Here's the transcript of last night's Democratic candidate debate in Iowa, from the Des Moines Register.

Wesley Clark, who isn't on the ballot in Iowa, didn't take part. On Meet The Press yesterday, he said it wasn't practical for him to expend the sort of resources needed to contest both Iowa and New Hampshire, as well as campaigning in the south and midwest, where he expects to do well.

He also categorically ruled out accepting an invitation to run as a VP; for Dean or indeed for anyone.

Here's his take on why invading Iraq was wrong:

"We had Osama bin Laden in a box, and we should have stayed there in the spring of 2002 and finished the job against him. But four months afterwards, we didn't. That was the point at which the United States of America began to cut back its resourcing and direct all of the internal intention to going after Saddam Hussein.

I remember being overseas in late January of 2002 and I was already getting the rumblings from inside the Pentagon and from my friends there, saying, "Oh, well, you know, Afghanistan, that's a holding action. You know, we've cut any additional forces going there. We're going to let them do the best they can, but we've got to get ready to go after Iraq."

And there was no reason to have gone after Iraq at that point. Saddam Hussein wasn't connected with 9/11. He didn't have an imminent threat to use weapons of mass destruction or use them against us. There just wasn't an imminent reason to divert attention from terrorism to go after Iraq. There was no reason to do that, but this administration chose to do it. It was a mistake."