Brennan: 'We will do our best to thwart any attack' on 9/11 anniversary

By Meghashyam Mali - 09/11/11 11:02 AM ET

Deputy National Security Advisor John Brennan said Sunday that the security officials were continuing to investigate possible threats to the United States on the 10th anniversary of the Sept. 11, 2001 terrorist attacks.

“We’re still staying on top of all the information that is coming in,” said Brennan on Fox News Sunday.

He said President Obama “convened his national security team” on Saturday and met again with them Sunday morning.

“We're making sure that we can assure the American public that, if there's something out there, that we will do our best to thwart any attack.” he said.

White House deputy press secretary Josh Earnest told reporters Sunday that a meeting of senior intelligence officials discussed security preparations for the weekend.

He said that the meeting had been previously scheduled and that there was no new information on the reported possible threat.

"There was no specific piece of new information that was reported out of the meeting, that was reported to the president," said Earnest.

Earlier this week, the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) said in a statement that there was a threat of a terrorist attack to coincide with the the tenth anniversary of 9/11. DHS said the threat was “specific and credible, but unconfirmed."

“We know that al Qaeda has been trying for many years to carry out an attack here,” Brennan said Sunday. “We also know that they are trying other kinds of attacks, smalleer attacks using car bombs.”

Brennan stressed that many of the security measures implemented in the last decade had helped to make Americans more vigilant and safer. “The ‘see something, say something’ campaign has been very effective,” he noted.

The president’s chief counterterrorism advisor said that al Qaeda had been “seriously degraded.”

Brenann said the U.S. had “learned a lot of lessons from the 9/11 attacks” and had worked successfully over the last decade “trying to address any vulnerabilities” in security and intelligence gathering.

He also added that U.S. was working closely with Libyan authorities to “help them insure that weapons in the country do not fall into the hands of terrorists.”

There has been concern since the rebel advance into Tripoli that weapons from Moammar Gadhafi’s regime could fall into the hands of al Qaeda or other terrorist groups.