"7 or 8 a/c" = "thousands of lives lost" ...
What, 7 or 8 A380s configured entirely for Y? Some of the Japanese 747s in full-Y, with 26" seat pitch?
Comrade Chertoff has shown he is as good at math as he is at security.
Not to mention that EVERY independent expert in chemistry and explosives has called the plot completely untenable. Yet DHS keeps citing their own "experts" to the contrary, but refuse to disclose any of the details, just "trust us, we're right, and everyone else is wrong."
And the plotters apparently were at the yokel stage of "hey, wouldn't it be cool if we could do this?" and didn't have the sort of expertise to even begin to pull this off.
Why doesn't Chertoff make his next press conference to state, "Just imagine if the terrorists had light sabers! They could cut through the cockpit doors and hijack thousands of planes at once!"