'We are safe,' Homeland Security chief says

WASHINGTON - The United States remains safe after the attack at a Scottish airport and two foiled car bombs in London, and no raising of the terror alert status is planned, Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff said Monday.

"We are safe, but we are safe because we continue to pay attention and we continue to add security measures," Chertoff said as the Fourth of July holiday approaches.

The homeland security chief noted the incidents over the past several days in Great Britain sent a message that would-be terrorists have a wide variety of ways to attack.


"If you look back at all the plots, you've seen a wide variety of techniques," he said on CBS's "The Early Show." But Chertoff said authorities in the United States must prepare for a wide variety of threats, even though the suicide attacks often are the most spectacular.

He also said the country needs to be especially vigilant about how and under what circumstances the threat increases.

"I think we've been saying for some period of time that we need to be looking not only at homegrown terrorism, but that international terrorism might come to the United States through Europe," Chertoff said.

Chertoff also played down a report that al-Qaida was planning a big attack in the United States. "We do not currently have any specific threat information that is credible about a particular attack on the United States," Chertoff told Fox News.

ABC News, quoting a senior U.S. official, said on Sunday a secret law enforcement report prepared for the Department of Homeland Security warned that al-Qaida planned to carry out a "spectacular" attack this summer.

"This is reminiscent of the warnings and intelligence we were getting in the summer of 2001," ABC quoted the unidentified official as saying.