Those of us who have been hiding under our desks (alertly, of course!) since Sept. 10 are anxiously awaiting the next White House announcement on this subject:
story.news.yahoo.com
White House Hopes to Lower Terror Threat Level
Mon Sep 23,11:51 AM ET
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The White House said on Monday it hoped to soon reduce the threat level of a potential terrorist attack from the "high risk" status that was set on the eve of the anniversary of the Sept. 11, 2001 attacks.
"We are hopeful that intelligence will allow us to lower the threat level in the near future," said Gordon Johndroe, spokesman for the White House Office of Homeland Security.
U.S. Attorney General John Ashcroft ( news - web sites) announced on Sept. 10 that the threat level had been raised to reflect a "high risk of terrorist attacks," citing intelligence gleaned in part from a debriefing of a senior al Qaeda operative that pointed to possible attacks on American facilities in southeast Asia or suicide attacks on U.S. interests by individuals in the Middle East.
The high-risk, or orange level, is the fourth highest on the five-stage color-coded homeland security advisory system adopted in March to offer people guidelines on how to prepare for any future attacks.
The threat level had originally been set at "elevated," or yellow, indicating a "significant risk" of terror attack and had not been changed until the Sept. 10 announcement.
A grenade exploded in a car outside a U.S. embassy warehouse in the center of Indonesia's capital Jakarta on Monday in a botched attack that killed one of the vehicle's occupants, Indonesian police said.
But the embassy said in a statement there was no sign U.S. interests had been targeted. |
