I no longer have the confidence in the intelligence that led me to take our country to war. I find I have been misled on the key question of whether Iraq possessed weapons of mass destruction. That, combined with the complete lack of evidence that Saddam Hussein had any role in the attacks of Sept. 11, leads me to a point where — if I knew then what I know now — I would not have started a war in Iraq, and I certainly would not have done so if I'd known that more than a thousand U.S. troops and thousands more Iraqi citizens would be killed in the process.

"But I did start the war. I made a mistake in judgment, and for that I am sorry. It was an error that was made, however, in good faith and in the spirit of trying to make America safer.

"Please know that nothing is more important to me than people's trust in my ability and my commitment to keeping America safe. "