The plot, he knew, was never operational. The public had never been at risk. And the notion of blowing up the airport, let alone the borough of Queens, by exploding a fuel tank was in all likelihood a technical impossibility.
And now, with a portrait emerging of alleged mastermind Russell Defreitas as hapless and episodically homeless, and of co-conspirator Abdel Nur as a drug addict, Mauskopf's initial characterizations seem more questionable -- some go so far as to say hyped.
"I think her comments were over the top," said Michael Greenberger, director of the Center for Health and Homeland Security at the University of Maryland. "It was a totally overstated characterization that doesn't comport with the facts."
Greenberger said he has no argument with police pursuing and stopping the alleged plotters.
"I think they were correct to take this seriously," he said. "... But there's a pattern here of Justice Department attorneys overstating what they have. I think they feel under tremendous pressure to vindicate the elaborate counterterrorism structure they've created since 9/11, including the Patriot Act."
Mauskopf declined to comment Tuesday, but Rep. Peter King (R-Seaford) dismissed criticism of law enforcement as "the price of success when you haven't been attacked in six years. We've gone from criticizing them for not doing enough immediately after 9/11 to now criticizing them too much."
But some say it is time for a more nuanced public discussion. Terrorism expert Peter Bergen said he doesn't consider the airport plot or most of the recent homegrown cases serious threats but believes law enforcement officials are right to pursue them.
"Obviously they're talking about stuff," he said. "But did they have the capabilities or training to do it? The answer is obviously not. It seems to me the reason the London plot worked is these guys had gone to an al-Qaida training camp. ... To become an effective terrorist, generally you have to go to a training camp. Timothy McVeigh was an effective terrorist because he could draw on his years of military background."
In this case, the alleged plotters had no money and never succeeded in hooking up with the head of an Islamist group in Trinidad called Jamaat al Muslimeen, according to the criminal complaint. While alleged mastermind Defreitas told the FBI informant that he learned to make bombs in Guyana, there is no other indication of technical expertise. Friends say he supported himself by selling incense on street corners and collecting welfare.
What, then, is the line between informing and scaring the public -- and is there a political cost in crossing it?
Steven Simon, a terrorism expert at the Council on Foreign Relations, said the government's hyperbolic descriptions -- whether of this case or of the alleged plot to bomb the Sears Tower in Chicago -- could erode public confidence in law enforcement and lead to confusion about the terror threat.
"First, it creates the public impression that the adversary is just a bunch of losers who do not have to be feared," he said. "Second, the fact that these hapless people are angry enough to seek to attack the U.S. raises the issue of other more competent, well-organized groups that might be escaping police detection."
Which is not to say that the threat is not real.
The law enforcement official chagrined by Mauskopf's characterization said that just because the airport plotters had no expertise doesn't mean they couldn't have inflicted pain -- whether catastrophic or not.
"What everyone in law enforcement is struggling with since 9/11 is finding the balance between the traditional crimefighting and counterterrorism methods," said the official, who asked not to be named. "In ... crime-fighting, something has happened, you investigate, and you arrest. ... In terrorism, it's all about prevention.
"This guy wanted to cripple JFK International Airport. ... It's not really useful in the overall scheme of things to wonder whether he would have achieved anything. Because unless you're the one standing guard at the tank farm, and you're going to stop the thing, it's pure speculation. ... Isn't the whole point that we want to stop these folks before they try to hit us?"
