Posted on: Wednesday, August 4, 2004

EDITORIAL
We want to believe terror alerts, but ...

The latest alarm being raised by the Bush administration about a possible terrorist attack on East Coast financial institutions leaves Americans on the horns of a cruel dilemma.

The same dilemma is central to the classic fable about the boy who cried wolf: Even as the credibility of the warnings —and the boy — eroded, the wolf was never less real.

Americans don't have to be reminded that al-Qaida is real. We've all seen the tapes, over and over again.

We want to be prepared and we are determined, with a minimum of bellyaching, to do our part to prevent any new attacks.

Americans also know, however, that since 9/11, the administration has a long history of unspecific, soon-forgotten alerts with remarkably convenient political timing.

Any cynic would suspect the timing this time is to drain a remarkably successful Democratic National Convention of any "bounce" in the polls it might have provided for its nominee, John Kerry.

If you doubt the political content of this latest alert, which officials say may remain in effect until the Nov. 2 election, consider Homeland Security Secretary Tom Ridge's statement during the Sunday news conference where he announced the heightened alert:

"We must understand that the kind of information available to us today is the result of the president's leadership in the war against terror."

Ridge warned of new intelligence — taken from a captured terrorist's laptop — about al-Qaida's preparations to attack five specific targets in New York City, Newark, N.J., and Washington, D.C. The documents, he said, were "unusually specific," down to detailing the easiest ways to enter the buildings, the most damaging place to blow up a bomb, and the times when pedestrian traffic is densest.

That news lost some of its shock value when we learned, a day or two later, that the surveillance of these targets had occurred years ago, and that there was no evidence to show whether these newly discovered computer files were part of some ongoing plot or old 9/11 options that hadn't made the cut.

"Since there is no time frame for a possible attack, and since intelligence officials admit they are unsure whether the new information is current or outdated," The Wall Street Journal pondered, the alert "represents a bit of a gamble because it threatens to leave some potential targets more thinly secured than others while flagging for the terrorists those where security has been beefed up."

The question then becomes: If the handling of this latest alert was not impacted by politics — and Ridge insists it was not — then it is fair to ask why this collection of old and questionable intelligence was handled in the way it was.

How should America react to the next warning?