Tell It Like It Is
One of my favorite parts of Bob Woodward's book, Plan of Attack, was State Department Deputy Secretary Richard Armitage and his foul-mouthed, wrasslin' style quote (like “most Iraqis thought (Ahmad) Chalabi was a knucklehead”). Now that Powell is leaving State, so is Armitage, but not without a potshot or two, here in this interview with The Australian:

And Armitage's disappointments? Not a lugubrious person, Armitage doesn't nominate disappointments spontaneously. But he'll answer a question honestly: "I'm disappointed that Iraq hasn't turned out better. And that we weren't able to move forward more meaningfully in the Middle East peace process."

Then, after a minute's pause, he adds a third regret: "The biggest regret is that we didn't stop 9/11. And then in the wake of 9/11, instead of redoubling what is our traditional export of hope and optimism we exported our fear and our anger. And presented a very intense and angry face to the world. I regret that a lot."