The federal government raised its national terrorist alert level to Code Orange, or “high risk,” for the first time ever Tuesday, warning it had specific intelligence on possible attacks against U.S. facilities and interests in Southeast Asia and elsewhere that might be timed for the Sept. 11 anniversary.
Atty. Gen. John Ashcroft said there was no report of a specific attack planned within the United States, but he noted that the pattern of Al Qaeda activity indicated by intelligence reports was very similar to that detected just before last year’s terrorist assaults on the World Trade Center and Pentagon.
President Bush approved the change Tuesday morning, after receiving a briefing from Central Intelligence Director George Tenet. Code Orange is one level below the highest threat level, red or “severe.”
“We take every threat seriously,” Bush said at an appearance Tuesday afternoon at the Afghan Embassy in Washington. “Our government will be providing extra security at key facilities and … we’ll be increasing surveillance. We do everything we can to protect the American people.”
He added: “Americans need to go about their lives. They just need to know that their government, at the federal and state and local level, will be on an extra level of alert to protect us.”
There was a flurry of other activity as the federal government steeled itself for the one-year anniversary of the deadly terrorist attacks. U.S. Embassies in Indonesia, Malaysia, Vietnam, Cambodia, Pakistan and Bahrain were among 15 ordered closed for security reasons, according to State Department spokesman Richard Boucher.
Shipping companies operating in the Persian Gulf were advised by the Navy to “exercise extreme caution.”
Vice President Dick Cheney, meanwhile, was removed to “a secure, undisclosed location” Monday night and again Tuesday night, White House press secretary Ari Fleischer said. And military Humvees armed with surface-to-air missiles have been deployed around the capital as a security measure.
The Coast Guard said it was stepping up its “visibility and presence” to meet the threat. This month it began Potomac River patrols with a heavily armed, high-speed interceptor boat–the first such vessel to be based in Washington.
Bush to pay tribute
Bush was to travel to three high-profile sites Wednesday to commemorate the anniversary of the Sept. 11 attacks. He was to participate in rededication ceremonies at the newly restored Pentagon in the morning, making brief remarks. He then was expected to go to western Pennsylvania to visit the crash site of United Airlines Flight 93, whose passengers apparently prevented hijackers from using the aircraft in an attack, and then he planned to visit New York, where he will lay a wreath at ground zero.
Wednesday evening, Bush will address the nation in a televised speech from Ellis Island, with the Statue of Liberty in the background.
Notwithstanding the tightening of security, Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf said Tuesday in an interview with Chicago Tribune editors that, because of the success of operations against Al Qaeda in Afghanistan, he doubted the terrorist organization could now mount a major coordinated attack.
“For any organized terrorist act, you need to have a homogeneity of the forces,” Musharraf said. “You need to have a proper command-and-control system in place with communications between groups. Because that has been broken, their capability has been degraded to the level of individual terrorist acts.”
Though the intelligence community does not have evidence of a specific threat to targets within the U.S., all Americans should be on a heightened state of alert because of the strong possibility of one, Ashcroft said.
Information provided Monday by a high-ranking Al Qaeda source triggered the threat level elevation, he added.
“This announcement is a reminder that there are people around the world who would do us harm,” said Homeland Security Director Tom Ridge, who appeared with Ashcroft and FBI Director Robert Mueller at a joint briefing on the increased danger. “Our response is to continue to be America, but to be alert, to be vigilant.”
He urged Americans to report any and all suspicious activity to law-enforcement agencies.
The color-coded Homeland Security Advisory System was introduced by Ridge last March as a means of avoiding confusion about the seriousness of terrorist threats and to help law-enforcement and emergency response agencies prepare appropriate responses to specific levels of danger.
The risk levels run from “low,” or green, to “guarded,” or blue, to “elevated,” or yellow, to “high,” or orange, to “severe,” or red.
Despite warnings of possible attacks against bridges and other major infrastructure in New York in the months that followed the adoption of the new system, the national threat level had remained at Code Yellow until Tuesday’s announcement.
Ashcroft said the change was ordered after considering the new intelligence in the context of the government’s ongoing security analysis and the similarity between Al Qaeda activity patterns last September and now.
At a later background briefing, a U.S. official said the high-ranking Al Qaeda source who provided the intelligence was not Abu Zubaydah, a terrorist suspect arrested last March whose warnings of radioactive “dirty bombs” and attacks on the U.S. banking system were apparently unfounded.
Cells reported in South Asia
Ashcroft said new information indicated that Al Qaeda cells have been established in a number of South Asian countries with the intention of launching car bombs and various other attacks against U.S. targets there. These groups have been accumulating explosives since last January, he said.
According to the new intelligence, terrorists also have been planning suicide attacks against U.S. facilities and interests in the Middle East.
“The U.S. intelligence community has concluded that the most likely targets of Al Qaeda attacks are the transportation and energy sectors and facilities, or gatherings that would be recognized worldwide as symbols of American power or security,” Ashcroft said.
He said prime targets could be U.S. military facilities, U.S. Embassies and national monuments.
“In addition, U.S. intelligence has concluded that lower-level Al Qaeda operatives may view the Sept. 11 anniversary as a suitable time to lash out in even small strikes to demonstrate their worldwide presence and resolve,” he said. “Accordingly, widely dispersed, unsophisticated strikes are possible as well.”
Ridge said all federal agencies and many state and local ones have prepared measures in response to the heightened threat level.
“Among some of these are additional security personnel at federal facilities,” he said.
The new threat level also calls for increased surveillance operations, changes in the number of entry points allowed for buildings, barriers to control traffic flow, more frequent searches of people and vehicles entering federal facilities, and strict adherence to security regulations, Ridge said.
In preparation for the anniversary, the city of Chicago has opened its Emergency Operations Center, staffed in part by representatives of the fire, police, aviation, health, environment, transportation, sewers and water departments. Every police officer on duty Wednesday is to wear a uniform.
The alert was enough to prompt officials at Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory in Batavia to reinstitute security measures taken following the Sept. 11 attacks but relaxed a month ago. The laboratory is closing its doors to most visitors as well as prohibiting pedestrian and bicycle traffic on its sprawling grounds.
Americans urged to travel
Ridge and Ashcroft emphasized they did not want Americans to change travel plans or hide in their homes because of the threat elevation. Ashcroft also emphasized that they had stopped short of the maximum terrorist threat warning.
“Our advice to America is to continue with your plans,” Ashcroft said. “If travel is in your plans, if attendance at a public event is in your plans, we would like you to proceed. … But be wary and be mindful that because of the specific information that we have … the recommendation was made to raise the level of alert.”
