real danger [was] not so much that Saddam would pass along the secrets of weapons of mass destruction, but scientists and engineers in their desperate desire to better themselves, to keep their families alive, might well have sold these secrets.

Sen. Edward Kennedy knows very directly. Senator Kennedy and I talked on several occasions prior to the war that my view was that the best evidence that I had seen was that Iraq indeed had weapons of mass destruction.

By seeking weapons of mass destruction, these regimes pose a grave and growing danger, ... They could provide these arms to terrorists, giving them the means to match their hatred. They could attack our allies or attempt to blackmail the United States. In any of these cases, the price of indifference would be catastrophic.

We do, after all, have the case of A.Q. Khan, who, for 20 years, sold secrets of nuclear weapons production to countries around the world, ... It took about 18 years before we discovered it and managed to stop it.

I'm not concerned about weapons of mass destruction.

And like I say, I think we've got other cases other than Iraq. I do not think the problem of global proliferation of weapons technology of mass destruction is going to go away, and that's why I think it is an urgent issue.