SALT LAKE CITY?Even before Tom Ridge stepped onto a helicopter Thursday for a tour of Olympic sites, he was convinced everything possible had been done to make next month’s Winter Olympics safe.

Nothing the nation’s domestic security chief saw on his morning fly over ski slopes and ice arenas changed his mind.

After a visit designed to bolster the nation’s confidence about security protection for the Olympics, Ridge declared the $300 million plan to protect the games as complete as humanly and technologically possible.

“I believe one of the safest places on the globe from the beginning to the end of February will be Salt Lake City,” Ridge said.