Gary Hart said Janet Napolitano’s eyes got big Friday when the former U.S. senator predicted another large-scale terrorist attack on American soil within five or 10 years.
“It’s not based on any intelligence report I’ve seen,” Hart said in an interview Saturday, a day after he was sworn in by Napolitano, secretary of U.S. Homeland Security, to the Homeland Security Advisory Council. “I just feel it’s going to happen.”
Hart will serve as vice chairman of the council with chairman Judge William Webster, a former CIA and FBI director.
Hart’s hunches about national security shouldn’t be taken lightly.
Among his numerous posts, Hart co-chaired the U.S. Commission on National Security for the 21st Century when, eight months before Sept. 11, 2001, the bipartisan commission released a report predicting a terrorist attack in the U.S. with mass casualties and made 50 recommendations to boost security.
The recommendations to President George W. Bush included that he establish a department overseeing national security issues. Hart said “sadly” Bush didn’t establish the Homeland Security Department until long after the Sept. 11 attacks.
Hart currently serves as chairman of the American Security Project and is an advisory board member for the Partnership for a Secure America.
He was one of 16 people with mixed backgrounds who were sworn in by Napolitano as members of the advisory council on Friday in Albuquerque.
“As we work to fulfill the department’s core mission of securing the country against the many threats it faces, the unique insights and expertise of this diverse council will be a valuable resource,” Napolitano said at the ceremony.
The council, which makes national security recommendations to Napolitano, includes experts from state, local and tribal governments, emergency services, academia and the private sector.
It’s been eight years since Sept. 11, and some people believe that because of the security measures enacted, America isn’t as vulnerable as it was in 2001, Hart said. But he added that eight years had also passed between the first failed attack on the World Trade Center in 1993 and Sept. 11.
“Terrorists are patient people,” Hart said.
He said he hopes governors and mayors think about how they would respond if they got a call from the White House at 3 a.m. one day and were told that a credible threat was received about an impending large-scale terrorist strike in their state or city.
“What would you do?” Hart asks. “I think every public official in America has to have an intensity about this. The trick is having that level of intensity without scaring people.”
Hart said he intends to make trips across the country, including to New York City and the ports of Long Beach and Los Angeles, to “kick the tires” of the country’s security system. He will talk with people responsible for security on the ground level.
Kirk Mitchell: 303-954-1206 or kmitchell@denverpost.com
