From our perspective, trying to deal with this continuing campaign of terror, if you will, the war on terror that we're engaged in, this is a continuing enterprise. The people that were involved in some of those activities before 9/11 are still out there.

That intelligence capability is enormously important to the United States, to our conduct of foreign policy, to defense matters, to economic matters. And I am a strong supporter of it.

We have to deal with this new type of threat in a way we haven’t yet defined. . . . With a low-probability, high-impact event like this . . . If there’s a one percent chance that Pakistani scientists are helping al Qaeda build or develop a nuclear weapon, we have to treat it as a certainty in terms of our response.

We have to make America the best place in the world to do business.

I think, in fact, the situation with respect to al Qaeda, to say that, you know, that was a big attack we had on 9/11, but it's not likely again, I just think that's dead wrong. I think the biggest strategic threat the United States faces today is the possibility of another 9/11 with a nuclear weapon or a biological agent of some kind. And I think al Qaeda is out there even as we meet, trying to figure out how to do that.

I have not suggested there's a connection between Iraq and 9/11, but there's clearly an established Iraqi track record with terror.

In our own country, we take democratic values seriously - and so we always have a vigorous debate on the issues. That's part of the greatness of America, and we wouldn't have it any other way.