Exclusive: Panetta says Syria’s chemical weapons represent a real danger

Tonight on OutFront, CNN’s Erin Burnett sat down exclusively with Secretary of Defense Leon Panetta in Kabul, Afghanistan.

Burnett asked Secretary Panetta about the situation in Syria and whether he thought the Assad regime would resort to using chemical weapons against the Syrian opposition.

“I think there’s a danger here, based on the intelligence that we got a few weeks ago, that, you know, they were, in fact, beginning to assemble these weapons and put them together.”  He added that “as the opposition continues to move against the regime – particularly as they move towards Damascus – that if the regime feels it’s in danger of collapsing, that it might very well resort to these kinds of weapons.  That’s what concerns me most.”

Erin Burnett OutFront will air live from Kabul tomorrow night 7p/11p ET.