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Whether they did it voluntarily as some sort of plot or whether they re forced to do it, everybody is still trying to work that out. thank you, dominic. joining us, tom blank, a former deputy director of the transportation security administration. tom, thanks for coming in. nice to be here. i want to ask you about a directive or advisory that the department of homeland security issued i think on february 19th to be on the lookout for shoe bombs, this in the aftermath of chatter that was picked up by our intelligence services. what do you make of that? do you think it might play into this disappearance of the plane? it s certainly a possibility. i think it s a testament to the fact that the u.s. authorities, homeland security authorities are on top of intelligence, constantly analyzing intelligence, looking for these threat streams. in this case i think the malaysians have been very slow ....
People are concerned about this but this doesn t look like to be an organized attempt. now, you served the white house in the key national security role for previous administration. the spokesperson now said we re monitoring the situation and we ve been in touch with the turkish government. take us inside and tell us what it is like inside the white house right now. fairly candid that they are not going to say nothing is going to happen but you should take precautions. the senate committee intelligence chair woman, dianne feinstein, said that people should watch their back. what is it like in the white house right now, do you think? they are watching this threat like they watch others. three times the committee is getting together looking at all of the threat streams. at the top of the list is sochi. this has to be the most dangerous olympics since 9/11, given the environment, given the intent of the terrorists to target it. the white house is much waing this. the president gets hi ....
And you re talking about multiple venues. you re talking about this famous ring of steel that everyone is probably familiar with at this point about talking about it. it s a 60 miles long, 25 miles wide, encompasses coastline, mountains, forests, and again multiple venues, and the biggest problem, i think, from our perspective, is that we re dealing with the russian authorities. and this is a matter of national pride for them. so, you know, we re not getting the sharing of intel. we re talking about it. there is some cooperation. but we re not getting that cooperation that we usually get during the course of other olympics. where everybody is working closely together. and what could that mean? well, it means a lot of problems. first and foremost, it s difficult for us to properly assess the current ongoing security environment. we re not getting all the intelligence. we re not getting all the threat streams. we re not aware of all the operations that the russians are worried about ....
That that may not match the reality on the ground. take a listen. so, what we re finding is, they re not giving us the full story about what are the threat streams, who do we need to worry about. are those groups, the terrorist groups who have had some success, are they still plotting? you know, there s a missing gap, and you never want that when you go into something i think as important as the olympic games. i would not go. and i don t think i would send my family. reporter: and defense analysts will tell you that even if the russians are successfully locking down sochi, they cannot lock down the whole country. and the lesson of the bombings here in volgograd is that there remain other vulnerable targets across this country which cannot thoroughly be protected during the olympics, christine. all right, phil black for us this morning in volgograd, russia. thanks, phil. pretty interesting to hear u.s. officials, leaders saying they would not go to russia ....
The suicide bombers that carried out the volograd attacks. u.s. lawmakers are clearly concerned. so what we re finding is, they re not giving us the full story about what are the threat streams, who do we need to worry about. are those groups, the terrorist groups who have had some success, are they still plotting? you know, there s a missing gap. and you never want that when you go into something i think as important as the olympic games. i would not go. and i don t think i would send my family. i don t know how you put a percentage on it, but it s just such a rich target in an area of the world that has, you know you have know, they have almost broadcast they re going to try to do something there. let s bring in our cnn law enforcement analyst, tom fuentes. tom, what do you think? is this safe for americans, for american athletes, for american tourists, guests, to show up in sochi? reporter: hi, wolf. short answer, no. ....