This is a RUSH transcript from "The O'Reilly Factor," November 7, 2011. This copy may not be in its final form and may be updated.

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BILL O'REILLY, HOST: In the "Personal Story" segment tonight, former Secretary of State and presidential adviser Condoleezza Rice has a new book out called, "No Higher Honor: A Memoir of My Years in Washington." In support, she's on a media blitz, and Iraq is a frequent question.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIPS)

RICE: We need to find a way to help the Iraqis sustain themselves through this period and to -- to deal with their somewhat meddlesome neighbor in Iran.

I'm really rather reluctant to criticize negotiations that I didn't participate in, but it would have clearly been better to have a residual force.

(END VIDEO CLIPS)

O'REILLY: Here now is Dr. Rice. So Dick Cheney wouldn't come on this program. He wouldn't sit in the chair in which you are sitting, even though he had a book. And the reason he wouldn't because he knew I was going to ask him about this sound bite. Roll the tape.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

DICK CHENEY, FORMER VICE PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: I think things have gotten so bad inside Iraq from the standpoint of the Iraqi people, my belief is we will, in fact, be greeted as liberators.

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O'REILLY: But we weren't. Did that catch you by surprise?

RICE: That we were not greeted as liberators?

O'REILLY: Correct.

RICE: Well, I knew that the Iraqis were an irascible people. I knew that they were tough people and that they didn't much like foreign intervention. So I thought that we would be welcomed by some who had suffered under Saddam Hussein, but, frankly, I didn't expect flowers to be thrown at our feet, no.

O'REILLY: OK. But now therein lies my problem as an American citizen, not as "The Factor" guy. I believed Dick Cheney when he said that, and I believed Colin Powell when he said weapons of mass destruction. And then I made my editorial decision based upon what those two men said and what I read in The New York Times, of all places, on the front page that confirmed what Colin Powell said, that Saddam Hussein had weapons of mass destruction.

RICE: Yes.

O'REILLY: So I told the millions of people who watch this program, we've got to go in there. And, you know, Cheney is right, that once we overthrow Saddam, Iraq will cooperate with us. We'll try to get a democracy up and running. And I was wrong. I was wrong. And that…

RICE: Well…

O'REILLY: And that hurts me not only with the audience, but personally because Iraq didn't greet us as liberators and you say you had some misgivings. I never heard those misgivings.

RICE: Well, no. Look, some -- some Iraqis did greet us as liberators.

O'REILLY: Not many.

RICE: Well, Bill, these are a tough people. But let's review why we went into Iraq. We did think, through the intelligence briefings that we were getting, that the intelligence briefings that were given to the Congress, that Saddam Hussein had reconstituted his biological…

O'REILLY: So you believed that…

RICE: …and chemical weapons…

O'REILLY: …as well as everybody else?

RICE: Absolutely.

O'REILLY: OK.

RICE: And so did Colin Powell when he made that presentation.

O'REILLY: Absolutely. He believed it.

RICE: We thought that he might be as little as a year from a nuclear weapon. And remember, Bill, Saddam Hussein and weapons of mass -- of mass destruction was not a theoretical proposition. He had used weapons of mass destruction…

O'REILLY: No doubt if he had…

RICE: …before…

O'REILLY: …if he had that stuff…

RICE: Absolutely.

O'REILLY: …it could have wound up anyplace.

RICE: And he had used them before.