Michael Greenberger

US Attorney Roslynn Mauskopf describes a recently foiled alleged terror plot to blow up John F. Kennedy Airport in New York City as “one of the most chilling plots imaginable.” She claims it “could have resulted in unfathomable damage, deaths, and destruction.” But one unnamed law enforcement official with Mauskopf at her press conference will later say he cringed at the description. Newsday will later relate, “The plot, he knew, was never operational. The public had never been at risk. And the notion of blowing up the airport, let alone the borough of Queens, by exploding a fuel tank was in all likelihood a technical impossibility.” Michael Greenberger, director of the Center for Health and Homeland Security at the University of Maryland, says, “It was a totally overstated characterization that doesn’t comport with the facts.…there’s a pattern here of Justice Department attorneys overstating what they have.” [Newsday, 6/6/2007] Safety experts have criticize the government’s description of the plot’s danger. John Goglia, a former member of the US National Transportation Safety Board, describes the plot as a “fantasy,” saying “You could definitely reach the tank, definitely start a fire, but to get the kind of explosion they were thinking they were going to get… this is virtually impossible to do.” Jake Magish, an engineer with Supersafe Tank Systems, says “The fantasy I’ve heard about people saying, ‘They will blow the tank and destroy the airport’, is nonsense.” The Department of Homeland Security and the Transportation Security Administration comes under fire from aviation expert Michael Boyd, who states that these organizations are “not run by security professionals…[they are] run by political appointees.” [MSNBC, 6/4/2007] In addition, the plotters lacked the explosives and financial resources to carry out the attack. Four alleged Islamic radicals have been charged with conspiracy to cause an explosion at the airport and three of them have been arrested. [The Australian, 6/6/2007] Newsday calls the plot’s alleged mastermind Russell Defreitas “hapless and episodically homeless.” [Newsday, 6/6/2007]