WASHINGTON, Dec. 21 (UPI) -- Citing an increased level of intelligence reports about non-specific terrorist threats, U.S. officials Sunday raised the nation's color-coded alert status one level from "elevated" or yellow to "high" or orange -- putting into action a series of increased security measures over the holiday period estimated to cost upwards of $1 billion a week.
"Information indicates that extremists abroad are anticipating near-term attacks that they believe will rival -- or exceed -- the scope and impact of those we experienced" on Sept. 11, 2001, Homeland Security Secretary Tom Ridge told reporters during a news briefing at the department's headquarters in Northwest Washington.
Ridge said intelligence indicated "al-Qaida continues to consider using aircraft as a weapon," but discounted media reports last week that a female suicide bomber was expected to strike in New York City. "We have no independent confirmation of that particular reporting," he said.
Ridge also acknowledged there was little specificity in the threat.
He was asked whether the department was raising the threat level nationally because "you don't have a specific or specifically targeted cities," and because the threat was "not really directed in any particular place."
"Yes," replied Ridge, saying although there had been much talk about New York and Washington as potential targets, security needed to be enhanced across all "our major metropolitan areas."
On Friday, al-Jazeera, the Arab language news channel, broadcast an audio tape said to be the voice of Ayman al-Zawahiri, Osama bin Laden's deputy.
"We are still chasing the Americans and their allies everywhere, even in their homeland," said the voice on the tape, although its authenticity could not be verified.
In the past, such tapes have sometimes been followed by attacks.
The hike in the threat index -- to its second highest level -- is the third this year, but first for more than six months. The United States was last put on orange alert, between May 20 and May 30, after two series of apparently coordinated suicide bombings in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, and Casablanca, Morocco.
Earlier in the year, just prior to the launch of U.S. military action in Iraq, the level was raised for several weeks, at an estimated cost of more than $5 billion.
At that time, local governments -- especially in large cities -- complained that, with budgets under pressure because of the poor economy, they could not afford the additional expenses incurred by law enforcement overtime and other measures implied by the orange alert.
Some jurisdictions declined to participate in the May alert, citing budgetary pressures and a sense that their own areas were not under threat.
Given the complaints last time, analysts said, and the fact that the U.S. economy perhaps has only just turned the corner, the decision to raise the level becomes especially significant.
"After the last threat alert," David Heyman of the Center for Strategic and International Studies told United Press International, "the administration indicated that it would be much more conservative raising the levels in the future."
Heyman noted the enhanced security measures required by the new threat level cost $1-billion a week to put in place, and cited figures from the U.S. Conference of Mayors that the cost to Los Angeles was about $2.5 million every week, while New York city spends about twice that amount.
"They wouldn't be doing this unless the threat was real," he said. "The bar is higher for raising (the threat level) than it has been in the past, because of the cost."
Speaking on CNN's "Late Edition," Sen. Richard Lugar, R-Ind., chairman of the Foreign Relations Committee, suggested the increased threat might be due in part to the damage inflicted recently on the al-Qaida leadership.
"If I were to speculate, it comes because the setbacks for Osama bin Laden and the Taliban and al-Qaida have been substantial," Lugar said. "My guess is there's a feeling of counterattack, or at least (the) threat of that."
Ridge also noted al-Qaida has suffered significant damage in the two years since Sept. 11, and hinted the increased intelligence about threats might be a consequence of improved intelligence-gathering abilities by U.S. agencies.
"(T)he fact that we are picking up information that results in us going to orange, I think, is a reflection of increased capacity, probably on our side, not necessarily greater ability on theirs," he said.
Sen. Evan Bayh, D-Ind., a member of both the Intelligence and Armed Forces committees, told CNN he expected a low-level, easy to execute strike, because "we've probably reduced (al-Qaida's) ability to carry out the large, coordinated, elaborate attacks," such as the Sept. 11 plot.
The target might be "a transportation hub, something like that, a suicide bombing, a truck bombing," Bayh suggested. "In a free society, it's very difficult to protect against the lone wolf who's willing to kill himself in the process of killing many others."
Ridge added that U.S. officials had learned, in part, from the interrogation of accused terrorist Lyman Ferris that, "the increased security that is implemented when we raise the threat level, along with increased vigilance, can help disrupt or deter terrorist attacks."
A report on a huge anti-terror exercise earlier this year, released by the Department of Homeland security last week, said the color-coded national threat alert system needed "refinement."
Simply put, many first responders and other state and local officials simply did not know what they were supposed to do when the threat level was raised.
"There was ... uncertainty regarding specific protective actions to be taken by specific agencies," the report said.
Ridge said this had been addressed since the exercise was staged last May.
"We've got action plans, specific things people are going to do at the federal, state and local level. We'll give specific directions to certain segments of the private sector," he said.
