A few hundred feet away from here in a closed room, carefully guarded, the Intelligence Committee was meeting on a daily basis for top secret briefings about the information we were receiving and the information we had on the Intelligence Committee was not the same information that was being given to the American people. I couldn't believe it. Members of this administration were in active heated debate over whether aluminum tubes really meant that the Iraqis were developing nuclear weapons, some within the administration were saying of course not it is not the same kind of aluminum tube. At the same time members of the administration were telling the American people to be fearful of mushroom shaped clouds.

I was angry about it. Frankly, I could not do much about it because you see, on the Intelligence Committee we're sworn to secrecy. We can't walk outside the door and say the statement made yesterday by the White House is in direct contradiction to classified information that's being given to this Congress. We can't do that. We couldn't make those statements.

So, in my frustration I sat here on the floor of the Senate and listened to this heated debate about invading Iraq and thinking the American people are being misled. They are not being told the truth. That's why I joined twenty-two members of my colleagues in voting no. I did not feel at the time that the American people knew the real facts.

So what happened, we invaded, turned loose, hundreds if not thousands of people scouring Iraq for these weapons of mass destruction. Never found one of them. Looked for nuclear weapons, no evidence whatsoever.