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
The tapes are new, the threat is not,
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,
We'll be ready to answer every danger and every enemy that threatens the American people.
We could go back over the past two years and pick out threat reports of pretty much the same substance,
Today the United States government raised the national threat level.
For every level of threat there will be a level of preparedness, ... It is a system that is equal to the threat.
We are confident they are taking this threat seriously,
Your characterization of it as being a significantly different threat environment, based on what we historically have heard, is absolutely correct, ... So there certainly is a diminution, reduction in the amount of intelligence, and the decibel level is lower.
compared to previous threat reporting, these intelligence reports have provided a level of detail that is very specific.
The intelligence that we've received over the past several weeks is ... a series of general non-specific threats against the United States.
In the meantime, as on the other occasions when the national threat level has been increased, we encourage members of the public to continue their daily work, family and leisure activities with a heightened awareness,
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.
And they are constantly evaluating procedures, both in the United States and elsewhere, to find gaps in our security posture that could be exploited.