What exactly is DHS chief Kelly’s message on terror attacks?
Homeland Security Secretary John Kelly listens on Capitol Hill in Washington, while testifying before a Senate Appropriations subcommittee on FY'18 budget on Thursday, May 25, 2017. Credit: AP
Despite the attention President Donald Trump drew for telling Philippines President Rodrigo Duterte about submarines off the Korean Peninsula and for blurting Islamic State information to Russian officials, some big intelligence secrets apparently remain.
Homeland Security Secretary John Kelly spilled as much on Friday when he appeared on “Fox & Friends,” a comfortable outlet for the administration.
“I was telling [Fox host] Steve [Doocy] on the way in here, if he knew what I knew about terrorism, he’d never leave the house in the morning,” Kelly said.
Four major attacks — in England, Egypt, the Philippines and Indonesia — were carried out back to back “by generally the same groups,” Kelly said.
“It’s everywhere. It’s constant. It’s nonstop. The good news for us in America is we have amazing people protecting us every day. But it can happen here almost any time,” he said.
“Almost any time.” What does Kelly know that he did not share? And why did he raise the specter? Is there a strategy or is it just more high-level Washington chatter?
It was unclear just what citizens are supposed to do with cryptic knowledge conveyed by a leader of the security state.
He said Friday that “we have no specific credible threat” at the moment, but “if you see something, say something. Report, report, report to your local law enforcement if something seems out of whack, whether it’s an unattended package or just some people acting strangely.”
He added, “We don’t have to be paranoid, we don’t have to be crazy about this, but every citizen is, in my view, an intelligence collector,” without monitoring anyone “too closely.”
After the suicide-bomb massacre in Manchester last week, Kelly testified before Congress and defended Trump’s budget proposal, which cuts some anti-terrorist grant funding for municipalities around the country.
“As horrible as Manchester was, my expectation is we’re going to see a lot more of that type of attack,” Kelly testified Thursday. He elaborated on CBS: “The reality is they’re attempting everything all the time.
“We have some vulnerabilities,” he said, based on being a “free and open society.”
But Kelly hailed the CIA, FBI, DIA, NSA and other agencies in the “intelligence community” that Trump at first pointed fingers at during his transition.
“We have to be perfect, and we have been since 9/11,” he said.
This could all be part of the standard public posture for a security official, but you never really know what he knows.
Dan Janison is a member of the Newsday editorial board.
