Tom Ridge
Tom Ridge
Thomas Joseph "Tom" Ridgeis an American politician who served as the Assistant to the President for Homeland Security from 2001 to 2003, and the first United States Secretary of Homeland Security from 2003 to 2005. Prior to this, Ridge was a member of the United States House of Representatives from 1983 to 1995 and the 43rd Governor of Pennsylvania from 1995 to 2001. He is a member of the Republican Party...
NationalityAmerican
ProfessionPolitician
Date of Birth26 August 1945
CityMunhall, PA
CountryUnited States of America
And they are constantly evaluating procedures, both in the United States and elsewhere, to find gaps in our security posture that could be exploited.
We'll want them to pull in all that information and sort it out between rumor and suspicion and fact and speculation and misinformation and do an assessment, do an analysis and then communicate it -- if it's a real threat -- communicate that to state and local governments,
Today the United States government raised the national threat level.
While there are no indications that terrorists are planning similar attacks in the United States in the near term, we have asked train and rail operators in the country to be on a heightened state of alert,
When our incident management team and our coordination center was notified (of the explosion), within in a very short period of time ... we knew what was going on at the local (and) state level, ... We engaged immediately in conversations with the Coast Guard, the EPA, the Health and Human Services.
We want visitors from abroad to continue to come to the United States, but we also want to secure our borders,
It's a national effort grounded in the knowledge that states and local agencies play the primary role in emergency response.
We're going to continue the convoy of food and water, particularly water and ice, over the next several days, ... We are working with the state and local communities to determine the debris removal needs and we're prepared to do everything we can to accelerate that process.
Our goal is to deter any potential attack with multiple layers of security and, based on what I have seen and heard, I can tell you that the security plans and arrangements and commitment of federal, state and local officials is very, very strong,
We do not know how long it will take to defeat the scourge of terrorism or how many Americans will give their lives for the cause. But we do know one thing with absolute certainty: The passengers and crew of Flight 93 won the first battle,
These credible sources, ... suggest the possibility of attacks against the homeland around the holiday season and beyond.
Everything we do is designed to keep planes flying, bring loved ones closer, enable sports fans to gather, help businesses stay open; in other words, to keep the country moving,
Protecting this information is critically important. Shut them down and you shut down America as we know it,
Our approach at this point is to think big but begin implementing on a small scale, ... We want to get it right.