US Homeland Security official has "gut feeling" on terrorist attacks

Chertoff was plainly straining to give some reason for readers to believe his claims: “There are a lot of reasons to speculate [about increased al-Qaeda activity] but one reason that occurs to me is that they’re feeling more comfortable and raising expectations. In the last August, and in prior summers, we’ve had attacks against the West, which suggests that summer seems to be appealing to them. I think we do see increased activity in South Asia [...] All these things have given me kind of a gut feeling that we are in a period of increased vulnerability.”

Chertoff apparently raised as a major point that it is possible to fake North Carolina drivers’ licenses and use the fakes as false identification. This is, however, hardly news. Hundreds of thousands of fake drivers’ licenses from many American states—used largely by US youth for the purpose of evading laws barring underage drinking—long predate the “war on terror.”

Official reception of Chertoff’s warning supports suspicions that there was no substance to them. The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) did not raise the terrorism alert level. William Arkin, a columnist for the Washington Post, opened his article on Chertoff’s comments by remarking acidly: “Michael Chertoff is hearing voices.”