Potential For Considerable Destruction, Constant Threat Remains

It was with more than a little luck authorities were able to thwart a plan to detonate gel-based explosives on several US-bound flights one year ago this week -- which, had it succeeded, would have led to considerable destruction, Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff told ABC News.

"I think that the plot, in terms of its intent, was looking at devastation on a scale that would have rivaled 9/11," Chertoff told ABC in an exclusive interview. "If they had succeeded in bringing liquid explosives on seven or eight aircraft, there could have been thousands of lives lost and an enormous economic impact with devastating consequences for international air travel."

As ANN reported, authorities in the UK tipped officials in the US about the plot, which involved smuggling different chemicals onboard airliners in sports drink bottles and other containers, on August 10 of last year. The chemicals would have then been mixed onboard the planes, and used to blow them up on flights to the US.

Airports throughout the US and Britain were immediately put on "Red" alert, and all liquids were banned from carry-on luggage for several weeks. The ban was later eased -- to today's "3-1-1" rule, which allows containers holding less than three ounces of liquid, all carried in a one-quart plastic bag.

Sources tell ABC that had officials not received that tip from the Brits, the plot would likely have succeeded. What's more, there appears to be evidence such a plan would have resulted in cataclysmic damage, according to tests conducted by Sandia National Laboratories in New Mexico.

"There's no question that they had given a lot of thought to how they might smuggle containers with liquid explosives onto airplanes," Chertoff said. "Without getting into things that are still classified, they obviously paid attention to the ways in which they thought they might be able to disguise these explosives as very innocent types of everyday articles."

Officials soon captured 24 British-born Muslim suspects, and seven Pakistanis, in connection with the plot... but in the hours following the announcement of the plot, Chertoff says DHS had to respond quickly, based on the information at hand.

"I got a call telling me that it looked as if the focus had turned on an attack on the United States, specifically an attack on airliners leaving from Britain, traveling to American cities," Chertoff said. "It also became evident, within 24 hours, that the time frame within which the attack was going to take place, would not be a matter of months but ... a matter of weeks or even days.

"We had to start about 9, 10 o'clock in the evening, when the arrests began to go down in Pakistan, and when we were first given the ability to tell other people about the plot," Chertoff continued. "And we had to turn the entire process around by 6 am the following morning, before people started to board airplanes."

Chertoff says there's a reason airports have remained at "Orange" alert status in the year since... and he still believes there is a "heightened risk" of an attack.

"We have seen that in some areas of Pakistan, the enemy has been able to reconstitute itself and get a breathing space, so to speak, where they can plan and do some recruiting and some training," he says. "We've seen increased effort to develop terrorist operatives in Europe. And, of course, the concern we have, because of the visa waiver program, has been Europeans either carrying out attacks against Americans on the European continent, or even coming to the United States."

In other words, current restrictions will likely remain in place for some time to come... and despite the considerable inconvenience to passengers, and even longer lines at security checkpoints, that's probably a positive thing.

At least, that's the conclusion Chertoff would like travelers to come to.

"When you add these things together, they don't move into a mathematical certainty we're going to have an attack, but they do suggest that there is a heightened threat, a bit more capability than there was, and, therefore, all the more reason for us to continue to raise the level of our security and our defenses," he says.

FMI: www.dhs.gov, www.tsa.gov, www.met.police.uk/