, both in intention and capability. The only disagreement was not about the measure of the threat, Resolution 1441 specifically referred to his breaches of the United Nations' regulations, said that he was guilty, said that in order to get any relief from that guilt, he had to give immediate, unconditional compliance with the United Nations itself.
There was no question about the degree of the guilt. The only question at the time was whether or not he should be given more time with the inspectors, or whether a military intervention should take place.
BLITZER: And there a serious debate on that.
REID: And there was a very serious debate on that. The point I'm making to you, Wolf, is that several years on from that, even the different sides of that debate are now entirely united through the United Nations under resolution 1546. And on one side of debate about Iraq now stands the terrorists, and on the other side stands the whole international community, including the U.S. and the U.K., helping the Iraqi's to achieve democracy, stability, and a degree of opportunity and security for their own country. That's now the division.
http://transcripts.cnn.com/TRANSCRIPTS/0511/06/le.01.html