Ridge: 'Very specific' fears grounded planes
Canceling 11 flights was 'ultimate protection,' he says
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British Airways planes line up at Heathrow Airport on Sunday.
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European flights to U.S. face new terror threats.
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WASHINGTON (CNN) -- Homeland Security Secretary Tom Ridge said Monday that "very specific information" about possible terrorist attacks led to the cancellation of 11 airline flights Saturday, Sunday and Monday -- but he said just how terrorists might have been planning to attack remains unclear.
"We got very specific information regarding when and what flights. It didn't quite have the specificity with regard to the nature of the attack, but there was certainly enough credibility associated with the when and the where, the date and the flight" to cancel the flights, Ridge said at a news conference.
The secretary also warned that more cancellations are possible as the ability to gather information about potential attacks improves.
"On a day-to-day basis, one of the most difficult jobs in town is basically distinguishing between that which may be a specific threat and that which is just occasion to give us disinformation and make us react to it," he said.
"I wish I could look into a crystal ball and say it's not going to happen again. I can't do that."
Homeland Security officials told CNN they do not expect any additional cancellations in the near term, unless new intelligence information develops.
However, a U.S. official said that the same source who provided the information about flights this weekend has also talked about a threat to an overseas flight scheduled in several weeks.
The official said given the lead time, authorities believe they can thoroughly investigate the intelligence and run traps on the passengers to avoid another cancellation.
Ridge was also asked what kinds of threats exist that can't be mitigated with aviation security measures. He offered no specifics but said there are times when "the ultimate protection of public safety is to cancel the flight."
"No matter how many additional things we do and how much more money we spend on aviation security, I believe that should always be an option, and, in this instance, it was an option we chose to exercise," he said.
British Airways, Air France and Continental Airlines canceled 10 international flights from Saturday to Monday because of security concerns. Continental also canceled a domestic flight from Washington to Houston, Texas, on Sunday.
Two of the cancellations affected travel into the United States on Monday -- British Airways Flight 223 from London to Washington-Dulles International Airport, and Air France Flight 026 from Paris to Dulles.
Eight of the flights that were canceled were on the London-to-Washington and Paris-to-Washington routes. British Airways also canceled a flight from London to Miami, Florida, and Continental scrubbed a flight from Glasgow, Scotland, to Los Angeles, California.
Because the nature of the possible attacks was not specific, intelligence officials looked into the possibility that airplanes could be used as suicide bombs or to disperse chemical or biological weapons, officials said.
They also considered the possibility that terrorists could use planes to transport a radiological weapon -- a so-called "dirty bomb" designed to disperse radioactive material with conventional explosives.
Rep. Christopher Shays, the chairman of the Select Committee on Homeland Security, told CNN's "American Morning" on Monday that Congress would be looking into whether the information was reliable, but authorities were right to be cautious.
"The fact is, we know al Qaeda is doing these things, and the fact that certain planes were chosen, obviously makes me feel that the information was more specific," the Connecticut Republican said.
West Virginia Sen. Jay Rockefeller, a Democrat and member of the Senate Intelligence Committee, said Sunday that the United States has no defense against threats to release biological weapons inside airplanes except to cancel suspect flights.
"We don't know how to protect against any biological (weapon). ... You play it safe, and the plane doesn't fly, and people are going to have to get used to that, and people are not going to like that, but it's what you've got to do in this era," Rockefeller said.
Homeland Security officials told CNN the intelligence was similar to data that led to a series of flight cancellations in December.
Ridge said after those cancellations, "we began to engage our international partners on the kind of conversations we would have if similar threat reporting would occur in the future." When such information surfaced last week, "we agreed that it was in the public interest to cancel those flights," he said.
But the secretary also said that the flight cancellations should be put in a "broader context."
"I dare say that today, there will probably be dozens of flights canceled, for mechanical reasons or weather," he said. "The reasons the airlines do that is for public safety."
CNN's Jeanne Meserve and Elaine Quijano contributed to this report.
