Terror Index Lowered to Yellow
By Christopher Lee and Sara kehaulani Goo
Washington Post Staff Writers
Friday, February 28, 2003; Page A01
The government lowered the terrorism threat index by one notch yesterday, saying the risk of an attack has abated somewhat, but warned Americans that al Qaeda is still poised to strike U.S. targets at home and abroad.
Attorney General John D. Ashcroft and other officials decided to drop the alert to yellow after 20 days at orange following a review of new intelligence information and because the hajj, the annual Muslim pilgrimage to Mecca, Saudi Arabia, had ended Feb. 13.
The move back to the mid-point on the five-tier system "is not a signal to government, law enforcement or citizens that the danger of a terrorist attack has passed," Ashcroft said in a statement with Homeland Security Secretary Tom Ridge. "Returning to the elevated risk level is only an indication that some of the extra protective measures enacted by government and the private sector may be reduced at this time."
In the Washington region, some precautions were relaxed, but many others were left in place. New York officials, however, said they would stay at orange, maintaining the more extensive anti-terrorism measures that have been in place in the city since terrorists slammed aircraft into the World Trade Center and the Pentagon on Sept. 11, 2001.
District police turned off a network of 14 surveillance cameras posted around the capital, but security around the Pentagon and other government buildings, as well as scrutiny of trucks and boats approaching the area, remained the same.
The military said it would maintain its air defense system of patrols and antiaircraft missiles around the city. U.S. Customs Service helicopters, which can be heard over many District neighborhoods, will continue their flights.
Officials with the Federal Aviation Administration and Department of Homeland Security, however, were discussing whether to scale back a no-fly zone with a radius of 30 miles for private aircraft around the District to a 15-mile zone. And fewer police officers and vehicles may be seen patrolling local airports.
Area residents, frustrated by the continued prospect of preparing for a terror attack of unknown nature while going about normal routines, focused instead on preparing for the latest in a series of snowstorms. Many said the change from high risk to elevated risk seemed arbitrary, especially given the looming possibility of a U.S.-led war in Iraq.
"I don't understand why . . . today is any different from yesterday, especially since we're much closer to war today," said Debra Scott, who was stocking up on groceries at a Giant supermarket in Upper Marlboro in preparation for a snowbound weekend at her home in Anne Arundel County.
Paul C. Light, a government scholar at the Brookings Institution, said the threat index has produced little more than confusion for most Americans, who instead tend to gauge the threat level from media coverage of the conflict in Iraq and the war on terrorism.
"The Department of Homeland Security needs desperately to explain to Americans what the threat level means, what the significance is of a movement up or down," Light said. "Basically, I think Americans right now are on high alert and this particular indicator isn't having much of an effect one way or the other."
President Bush raised the 11-month-old threat index to the second-highest level, orange, on Feb. 7, triggering tighter security at borders, airports and hotels, enhanced identification checks at government buildings and increased protection of power grids, dams, financial networks and transportation systems.
Federal officials said they were especially concerned about "dirty bombs," biological and chemical attacks against civilians, particularly toward the end of the hajj. On Feb. 10, Homeland Security officials warned that every home should be stocked with three days' worth of water and food and recommended that families designate a room in which to gather in the event of an attack and that they have materials to seal it.
In some places, nervous Americans cleared store shelves of water, plastic sheeting and duct tape, but the warning also became fodder for jokes on late-night television and drew ridicule from experts who said some measures would provide only psychological benefits.
But intelligence and law enforcement officials say the danger is real. Despite the shift from orange to yellow alert, the CIA believes the chance of an attack remains fairly high, a senior administration official said yesterday. Another official familiar with the situation said he believes the color change has more to do with "the need to be able to boost it back up to orange when the war comes, because otherwise at that point you would have to go to red."
An official with the Homeland Security Department disputed that. "It wasn't brought down simply so it could get brought back up again. That's just not how it works. It's based on more substance than that," the official said.
FBI officials said that regardless of what color the alert index is, agents must investigate every threat, no matter how improbable, and the public must know as much as possible to harden security against an attack.
"We are operating in a world where we have got to get that information out there no matter what it is," a senior FBI official said.
In the past week, the FBI has alerted its field offices to the possibility of suicide bombings similar to ones Palestinian extremists have conducted against Israel. Osama bin Laden and leaders of the Islamic Resistance Movement, which is known as Hamas, in Gaza have called for such attacks against U.S. interests if the United States invades Iraq.
FBI agents have gone to Israel to learn ways to identify potential suicide bombers, officials said, and have been interviewing Iraqis in this country. They plan to talk to more of them in the event of war with Iraq.
The FBI also warned local law enforcement agencies to watch for sophisticated surveillance techniques that al Qaeda operatives planning attacks are known to employ, methods that range from using hidden cameras to posing as beggars or tourists.
At home, the higher threat level has translated into increased security costs for state and local governments and businesses, a factor federal officials say they consider when determining whether to raise the threat index.
"Lowering the threat level is based on the intelligence and the analysis of the intelligence and a realization that being at a heightened level of alert is difficult to maintain for personnel, asset and resource reasons," said an official with the Homeland Security Department.
State and local officials voiced their concerns about costs associated with the threat index to Ridge at a two-day gathering of state homeland security officials in Washington this week. One said that the recommendations to the private sector were "cost intensive" and affected some companies' bottom lines.
Several said they expect the level to rise, and remain, as war nears. The increasing concern is that homeland security needs will divert resources from other priorities at the state and local level, increasing calls for federal money.
In New York, officials said that despite the costs, they would continue measures such as bomb-sniffing dogs in Grand Central Station and police sweeps of subway trains and public squares.
"Whenever there are either threats, speculations or rumors [of attacks], New York is always in them," said Bill Cunningham, a spokeswoman for Mayor Michael Bloomberg. "Because of the U.N., because of the landmarks, because of the population, because of what New York symbolizes to the world, we have to maintain the orange alert status."
Many New Yorkers remain unfazed by it all. Steve Clearman, a 52-year-old venture capitalist strolling through Columbus Circle, said, "I'm not a duct tape kind of guy. I don't spend a lot of energy worrying about it."
Gabriela Leigh, a writer, said she also spends little time worrying about the nation's color code status. "It's one of those things you could exhaust yourself thinking about," she said. "You never really know when something is going to happen."
Staff writers Spencer Hsu, John Mintz, Walter Pincus, Susan Schmidt and Debbi Wilgoren in Washington and Christine Haughney in New York contributed to this report.
© 2003 The Washington Post Company
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