"U.S. Wonders if All Plotters Were Caught, Chertoff Says"

Sunday, August 13, 2006

U.S. Wonders if All Plotters Were Caught, Chertoff Says 
By BRIAN KNOWLTON
The International Herald Tribune


WASHINGTON, - American officials remain concerned that some people connected
with a plot to blow up planes may have eluded arrest last week, Homeland
Security Secretary Michael Chertoff said today.

He also said he did not foresee the disrupted plot leading to an outright
ban on passengers flying with carry-on bags.

"We haven't fully analyzed the evidence, so we are concerned there are some
plotters out there," Mr. Chertoff said on "This Week," an ABC news program.
"We're also concerned about other groups who may carry out attacks because
they think we are distracted."

But he said no "meaningful" evidence had surfaced of any British-linked
plotters being in the United States or planning attacks there. 

Mr. Chertoff said that any change in the heightened terror alert levels
would depend on the British investigation of the plot to set off liquid
explosives on as many as a dozen flights from Britain to the United States.
The alert levels were raised Thursday to red, indicating a severe threat,
for flights between the United States and Britain, and to orange, the
second-highest step, for all other flights. 

The continuing high level "suggests a real uncertainty about whether they
have fully plumbed the scope of the plot," he said, while suggesting that
"it has the hallmarks and the earmarks of an Al Qaeda plot."

But Chertoff insisted that it was "absolutely" safe now to fly. "We've put
into place a comprehensive series of measures," he said. 

Lengthy waits at American airports have eased considerably since Thursday,
though they remain longer at international airports.

Today, the Transportation Security Administration eased some of its
restrictions on the items that passengers can take aboard flights, issuing
new rules that now allow passengers to carry on small doses of liquid
non-prescription medicines, baby food and solid lipstick with them. But all
footwear, even lightweight sandals, will now be X-rayed.

Mr. Chertoff said that it was unlikely that the United States would go as
far as British authorities have in banning carry-on luggage. 

"We don't want to burden unnecessarily," he said. "We can do the job with
screening, training and technology."

Mr. Chertoff played down reports that his department had shifted funds from
research on explosives detection to other uses. 

Still, Lee Hamilton, the former Indiana congressman and co-chairman of the
national commission on the Sept. 11, 2001, terror attacks, said he was
dismayed that the government had yet to find reliable ways to detect liquid
explosives or their components. 

Appearing on the NBC News program "Meet the Press," Mr. Hamilton called it
"an amazing thing that five years after this event, we're still struggling
with developing detection devices." 

But Mr. Chertoff, citing the example of Israeli aviation security -
considered among the world's best - said it was crucial not to rely solely
on technology but also on well-trained human screeners. Training in spotting
detonation devices had been stepped up, he said.

He indicated, nonetheless, that officials were surprised by the form in
which the British plotters apparently planned to carry liquids onto targeted
planes. "It appeared to us at least initially that the disguise mechanism
might be so sophisticated that we might need to change training for
screeners,'" he said on CNN.

Security lines were long on Thursday, as screeners checked carry-on luggage
for newly banned items: liquids, gels, creams and other materials. But waits
have decreased each day as passengers learned to shift such items in advance
into checked baggage, or dispensed altogether with carry-on luggage. 

Passengers generally have put up patiently with the new rules. A Newsweek
poll found that 81 percent of Americans favored the limits on carry-on
luggage, though just over half said they would oppose an outright ban on
carry-on luggage.

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