East Coast threat level is lowered

WASHINGTON – The Homeland Security Department lowered the terrorism threat level from orange to yellow Wednesday for financial-service buildings in three East Coast cities, saying the institutions that al Qaeda had scoped out for possible attack have strengthened their security.

“This action today brings the entire nation to the elevated risk level, or yellow,” Homeland Security Deputy Secretary James Loy said. Nevertheless, he added, the change in the threat advisory “certainly has no implications that we’re less concerned about threats to the financial sector or the homeland by al Qaeda or anyone else.”

The department had raised the threat level Aug. 1 for areas around certain buildings in Washington, Newark, N.J., and New York after uncovering evidence that al Qaeda had been studying the International Monetary Fund and World Bank buildings in Washington, Prudential Financial Inc.’s Newark headquarters, and Citigroup Inc.’s headquarters and the New York Stock Exchange in Manhattan as possible targets.

New York City will maintain its own orange-alert level, which effectively has been in place ever since the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks. Loy said the Homeland Security Department’s decision to lower the risk rating for certain buildings in the city wouldn’t affect New York’s own terrorism-alert status.

“That is a choice the mayor makes, and I do not second-guess that for a second,” he said.

The latest threat was unusual because al Qaeda apparently had identified targets with chilling specificity and studied them carefully. On the other hand, the evidence – videotape seized in Afghanistan – was undated and could have been years old, predating the U.S. wars in Afghanistan, Iraq and against terrorism.

Loy said lowering the alert didn’t mean that the threat to some of the nation’s largest financial institutions necessarily had decreased, only that their security had been strengthened. He acknowledged, however, that in the intelligence received “there isn’t any evidence of a transition (by al Qaeda) from casing the place to developing an actual plan of action.”

Loy brushed aside suggestions that political considerations motivated the timing of changes to the threat level, which was raised shortly after the Democratic National Convention and lowered a week after the presidential election. He cited Homeland Security Secretary Tom Ridge’s frequent statement that “we don’t do politics here in the department.”